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House Republicans Seek Answers On U.S. Efforts To Combat Chinese Propaganda

House Republicans argue China has impeded global efforts to combat the virus through a misinformation campaign launched to avoid blame for the outbreak.

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More than a dozen top Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are demanding answers from the State Department on how the executive agency is handling Chinese propaganda throughout the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

House Republicans argue Chian has impeded global efforts to combat the virus through a misinformation campaign launched to avoid blame for the worldwide outbreak.

“Misinformation from China over the past several months has severely crippled global action to combat the global pandemic and undermined efforts by the State Department to work with other nations around the world to bring a swift end to this crisis,” House Republicans wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Thursday. “Chinese disinformation efforts have worsened the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and led to indescribable suffering around the world. It is essential the U.S. government works to combat this string of Chinese information.”

While global health authorities piece together data from other nations to determine the best way forward against the crisis, China has manipulated its figures to radically underestimate the severity of the epidemic in the east Asian superpower. A new classified report from the U.S. intelligence community delivered to the White House last week confirms the suspicions of those who had voiced skepticism over Chinese numbers all along concluding that China made deliberate omissions in its reported numbers on the virus.

Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse blasted the Chinese government on Wednesday for falsifying its figures as official reporting showed the United States eclipsing China for virus fatalities.

“The claim that the United States has more coronavirus deaths than China is false,” Sasse said in a statement. “Without commenting on any classified information, this much is painfully obvious: The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus to protect the regime. Beijing’s garbage propaganda shouldn’t be taken seriously by the World Health Organization, by independent journalists, or by the American epidemiologists who are going to beat this terrible virus.”

As of this writing, China has only publicly reported approximately 82,500 cases nationwide and about 3,200 deaths in the Hubei province where the virus originated, according to data compiled by John Hopkins University. The United States in contrast has reported almost a quarter million cases total with more than 6,000 deaths.

The conclusion that China has been misreporting its numbers come as no surprise to those paying attention to the crisis at the start of the outbreak. China actively suppressed whistleblowers who raised the alarm over the virus and turned a blind eye to its explosive potential to erupt into the global pandemic the world is experiencing today.

Last week, the U.S.-government funded non-profit Radio Free Asia had already released a report contradicting China’s public death toll. By looking at funeral home capacity and urn deliveries in the region surrounding Wuhan, Radio Free Asia estimates the death toll in Chinese city to have surpassed 46,800 which is far higher than the 3,200 reported.

Misrepresenting its figures has only been part of China’s propaganda campaign to play down its role in the global crisis.

China, House Republicans note in their letter, has also bizarrely construed a false tale alleging that the virus originated from U.S. service members on a trip to Wuhan.

While American media elites and government officials dubbed the novel virus as the “Wuhan coronavirus,” to reference the site of its first outbreak, as is standard practice, the Chinese Communist Party played on America’s woke culture and condemned the name as racist and stigmatizing.

After the term “Wuhan virus” was used by Pompeo, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuan accused the American secretary of state of perpetuating racist stereotypes.

“We condemn the despicable practice of U.S. politicians eagerly stigmatizing China and Wuhan by association with the novel [Wuhan] coronavirus, disrespecting science and the WHO,” Shuang said in March.

American media institutions took the bait, parroting Chinese propaganda by accusing President Donald Trump of being racist by accurately referring to the virus with a name citing where it came from even as their reporters were expelled from China.

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1240315956192333831?s=20

Here is a list of 17 other diseases named after places or people.