China syndromePressured by China, EU Softens Report on Covid-19 Disinformation
Bowing to heavy pressure from Beijing, European Union officials softened their criticism of China this week in a report documenting how governments push disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, according to documents, emails and interviews. European officials, worried about the repercussions, first delayed and then rewrote the document in ways that diluted the focus on China, a vital trading partner — taking a very different approach than the confrontational stance adopted by the Trump administration.
Bowing to heavy pressure from Beijing, European Union officials softened their criticism of China this week in a report documenting how governments push disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, according to documents, emails and interviews. Matt Apuzzo writes in the New York Timesthat European officials, worried about the repercussions, first delayed and then rewrote the document in ways that diluted the focus on China, a vital trading partner — taking a very different approach than the confrontational stance adopted by the Trump administration.
He adds:
The initial European Union report, obtained by The New York Times, was not particularly strident: a routine roundup of publicly available information and news reports.
It cited Beijing’s efforts to curtail mentions of the virus’s origins in China, in part by blaming the United States for spreading the disease internationally. It noted that Beijing had criticized France as slow to respond to the pandemic and had pushed false accusations that French politicians used racist slurs against the head of the World Health Organization. The report also highlighted Russian efforts to promote false health information and sow distrust in Western institutions.
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But China moved quickly to block the document’s release, and the European Union pulled back. The report had been on the verge of publication, until senior officials ordered revisions to soften the language.
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The fight over the document is part of a broad, global battle over the coronavirus narrative. And it comes at a time when the European Union hopes to win trade concessions from Beijing and restore a rich relationship once the pandemic has passed.
Appuzo notes that the European Union, as is the case with the United States, has struggled to find a coherent approach toward fighting disinformation. An EU task force of analysts regularly highlights foreign propaganda, but its work has been sanitized at times over political concerns.
Senior officials have softened language about Russia in the past as the bloc tried to improve relations with Moscow. A report last year on pre-election propaganda stripped out all references to Russian overt and voert support for far-right, populist European political leaders and groups whose proposed policies serve Russian interests, among them: AfD in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Viktor Orban in Hungary, UKIP in Britain, and Geert Wilders in the Netherland. Russia has also provided support for causes such as Brexit, and Scottish and Catalonian independence, which Moscow sees as weakening Western cohesion.
