The so-called "Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act," which maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China's Xinjiang while disregarding facts and truth, will come into effect on June 21.
The act is the latest example of how the US launches disinformation campaigns against China. Experts noted that starting from funding anti-China think tanks and scholars to authoring malicious, false reports, the hyping up of relative topics in the media, and interference from US politicians, the US government enacts such evil laws. In its mastery of creating disinformation, the US, on April 27, announced the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board under the US Department of Homeland Security. However, the board was shut down after just three weeks after serious concerns were raised.
"The US government itself is the primary spreader of disinformation. German writer Michael Lüders pointed out in his book The Hypocritical Superpower that the US government is very adept at selecting and distorting facts, limiting the source of information, and polarizing public opinion in order to blur facts and influence people's judgment. When the waters are muddied, it is certainly easier to fish for geopolitical and economic gains," said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian at a media briefing on June 8, in response to a question related to the Disinformation Governance Board.
Last month, former US President Barack Obama's speech on disinformation and democracy sparked heated discussions. While what he tried to say was that disinformation is harmful to US democracy, many netizens pointed out that his words actually exposed how the US had launched disinformation campaigns in other countries, including meticulous propaganda operations designed to mislead citizens and result in a lack of confidence in their leaders.
"Large-scale propaganda is an important part of the US global strategy to establish, maintain, and consolidate its global dominance. The institutionalized US foreign communication strategy was accelerated after World War II," Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Cuban Ambassador to China, Carlos Miguel Pereira, told the Global Times that the US likes to fuel its powerful propaganda machine to present a distorted world view that does not correspond to reality to protect its political interests.
Lüders told the Global Times in a previous interview that the US is "hypocritical because while it always cites higher values, in reality, it pursues a kind of power politic that is tough and cold-blooded. Its reference to 'higher values' is being manipulated."
Experts noted that the US employed "white", "black" and "gray" propaganda, and the latter two are mostly carried out by agencies such as the CIA and Defense Department in a covert manner. It is estimated that 40 percent of the CIA's covert operations are propaganda programs.
Three types of propaganda
In 1951, the US government set up the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), a committee comprised of the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the CIA. In 1953, the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) under the command of the National Security Council was formed to further propose the US government's information and psychological warfare programs while the PSB was abolished.
In 1961, former US President Kennedy abolished the OCB as it was believed that secret wars should not be publicly overseen by so many officials. Since then, the agency in charge of psychological warfare became a mystery.
However, based on the analyzed related materials and US government documents, we can still have a broad understanding of how the US conducts information and psychological war abroad, Lü said.
After more than a century of practice, the US formed a complete set of international communications mechanisms. That is, the NSC led inter-department cooperation, to conduct either covert or overt communications operations. They use "idealism" as a cover to achieve their "realistic" interests in their international communication disclosures. This strategic communication, to a great extent, helps maintain US global dominance, Lü noted to the Global Times.
According to Lü, an important characteristic of US national and international communication is that it pursues "ideological thrust" and "weaponized information." That is to say, all the conveyed messages must serve US national strategic interests and goals.
Lü listed three types of propaganda that the US adopts in its strategic communication.
The "white" propaganda refers to osmotic propaganda based on the government's public activities, including public diplomacy led by the US State Department and the state-owned media represented by Voice of America.
The "black" propaganda refers to propaganda activities carried out through covert action. Many propagandist activities carried out by the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other agencies fall in this category, which includes a large number of infiltration activities such as secretly controlling domestic and foreign media and buying off politicians.
The CIA has a long history of manipulating media outlets worldwide for its secret propaganda purposes. According to an article in The New York Times in 1977, dozens of English and foreign language publications have been owned, subsidized, or influenced by the CIA over the past three decades. To shape world opinion, the CIA was able to call upon many news outlets in its worldwide propaganda campaign.
Some of its officials admitted to The New York Times that they were concerned about the possibility of "blow-back" - that is - some of the purposely misleading or downright false information spread by the CIA abroad may be picked up by US reporters overseas and included in their dispatches to publications at home.
The "gray" propaganda refers to engaging "opinion leaders" and workers in the media industry in relevant countries to act as spokespersons for US interests by means of behind-the-scenes bribes and inducements, so as to promote the interests of the US and influence the decisions of relevant governments, Lü said.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in 2005, the US military secretly paid newspapers in Iraq to run stories written by US military information operations troops with help from a defense contractor to "burnish the image of the US mission in Iraq." Nearly $1,500, for instance, was paid to Addustour newspaper to run an article titled "More Money Goes to Iraq's Development." The Los Angeles Times also found out that the Pentagon had contracted a Washington-based firm named the Lincoln Group to plant these stories.
The "gray propaganda" and "black propaganda" are mostly carried out by agencies including the CIA and the US Defense Department and the secrecy of these plans is hard to uncover, Lü said.
Scholar Loch Johnson estimated that a full 40 percent of CIA secret operations are propaganda programs. "Whatever foreign policies or slogans the White House may be pushing" at the time, the CIA "will likely be advancing these same ideas through its covert channels," he said.
Newscasters work on their broadcast at Radio and TV Marti headquarters on Jan 24, 2007 in Miami, Florida. The anti-Castro broadcasting network is overseen by the US Broadcasting Board of Governors. Photo: AFP
US' harm to the world
Ambassador Pereira told the Global Times that the destabilization campaigns and subversion programs from the US government against Cuba are nothing new.
According to the ambassador, in 2021, the Joe Biden administration asked Congress for $20 million for so-called "democracy in Cuba" programs, and almost $13 million for illegal radio and television broadcasts.
The ambassador said that in 2021, they found that the federal agency USAID granted 12 organizations based in Florida, Washington, and Madrid dedicated to the anti-Cuban campaign, more than $6.6 million, in the month of September alone.
"The US has unleashed a media offensive aimed at discrediting the management of the Cuban government, through the manipulation and politicization of issues such as human rights and the fight against terrorism, as well as generating mistrust around the Revolution, for which it deploys today with full intensity, its subversive component to try to influence sensitive and strategic sectors for the future of the country, such as our youth, through social networks, in which private US platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are known to predominate," he said.
Such methods include creating Facebook groups, the use of robots and fake accounts on Twitter, or trying to recruit Cuban residents in Miami to spread falsehoods about Cuba as though they were in the country.
During the violent July 11 unrest in 2021 in Cuba, an account based in Spain and managed by US institution posted more than 1,000 tweets a day to fuel the unrest, according to the diplomat.
From 1996 to 2021, the US Congress allocated around $404 million for supposed democracy programs under the Helms-Burton Act, an act seeking international sanctions against the Castro government. Likewise, between 1984 and 2021, the US Congress had allocated nearly $945 million for illegal broadcasts on Radio and TV Martí.
Radio and TV Martí is a Miami-based radio and television international broadcaster financed by the US federal government which transmits news to Cuba.
In November, the Ethiopian government urged the US government and relevant organizations to stop spreading falsehoods about the country.
Ethiopia's state minister of communication, Kebede Dessisa, said the US government should "refrain from disseminating shameful fake news and defamation regarding Ethiopia," state broadcaster EBC reported.
The US likes to claim that it acts in the name of freedom, democracy, and human rights but there is a huge gap between this idealism and reality. Their disinformation causes great harm which ordinary citizens have to bear, experts said.
The US used white powder as so-called evidence of possession of weapons of mass destruction then waged war on Iraq, killing about 200,000 to 250,000 Iraqi civilians. Citing a staged video by the "White Helmet" and the false intelligence it provided as "evidence", the US launched the so-called "most precise air campaign in history" against Syria, claiming more than 1,600 innocent civilian lives in a single strike.
Info war on China
Since the normalization of China-US relations, the US has not abandoned its use of ideological weapons and US intelligence agencies' rumor mill capabilities to contain China's development and undermine political stability, Lü said.
Since 2018, the US has incessantly hyped "human rights" topics in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Its modus operandi, as Lü pointed out, includes letting the media first create ambiguous topics, followed by intelligence agencies selecting suitable candidates and presenting them as "fugitives" to accept interviews in the media, followed by so-called research reports by anti-China think tanks. After that, the US government usually mobilizes several "human rights organizations" that it either secretly or openly supports to proliferate the topic and call for "sanctions." Thereafter, the US government follows the suit.
Zhao Lijian also listed how the US launched a disinformation campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic at the June 8 media briefing.
"You may still remember that the US downplayed the threat and speed of the coronavirus disease's transmission at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and kept spreading disinformation about the origins of the virus. Disinformation about COVID-19 was rated by a certain US website as "2020 Lie of the Year." As a result, more than one million innocent American lives have been lost to the virus, making the US the country with the highest COVID-19 death toll as well as the most confirmed cases," Zhao said.
"The more lies the US government tells, the greater the reputational damage and its credibility deficit," he said. "The US needs to stop fabricating and disseminating false information, and stop taking pride in being "an empire of lies."
According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, only about 39 percent of American respondents said they trusted their country's government, which is nearly the lowest level ever recorded.
Protesters raise their fists as they stand on the base of a statue of Christopher Columbus in front of City Hall during an "International March for Black Lives" protest against police brutality in downtown Columbus, Ohio. - Protests continue across the nation over police brutality and systemic racism have taken place following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month. (Photo by SETH HERALD / AFP)
https://youtu.be/TdomoLSwoqc
WASHINGTON: Protesters in the US city of Baltimore pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus on Saturday, local media reported, the latest monument to be toppled in anti-racism demonstrations.
Statues of figures connected to colonialism and slavery have been ripped from their plinths in the United States and around the world since Black Lives Matter protests were sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May.
Footage published by the Baltimore Sun showed protesters using ropes to pull down the statue of Columbus – the Italian navigator who reached the Americas in 1492 – near the city's Little Italy district and rolling it into the Inner Harbor on the night of July 4.
Long hailed as the so-called discoverer of "The New World," Columbus is considered by many to have spurred years of genocide against indigenous groups in the Americas. He is regularly denounced in a similar way to Civil War generals of the pro-slavery South.
President Donald Trump earlier mentioned the sailor in his speech to mark the July 4 holiday, when Americans typically celebrate their 1776 declaration of independence from Britain.
"Together, we will fight for the American dream, and we will defend, protect, and preserve the American way of life which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America," he said in an address in which he railed against protesters demanding racial justice.
"We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing," he said.
"We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children."
The president last month signed an executive order pledging to enforce prosecution for protesters who vandalise public memorials, promising "long prison terms" for "lawless acts against our Great Country!"
A statue of Columbus was taken down in San Francisco last month because the explorer's actions "do not deserve to be venerated," city officials said, and another was removed from California's state capital Sacramento.
Elsewhere, a statue of Belgium's King Leopold II – who ruled over a brutal regime in Africa – was removed in the port city of Antwerp and a monument to slave trader Edward Colston was ripped down in Bristol in the United Kingdom. - AFP
People protest over the death of George Floyd in New York, the United States, June 1, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
A recent survey found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believed their country had spiraled out of control, as the nation has been besieged by riots and a never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, with Chinese analysts warning that the US has become a "failed state."
The NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey showed that 80 percent of American voters felt their country was unstable. The "out of control" selection covers Republicans (66 percent), Democrats (92 percent), and Independents (78 percent).
Chinese experts noted that US society has become divergent and polarized, and regardless of their opinions on the Trump administration, most agreed on one thing - they had lost faith in their country.
The poll, released Sunday, came amid nationwide protests triggered by the death of George Floyd and widespread concerns from US local governments and experts that the protests could exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll surveyed a sample of 1,000 voters, with a margin error of 3.59 percentage points.
According to the latest data on Monday from the Coronavirus Resource Center of Johns Hopkins University, confirmed cases in the US had reached 1,942,363, with the death toll hitting 110,514.
Data also revealed that it took the US 50 days for the number of COVID-19 patients grow from one to 1,000, and only eight days to see the number surge past 10,000 from March 11 to March 19. By the following week, the US had 100,000 confirmed cases. And in less than three months, the US reported 2 million cases.
United States Leads the World in Covid-19 Deaths
NEW YORK, May 18 2020 (IPS) - It’s an indisputable fact: the United States leads the world in the number of Covid-19 deaths. As of 15 May, three months after the country’s first confirmed coronavirus death, the US death toll from the pandemic has reached a remarkable 88,000 deaths. That rising figure is more than double the number of coronavirus deaths of the next highest country, the United Kingdom at 34,000 deaths.
The pandemic is still in its early stages and many fear the worst is yet to come. Today’s coronavirus mortality picture will no doubt change over time, continuing to evolve and remaining a long-term threat, as the coronavirus spreads death and suffering to populations across the planet.
Among the world’s ten most populous countries, representing 58 per cent of the world’s population, a strong correlation exists between population size and the total number of annual deaths from all causes.
China and India, for example, represent 18 percent of the world’s population and about 18 percent of the world’s total number of annual deaths. Similarly, the United States population is 4 percent of the world’s population and has about 5 percent of the world’s annual number of deaths
However, the distribution of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic differs greatly from the distribution of the world’s total annual deaths. Whereas the US accounts for 5 percent of the world’s number of annual deaths, the country now has 29 percent of the world’s total Covid-19 deaths. In contrast, China, which accounts for 18 percent of the world’s total number of annual deaths, now has about 2 percent of the world’s total Covid-19 deaths (Figure 1).
Chen Xi, an associate professor of public health at Yale University, warned that amid the unrest, protocol has been ignored. People have forgotten about social distancing and self-quarantine which will lead to new COVID-19 infections.
The US government and society are giving up on virus prevention efforts due to ineffective measures aimed at subsiding the riots. The protesters could care less about the virus, and there are some who feel it's not as important as demonstrating against racism and police brutality, according to Chinese analysts.
The US, as a country that possesses the most advanced medical resources and scientific capabilities, ironically has become the nation hardest hit by the virus and deserves to be labeled as one of the world's most failed states amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Sun Chenghao, an assistant research professor at the Institute of American Studies, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. "These are typical characteristics of a failed sate - angry people, an irresponsible and dysfunctional government, exhausted police force, low-credit media, and leaders without leadership capabilities. It seems like the US has them all," said a Beijing-based expert on China-US relationship who requested to remain anonymous.
On social media, there has been an overwhelming number of voices among Americans who believe the Trump administration failed the people. Some say the Trump administration is only creating divergence when it doesn't dare to slam racism, but instead threatens to quell the unrest with the military, while the country continues to suffer from the virus.
The poll also showed that Americans are troubled by other concerns. About 60 percent worry they or their family members could be infected by the virus, 46 percent thought the US economy was doing badly, and nearly 60 percent said they are more troubled by George Floyd's death and the actions of the police than the violent demonstrations.
Trump adds fuel to fire as racial tensions reach boiling point
"Lowlifes and losers": US President Donald Trump is doing his best to intensify the conflict instead of solving the problem by lashing out at the protesters and calling them lowlifes. Illustration: GT
"The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!" US President Donald Trump decried protesters who refused to tolerate an unjust and racist system on Twitter Tuesday. Even if the President has made racist remarks many times in the past, the words he chose against the backdrop of the ongoing violent protests spreading across the US still shocked many people.
Protests triggered by the death of George Floyd have spread to at least 140 American cities, but it seems Trump has done little to appease the anger. Instead, he used tweets to hurl insults and threats, which has fueled rage and violence escalated as a result.
Calling protesters "lowlifes and losers," Trump clearly was attempting to demoralize protesters while catering to his white supremacist electoral base. Can you imagine Trump using the same words to refer to right-wing protesters at white supremacist demonstrations?
The riots have highlighted the racial injustice in US society. People take to the streets to vent their anger and disappointment toward the country that has tacitly allowed racial discrimination.
But, sadly under US electoral politics, the Trump administration has no interest in hearing their voices or finding a solution to the ingrained social woes.
African American voters are key to the Democratic Party, while Trump relies largely on a white, working-class base he energized in 2016. During the ongoing unrest, Trump cares more about how to embarrass and attack Democrats and woo white voters. He bashed Democrat-run cities, urging "Democrat Mayors and Governors" to "get tough" after riots broke out.
It's difficult to tell when the riots will come to an end. But it's almost certain that under the leadership of current US administration, especially within US electoral politics, it's hard to find a real solution to address racial injustice.
Racial issue has become a Gordian knot for the US. Racial inequality is so deeply-rooted that even an African American president failed to address it. Racial equality didn't improve during the tenure of former US president Barack Obama, but worsened. Under US electoral politics and given the country's institutional and structural defects, the historical injustice and inequality cannot be fixed.
Repeated riots over racial issue have shown that the US' racial equality policy has failed. When US strength was on the rise in the past, the country was able to allocate more resources to soothe ethnic minorities at the bottom.
But the US is declining, and, in the process, various conflicts have broken out compounded by the COVID-19 epidemic, which further constrained the US' ability to launch reforms. The two political parties of the US has neither real interest nor the necessary resources to completely address the racial inequality.
The US has a strong capacity for COVID-19, but that's more of a capital capacity. It is the ability of the US elites to control society in the midst of the epidemic.
