The EU is accused of watering down a report on China’s coronavirus disinformation campaign after Beijing pressured the bloc, according to media reports.
The New York Times and South China Morning Post say they have obtained the initial copies of a European report published on Friday which carefully documents how rogue states are pushing ‘fake news’ about the coronavirus pandemic.
It makes note of efforts by Xi Jinping’s regime to spread false information, especially by ‘deflecting’ blame for the outbreak of the pandemic.
The original report spoke of a Chinese bid to ‘improve its international image’, and included Beijing’s criticisms of France’s slow response to the virus.
It even noted how Beijing promoted false accusations that French politicians had used racial slurs against the head of the World Health Organisation.
The bombshell accusations have emerged in light of increasing worldwide criticism of China’s role in its alleged concealment of the origins of the pandemic.
China, the world’s dominant economic power, also faces charges from Western countries of hiding the true number of Covid-19 deaths inside its borders.
Pictured: woman passing the European Parliament building in Brussels, Belgium (April 1, 2020)
An EU report made note of efforts by China to spread false coronavirus information (pictured, staff at a checkpoint in Suifenhe, in China’s Heilongjiang province, April 21, 2020)
According to The Times, the first report cited Beijing’s efforts to curtail mentions of the origins of the virus in China – including blaming the US for spreading the disease.
The first report said: ‘China has continued to run a global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic and improve its international image. Both overt and covert tactics have been used.’
China was quick to move to block the publication of the report, which was on the verge of being released before revisions were ordered by EU officials.
In an email seen by TheTimes, Lutz Gullner, an EU diplomat, wrote: ‘The Chinese are already threatening with reactions if the report comes out’.
Both the South China Morning Post and The Times report how the sentence about Chinese ‘global disinformation’ and the dispute with France was removed.
The Post reported that EU officials feared a ‘strain’ in relations and increased ‘difficulty’ in getting medical supplies vital to the fight against Covid-19.
The Times reported claims that Esther Osorio – a communications adviser to EU Minister for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell – ordered the delay of its publication.
Osorio supposedly asked analysts to revise the report to focus less on China and Russia, in an effort to avoid charges of bias, and instead differentiate between pushing ‘disinformation’ and a different narrative of events.
However, at least one analyst formally objected, writing to her bosses that the EU was ‘self-censoring to appease the Chinese Communist Party’.
Pictured: MailOnline graph showing the number of new coronavirus death per day in China
Pictured: medical personnel taking swab samples of a man for nucleic acid testing as part of Covid-19 pandemic measures, at a health services centre in Suifenhe (April 24, 2020)
An EU spokesman told The Times that neither revisions to the report had been ordered in response to pressure from China, nor had the document been delayed.
The European External Action Service (EEAS) – founded to monitor possible disinformation from rogue states like Russia – denied editing any part of the report in response to diplomatic or political pressure to The Times.
An EU spokesman, told Fox News that The Times made ‘ungrounded, inaccurate allegations and contains factually incorrect conclusions’. He claimed: ‘The publications of the EEAS are categorically independent.
‘We have never bowed to any alleged external political pressure.’
It comes days after the regime quarantined a city of 10million people in its northwest region near Russia. Yesterday, China’s northwestern province of Shaanxi reported seven new imported cases coronavirus, all in citizens returning home from Russia.
A second outbreak would be a setback for President Xi who is trying to restart the nation’s economy and present an image of power to the rest of the world.
Beijing claims that the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China, where the virus first emerged in late December, is now 82,816.
The death toll remained the same at 4,632, with no new deaths reported on April 24. But there is widespread disbelief at those figures from Western leaders who are accusing the regime of letting coronavirus spread across the globe while its leaders prioritised ‘saving face’.
A fierce diplomatic row has ensued between China and US President Trump, who has accused the World Health Organisation of colluding with Beijing.
Mr Trump has claimed that the WHO has downplayed the true figures of China’s coronavirus death toll because it is allegedly sympathetic to Xi Jinping.
Donald Trump has accused the World Health Organisation of colluding with the Chinese regime in downplaying the true extent of Covid-19 deaths in China (pictured, April 15, 2020)
Mr Trump has claimed that the WHO (right, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus) has gone soft on China because it is sympathetic to President Xi Jinping (left)
The Chinese Government has shut down gyms and swimming pools in Beijing as fears that the country is vulnerable to ‘second wave’ mount.
The people of Wuhan believe the death toll in their city that was the epicentre of the outbreak is 42,000 – not the 3,182 claimed by China.
Mr Trump is backed by large numbers of GOP politicians amid claims from the US intelligence community that the virus escaped from a lab near Wuhan.
And in the UK, Downing Street has removed China from the list of other countries it uses to compare the spread of the coronavirus.