(Minghui.org) As countries outside of China are fighting to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is ramping up its propaganda machine to cast itself as a victim and shifting blame. For example, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted on March 12 that the US army may have brought the virus to Wuhan.
A German television news channel, n-tv.de (NTV), called the CCP's propaganda campaign “shameless” and “ridiculous.” “The Communist Party has messed up because its months-long cover-up of the Corona outbreak has put people's lives and the global economy at risk,” wrote Marcel Grzanna in an article on March 20, 2020, with a title of “The brazen propaganda from Beijing always blames others.”
David Spencer concurred in an article titled “Blame for Wuhan virus lies squarely with CCP” (published in Taiwan News on March 22), “The coronavirus crisis is the Chinese Communist Party’s fault and it must pay for consequences.”
Starting with a popular trend currently circulating on social media, Spencer said the hashtag “China lied, people died” came from people who have been suffering amid the chaos of the Wuhan coronavirus.
In response to the hashtag, the CCP accused those who criticize China of being racist, while blaming others for the catastrophe. “From ludicrous conspiracies about the virus being released in Wuhan by the U.S. military to videos of people dressed in doctor’s uniforms pulling off their masks, there is no level the CCP won’t stoop to in order to convince the world this is not their fault,” the article wrote, “At the same time, the CCP has begun promoting the fallacy of China’s efforts to tackle the virus as being a great sacrifice on behalf of the world and suggesting we should be grateful.”
Such tactics have worked, and numerous world leaders claimed that the virus was “no-one’s fault,” declaring the priority should be seeking a solution instead of a cause.
The Taiwan News article stated, “The Wuhan coronavirus began in China and it spread because of the culture of corruption that the CCP has ingrained into Chinese society.” More specifically, the CCP silenced doctors and other whistle-blowers in the initial outbreak. Furthermore, it refused international help and covered things up with under-reported numbers.
In addition, the CCP censored information and blocked communication that is needed for the public to respond. “It is the CCP and no-one else, that is responsible for the Wuhan coronavirus sweeping the world,” the article wrote.
The article points out that the coronavirus has disrupted people's normal lives, with schools and businesses across continents being shut down. The article wrote, “The CCP is to blame for this.”
Nonetheless, the CCP continues its propaganda campaign, claiming zero new locally transmitted coronavirus cases in China. The Taiwan News article pointed out that the CCP's deception has also fooled many, “In many media outlets, far from being the villain, China is being portrayed as the knight in shining armor that will show the rest of the world how to beat the Wuhan coronavirus.”
The article warned, “We must not accept these lies and we must not fall for this deceit.” It continued, “This is a CCP virus that ultimately will be defeated by Western medicine.”
“This situation must never be allowed to happen again and there is only one sure-fire way to ensure that is the case. The CCP must be dismantled and freedom and transparency finally delivered to the world’s most populous nation,” concluded the article.
The NTV article wrote that the CCP claimed that it is “absurd” and “lacking any foundation” to call China the country of origin of the coronavirus, but that the CCP has failed to provide any evidence to support its claims.
The article said the CCP's strategy to shift blame to others serves two purposes. One is to divert the public's attention to the CCP's cover-up and mishandling of the crisis to supposedly anti-China forces who fear China's growing global influence. Another goal is to trick the rest of the world into focusing on the authoritarian Chinese government's efforts to contain the virus, while forgetting that the dictatorship is the root cause of the problem.
The article pointed out that the CCP's attempts to evade responsibility and cast itself as a hero of handling the crisis deceived many. Instead of raising concerns over cover-ups in China, the WHO praised China for its leadership in the crisis. This is worrisome because doing so would weaken the WHO’s real function of fighting such diseases.
The article said that the ongoing pandemic would have been a real opportunity for the world to arm itself against invisible enemies in the future, and that China's cover-up and deception has caused tremendous harm to the world. The article warned that the Wuhan coronavirus may not be the last virus of its kind given the growing world population and the increasing international travel, and that if people follow the distorted facts, no one can help them but themselves.