China spreads disinformation on Ukraine 'labs' amid rising COVID-19 wave at home

 

Khmer Circle: 

"Chinese whisper" - it is otherwise known to peoples of these parts. It has the power and potential to wreak havoc upon your enemies, ferment civil wars, annihilate a nation, borrow the hands of your enemies [see Cambodia in the seventies and present time through Pol Pot and Hun Sen respectively] to commit mass killings between and against themselves whilst the victims get the ‘obvious’ blame.

How else do we explain the role of China's "50 cent army" or the 10,000 "cyber soldiers" of Vietnam? 

What could be better than overcoming your enemies without firing a shot, shedding blood or wielding a sword? Well, the answer is having the hands of your enemies to do pretty much any of these heinous things for you. Clever, eh?  

The difference between disinformation of the past and today is that whereas previously it would have taken any piece of distorted malignant news days, weeks or months to be widely disseminated, in this age of global media network and technology the desired effect is almost instantaneous. 

Whatever one chooses to call it, disinformation remains far more toxic and deadly to civilised mankind than any known variant of a pandemic. 

🔺🔺🔺 

 

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has been amplifying Russian government propaganda claiming that the U.S. is financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine, as the two countries embark on a "no limits" alliance that appears to include a global disinformation war.

 

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian referred to the claim as if it were factual when speaking to reporters in Beijing on Thursday. “This Russian military operation has uncovered the secret of the U.S. labs in Ukraine, and this is not something that can be dealt with in a perfunctory manner,” Zhao told a regular news briefing. 

 

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby has dismissed the claim as "Russian malarkey."

 

At the same time, Chinese authorities placed the northeastern city of Changchun - home to about 9 million people - under lockdown, amid a wave of new COVID-19 infections. Also, authorities in Shanghai have shut down schools, and are requisitioning properties in one residential district, possibly to use as enforced quarantine facilities.

RFA