European Union officials accused Russia and China of a disinformation campaign to undermine European Democracy, something U.S. officials have been saying for a long time. What’s ironic is that 73-year-old European Union Chief Diplomat Josep Borrell recently joined with China to admonish the U.S. for trying to get the U.N. Security Council to permanently ban weapons sales to Iran. Today, Borrell more concerned about Russian and Chinese disinformation attempting to undermine EU democracy. Borrell can’t get his messaging straight, either he sides with totalitarian states against the U.S. or doesn’t where it comes to Iran and anything else. Much of China’s and Russian disinformation revolves around the cornonavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 global pandemic. China’s been emphatic from Day-One that they had nothing to do with originating the deadly coronavirus.
Talking about disinformation, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said the U.S. military infected Wuhan with the deadly virus back in October 2019. Then, after global outrage developed, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng insisted April 23 that the virus occurred naturally probably from a wet market in Wuhan. “Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russian and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns around Covid-19,” the EU papers said. With 73-year-old President Donald Trump and 56-year-old Secretary of State Mike accusing Wuhan’s Institute of Virology of leaking the deadly virus, China’s been on a counter-offensive fearing liability from the 7.436.895 cases and 417,816 deaths worldwide. China wants now part of any liability for originating and spreading the deadly virus around the globe.
EU’s Vice President of values and transparency Vera Jourova said in a 17-page rerport that Moscow and Beijing were “were seeking to undermine democratic debate and exacerbate social polarization, and improve their own image in the Covid-19 context,” meaning that China and Russian have been more effective job in containing the virus than the United State and Europe. That’s ironic since Russia now has the third highest number of cases with 493,657 and 6,358 deaths today. EU’s disinformation task force recored “a coordinated push by official Chinese sources” to deny that coronavirus global pandemic originated or spread from China. Trump and Pompeo accuse China and the World Health Organization [WHO] of a deadly cover-up taking months before WHO Director-General Tedros Abhanom Ghebreyseus admitted March 11 that Wuhan’s SARS CoV-2 epidemic had become a global pandemic.
EU’s Chief diplomat Josep Borrell spoke with 66-year-old Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi about the Chinese disinformation campaign, something China vehemently denies. China’s invested heavily from President Xi Jinping on down to deny that the deadly coronavirus global pandemic originated in Wuhan in the late fall 2019. Xi spoke publicly Feb. 22 that he would do everything possible to tighten up biosecurity at China’s microbiology laboratories. That same day, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology said China would tighten security at it microbiology labs. If that’s no an admission that a mishap occurred in Wuhan, then what is? “Fact-checkers, researchers and civil society organizations have a crucial role to play, but platforms have not sufficiently empowered them during the current public health crisis,” the paper says, offering no proof of Chinese and Russian disinformation.
Western officials have grown more suspicious of Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns since U.S. intel agencies concluded that Russian tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. While 75-year-old Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent 22-months and $40 million investigation Russian influence in the 2016, his 17 career prosecutors couldn’t produce a scintilla of evidence to back up claims that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. With 72-year-old former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton winning about 3 million for popular votes that Trump, it’s a tough argument that Russian disinformation won Trump the 2016 election. EU officials are beginning to see the kind of Russian and Chinese disinformation to undermine Western democracies. Russia and China share the same contempt for free-and-fair elections.
EU officials play to allocate more money to study the camouflaged ways Russian and Chinese disinformation infiltrates European Social Media. “There is a therefore a need for additional efforts and information-sharing by social media platforms, as well as increase transparency and greater accountability,” said Jourova’s 17-page report. Both the U.S. and EU have been very concerned about Mainland China’s imposition of a new “anti-sedtition” law that attempts to destroy what’s left of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement led by 23-year-old Joseph Wong. EU Council President Charles Michel and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen plan to meet via video chat with Chinese officials in June. Michel and von der Leyen plan to let Beijing know they expect the communist government to stop meddling in EU affairs. Even Borrell warned EU members that China does not share Western values.
