First, the Chinese Communist Party covered up the virus, then they prevaricated with the help of the World Heath Organization, then they shifted into propaganda mode to try to deflect the truth about the origins of the Chinese plague and their cover-up and lack of cooperation with public health authorities around the world.

That is the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party in action. Let’s take a glimpse at how their massive propaganda onslaught is taking shape through a sampling of semi-official Chinese media.

First, the ChiComs are cleaning house by controlling potential leakers to Westerners in China, kicking out Western journalists in order to tightly control the information about what the ChiComs claim is happening in China, and then ramping up the propaganda campaign to shift blame for the virus elsewhere. This first excerpt is from Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that supports and monitors free press activities around the world:

After getting their hands on the list of fixers and other Chinese employees working for these newspapers, and for Time and Voice of America, the Chinese authorities said on 20 March that it had given orders for the contracts of at least seven of these employees to be rescinded. With everything tidied up both at home and abroad, Beijing now just has to deploy its massive propaganda and disinformation apparatus with the aim of making everyone forget that it was in the centre of China that the virus first got out of control and that three deadly weeks went by before Beijing listened to the whistleblowers. China is ranked 177th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2019 World Press

Note that last sentence in particular. Communist China among the top three most repressive regimes in the world with respect to freedom of the press. That means that everything published by Chinese media is in fact the Chinese government’s party line, or more accurately, approved for release by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Everything!

This next report from Wednesday conveys the official CCP position that the virus is “under control” in China and is meant to calm the fears of Chinese readers while at the same time propagandizing to readers around the world about that, too. In this article from Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, they are claiming that their efforts have now shifted to testing arrivals to China who they claim are the main sources of disease infection. Isn’t that amazing that they are claiming that infected travelers to China are now a significant source of the disease?

China is capable of preventing an imported virus outbreak with “three defense lines” as growing imported novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases have been reported on the Chinese mainland, a medical expert said Tuesday. Customs administration has been the forefront of identifying imported patients through temperature testing and checking passengers’ travel records during the past 40 days, said Wu Zunyou, an epidemiology expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at a press conference. Inbound personnel are quarantined for 14 days to cover the incubation period of the virus, the interval between infection and the onset of symptoms, which is the second defense line, he said.

Does anyone really believe that the ChiCom reports that the number of cases is decreasing and that they’re more worried now about infected travelers entering China than the spread of the disease by Chinese already infected with the virus? Please.

This next item is equally ridiculous. Here the Global Times (another government-controlled propaganda outlet) seeks to use the pandemic to put pressure on the US to cease sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran for “humanitarian reasons.” LMAO! How did the Iranians contract the virus in the first place? Why from their great pals the ChiComs, who doubtless passed it on as they were violating sanctions to slurp up Iranian oil.

It is time for the US to ease its unilateral sanctions against Iran. As one of the hardest-hit countries, Iran has seen over 2,000 deaths by the coronavirus infections, and the US’ mounting sanctions at this critical juncture, which obviously go against the humanitarian spirit, are making the situation even worse. The US has been exerting pressure on Iran for years, especially after its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. Washington has imposed several new sanctions against Tehran to hit the latter’s oil industry, throw it into chaos and isolate it in the international community, which has plunged millions of Iranians into despair. And with the number of infections rising sharply in Iran, the country not only gets not a dime from the US, but even faces tougher sanctions. The US government last week increased pressure on Iran by blacklisting some foreign companies for trading with Iran, which has sent a cruel signal: Washington will have no compassion for Iran.

The next article from Wednesday’s Global Times shows how the ChiComs weave leftwing American media reporting into Chinese propaganda. In this example, they quote the Daily Beast article that claims the US government is coordinating talking points accusing China of creating the pandemic. First of all, that’s not possible to coordinate across Deep State agencies filled with Democrats who are sympathetic to the CCP. Secondly, the virus originated in China to begin with, and the ChiComs lied and prevaricated about that as discussed above! This is proof positive of the synergy between the political objectives of the CCP and the Democrat-media complex in the US, i.e., to attack the Trump administration while protecting the CCP.

The New York-based Daily Beast newspaper reported Saturday that the White House is “launching a communications plan across multiple federal agencies,” asking officials to stick closely to talking points which focus on accusing China of “creating a global pandemic.” The strong ideological bias of some US politicians and media outlets has led them to eagerly find faults with each and every measure China has taken to fight the virus. They then extend their falsehoods and claim that China’s governance system is a complete “failure.” They have repeatedly criticized the Chinese government for “controlling” public opinion and providing “imperfect” information, but Washington itself is now forcing officials to speak with one voice, an obvious embodiment of its double standards.

In this next Global Times post, note how the ChiComs jumped on President Trump’s public statement that he might not refer to the pandemic as the “China virus” in the future. The President is letting Xi Jinping save a little face if indeed he doesn’t use that phrase in the future, but neither he nor the State Dept will desist from affirmatively stating that China is where the virus originated. Bank on that!

Though Trump dropped his “Chinese virus” rhetoric, he insisted that the virus did come from China when quizzed by US media, despite the Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterating that the origin of the novel coronavirus is a scientific matter that requires professional and scientific assessment. With Washington constantly waging a smear campaign against China, Beijing has firmly hit back, taking countermeasures against its anti-China conspiracy theories. A series of strong response from Chinese side have exposed weaknesses and loopholes of the US, analysts said. Some Chinese diplomats have been more outspoken this time, taking to social media to confront US officials like Pompeo and State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. They drew a clear bottom-line from the Chinese side.

In parallel, the ChiComs continue to put out garbage reporting that US military personnel visiting Wuhan last fall brought the virus to China, as claimed in this Wednesday article that is a repeat of earlier ChiCom allegations:

Chinese netizens and experts urge the US authority to release health and infection information of the US military delegation which came to Wuhan for the Military World Games in October to end the conjecture about US military personnel bringing COVID-19 to China. An American journalist claimed one US military athlete in the delegation could be patient zero of the deadly new disease. George Webb, an investigative journalist in Washington, DC claimed in recent videos and tweets that he believes Maatje Benassi, an armed diplomatic driver and cyclist who was in Wuhan in October for the cycling competition in the Military World Games, could be patient zero of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

Lastly, the ChiComs are putting on a charm offensive by advertising the assistance that they are giving to other countries around the world. I suspect that cynical Italians might not swallow this latest Global Times report from early Thursday, Beijing time, given that the ChiComs were actually selling medical equipment to the Italians, as opposed to donating it, as reported in the National Review. Here is what the ChiComs are saying just today:

A team of 14 medical experts from east China’s Fujian Province departed on a chartered flight to Italy on Wednesday morning to aid the European country’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. The team consists of experts from several hospitals and the center for disease control and prevention (CDC) of Fujian, as well as an epidemiologist from the national CDC and a pulmonologist of Anhui Province. The experts specialize in areas including respiratory, intensive care, infectious disease, hospital infection control, traditional Chinese medicine and nursing.

The ChiComs are also offering support and “lessons-learned in combating the virus to other countries, including India and New Zealand (among many others – 89 total?).

So there we have important elements of the ChiCom/CCP propaganda campaign:

1. Close down on-scene reporting in China by Western media in order to tightly control the outflow of information 2. Shift the blame for the virus to other countries, particularly the US 3. Force the US to stop blaming China for the virus through accusations of “racism” (and other lies) 4. Use the pandemic to achieve CCP foreign policy objectives such as ending US sanctions against Iran 5. Leverage sympathetic Western media to augment and support the ChiCom’s propaganda campaign 6. Brag about aid being provided to other countries to combat the virus

Remember that the above examples are from CCP-controlled media reporting just within the last 24 hours. Their propaganda campaign is massive and relentless. Those in the Democrat-legacy media who align themselves with any aspect of this campaign are indelibly marked as useful idiots for the ChiComs. Period.

The end.

Stu Cvrk served 30 years in the US Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. An oceanographer and systems analyst through education and experience, Stu is a graduate of the US Naval Academy where he received a classical liberal education which serves as the key foundation for his political commentary. He threads daily on Twitter on a wide range of political, military, foreign policy, government, economics, and world affairs topics. Read more by Stu Cvrk