A Reuters investigation has revealed that the U.S. military launched a covert program to discredit China’s medical efforts at the height of the pandemic.
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched covert operations to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a country particularly hard hit by the deadly virus, according to a Reuters investigation.
Reuters reported in a story published on Friday that the military’s propaganda efforts had morphed into an anti-vaccination campaign through fake internet accounts posing as Filipinos. Social media posts slammed the quality of masks, test kits and China’s Sinovac vaccine, the first to be made available in the Philippines.
The covert operation, which has not been previously reported, was aimed at sowing doubts about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and other life-saving aid supplied by China, a Reuters investigation has found.
The group identified at least 300 accounts on X (formerly Twitter) that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the operation, nearly all of which were created in mid-2020 and revolved around the slogan “#Chinaangvirus” (“China is the virus” in Tagalog).
“COVID came from China, the vaccine came from China. Don’t trust China!” read one typical tweet from July 2020. The words were posted next to a photo of a syringe next to the Chinese flag and a graph of rapidly increasing case numbers. Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Masks, Vaccines: Fake. But Coronavirus is Real.”
When Reuters contacted Company X about the accounts, the social media company determined, based on activity patterns and internal data, that they were part of a coordinated bot campaign and removed the profiles.
U.S. military anti-vaccine activities began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before ending in mid-2021.
The Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to launch a campaign tailored to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, spreading fear of Chinese-made vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus is claiming tens of thousands of lives every day.
A key part of the strategy is amplifying the controversial claim that Chinese vaccines may be forbidden under Islamic law because they sometimes contain pork gelatine.
The military program began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and continued for several months after President Joe Biden took office, even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon was spreading disinformation about the coronavirus, according to Reuters.
The Biden administration issued a proclamation in the spring of 2021 banning anti-vaccine activism that disparaged vaccines made by rival countries, and the Department of Defense launched an internal investigation.
Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to requests for comment about the secret program, according to Reuters.
A senior Pentagon official acknowledged that the U.S. military had conducted a covert propaganda campaign in developing countries to disparage Chinese vaccines, but the official declined to provide details, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. military is “using a range of platforms, including social media, to counter malicious influence attacks aimed at the United States, our allies, and partners.” He alleged that China has launched a “disinformation campaign falsely blaming the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”
“Disappointment, disappointment, disillusionment”
China’s Foreign Ministry said in an emailed statement that it has long alleged that the U.S. government manipulates social media to spread disinformation.
A Philippine health department spokesman said: “The Reuters findings deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities in the countries concerned.”
Some U.S. public health experts have criticized the Pentagon’s plan for putting civilians at risk for geopolitical gain.
“I don’t think it’s justified,” said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. “I’m very disheartened, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do something like that.”
Lucey and others said efforts to stoke fears about the Chinese vaccine risk undermining public trust in government health policies overall, including the U.S.-made vaccine that later became available.
The Chinese vaccine has proven less effective than U.S.-led shots from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, both of which have been approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a request for comment.
“It was supposed to be in our interest to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, which coordinates analysis and strategy for Washington’s many intelligence agencies.
Treverton said the Defence Ministry’s actions “crossed a line”.
