The Pentagon did not deny reports that it orchestrated a covert operation aimed at discrediting China’s COVID-19 vaccine, suggesting the move was an attempt to counter a “malign influence campaign” waged by Beijing.
Responding to questions about a Reuters report that the Pentagon had sought to disparage the quality of Chinese-made masks, test kits and the country’s Sinovac vaccine, the Pentagon said on Sunday it was conducting “a wide range of operations, including those in the Information Environment (OIE) to counter the malign influence of our adversaries.”
According to the report, the campaign to discredit Chinese-made vaccines began in the spring of 2020, spread across Southeast Asia and beyond, and ended in mid-2021, a few months after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration took office.
The latest developments on this front underscore how far Washington and Beijing have come, and remain, from cooperation in efforts to end a pandemic that has by then killed more than four million people worldwide.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were “still trying to track down and verify” details in the report. The State Department referred The Washington Post’s inquiries to the Department of Defense.
“We are using a range of platforms, including social media, to counter malicious influence attacks aimed at the United States, our allies and partners,” Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence said. “With regard to disinformation about the coronavirus, China has [in 2020] They launched a disinformation campaign falsely blaming the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”
“In line with the US National Defense Strategy, [Defence Department] Continue building a joint deterrent against significant challenges to U.S. national security; [China’s] “The spread of disinformation must be prevented under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence’s coordination and deconfliction process,” she added.
James Mattis, who served as Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump’s administration immediately preceding President Joe Biden’s, released the National Defense Strategy in January 2018.
The document refers to Chinese “influence operations” as part of Beijing’s efforts to drive U.S. forces out of the Indo-Pacific region.
“China is using military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to pressure neighboring countries to reshape the Indo-Pacific region in its favor,” the report said.
“China will continue to rise economically and militarily, assert its power through a long-term national strategy, and pursue a military modernization plan aimed at dominating the Indo-Pacific region in the near term and displacing the United States for global dominance in the future,” the report added.
Disinformation was also mentioned in the National Defense Strategy released by Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for 2022. The term appears under the heading of “competitor gray zone activities” and is explicitly applied only to Russia, without specifying how such activities would be countered.
The clause states that China “uses state-controlled military forces, cyber and space operations, and economic coercion against the United States and its allies and partners.”
Meanwhile, Russia is “conducting disinformation, cyber, and space operations against the United States and its allies and partners, as well as irregular proxy forces in several countries,” the report said.
