The Diplomat published an article that discussed the CCP’s tactics for overseas propaganda. It stated:

The elements of this campaign are well known. The general narrative goes like this: There are doubts about the origins of the virus, and China has demonstrated its effectiveness in managing the crisis. Its authoritarian system is validated in the face of the supposed ineffectiveness of democratic values.

For Beijing, the control of information becomes a priority after an initial relaxation designed to provide a safety valve for a population facing a major humanitarian crisis. Already severe in China, this control has now been reinforced. Above all, the regime is also trying to silence all foreign experts guilty of deviating from the “official line,” denounced in the Chinese media as “anti-Chinese elements.”

The outside world could be impressed by the “reactivity” of a system capable of authoritatively confining tens of millions of people. Italy gratefully welcomed the arrival of a Chinese plane — in the presence of the Italian president and the Chinese ambassador — bringing several doctors and tons of equipment.  The Serbian president also embraced Chinese aid, saying, “Hundreds of thousands of lives in Serbia will be saved thanks to the help that just came to us.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Propaganda and Lies: CCP Hires People for Its Propaganda Campaign
• Propaganda and Lies: CCP Accused U.S. and Italy as Virus Origins
• Propaganda and Lies: How China Produced Fake News of “Stores Are Closing” In Other Countries
• Propaganda and Lies: Mainland Chinese Calling the Returning Chinese “Flying Thousands of Miles to Poison Chinese”
• Propaganda and Lies: Overseas Chinese Fell for the Propaganda That China’s Epidemic Was Over

Source: The Diplomat, March 24, 2020
https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/chinas-coronavirus-information-warfare/

Recently, a few cases were reported in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was recruiting people to work on its overseas propaganda campaign.

#1: A Chinese artist Baduicao, who lives in Australia, told Deutsche Welle that he received a tweet inquiry from a “cultural promotion” Chinese media company, asking whether he was interested in cooperating. They asked him to post two tweets each month, with the company providing materials including content, pictures, and video links. The company would pay him 400 to 2500 Yuan (US $56 – 352) per piece. At least four other Chinese with over 10,000 Twitter followers also received the same inquiry. The company sent Baduicao a Twitter sample, which was a 15-second video, with Wuhan Pneumonia scenes and a voice stating the CCP’s propaganda message.

#2: A post on the Internet on March 22 showed that a media in China was urgently looking to hire a Chinese student studying in Europe to record a video about Chinese being discriminated against due to the Novel Coronavirus. The program would take two hours to produce and pay 60 Euro.

#3: As the CCP did not want overseas Chinese to return to China, a video of the “self-confession“ of an overseas Chinese was widely spread on Chinese social media. The man in the video said that he had lived overseas for over twenty years and had almost forgotten his homeland (China). It wasn’t until two months ago when the virus came, that he discovered that China is where people want to be. The man, in tears, asked himself, “Do I still have face to go back to China?” He paused and then said, “Let me just stay here quietly and enjoy the retribution.”

Shortly, Chinese dug out the man’s true identity. He is not an overseas Chinese, but a small actor who works on minor roles. He lives in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, China.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Propaganda and Lies: CCP Accused U.S. and Italy as Virus Origins
• Propaganda and Lies: How China Produced Fake News of “Stores Are Closing” In Other Countries
• Propaganda and Lies: Mainland Chinese Calling the Returning Chinese “Flying Thousands of Miles to Poison Chinese”
• Propaganda and Lies: Overseas Chinese Fell for the Propaganda That China’s Epidemic Was Over
• Propaganda and Lies: The Truth about the Video “An American Spread Virus in Wuhan Subway”

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More and more people started looking at lawsuit options to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for the worldwide outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus.

• Lawyer Larry Klayman and his group Freedom Watch filed a complaint in federal court in Texas seeking at least $20 trillion from the Chinese government because of its “callous and reckless indifference and malicious acts.” The complaint states, “Although it appears that the COVID-19 virus was released at an unplanned, unexpected time, it was prepared and stockpiled as a biological weapon to be used against China’s perceived enemies, including but not limited to the people of the United States.” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Klayman, Freedom Watch, and Buzz Photos, a Texas company that specializes in high school sports photography.
• Some Chinese lawyers formed a volunteer group, the “Legal Advisory Panel on Novel Coronavirus Claims.” It provides legal support to patients and their relatives and even a free service for typical cases. They suggested that the CCP regime should provide compensation for all human rights violations, including patients, relatives of the dead, and minors whose parents passed away.
• On March 18, a 22-year old Turkish student Cagatay Orkun Celikbas wrote to the Chinese Embassy in Turkey to request compensation for his monetary loss and mental stress, including rent, counseling, and related education expenses incurred during the period that his college closed.

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• Justice: International Experts Suggested Six Legal Bases to Sue CCP
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has loosened the lockdown in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Novel Coronavirus. Starting on March 23, the city distributed cinerary urns of the deaths. Earlier, the city was locked down and thus relatives could not go to the funeral homes to pick up the urns that held their loved ones’ ashes.

This gave people a way to estimate the coronavirus death count in Wuhan, which people believe the CCP has been hiding from the public. The government announced 2,531 deaths in Wuhan.

Radio Free Asia reported that the funeral homes said that they would distribute 500 caskets or urns per day and try to complete the distribution before the Qing Ming Festival (a Chinese festival to sweep the tombs and worship the departed). There will be 12 days from March 23 to the Qing Ming Festival (April 4, 2020). Since there are 7 funeral homes, the total caskets distributed will be 500 x 12 x 7, or  42,000.

Another estimate was based on the number of incinerators. Wuhan has 84 incinerators. Assuming 65 functioned normally, each one ran around the clock, and each body took an hour to burn, that would be 65 x 24 = 1,560 bodies per day. Taking out 200 regular deaths each day would leave 1,360 coronavirus deaths per day. In 30 days, the death count will be 40,800.

A person who requested anonymity told Radio Free Asia that Wuhan funeral homes processed about 28,000 corpses during the peak month of the epidemic. “Each funeral home could only report their numbers to the city, but were not allowed to share with other funeral homes.”

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• Death Count: Placing Patient in Corpse Bag While Alive
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• Death Count: Wuhan Has Unusually High Level of Sulfur Dioxide Gas
• Death Count: Funeral Home Interviews Suggested 500 Corpses Incinerated in Wuhan per Day
  
• Death Count: Wuhan Incinerated 122 Corpses Per Day Before Coronavirus Outbreak

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China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that, starting at midnight on March 28, it would suspend entry into China of foreigners with a valid visa to visit China or those holding a residence card; suspend entry into China of foreigners with APEC business travel cards; suspend granting visas at ports of entry, including the 24/72/144-hour transit visa exemption, the Hainan entry visa exemption, the Shanghai cruise visa exemption, the 144-hour visa exemption for foreigners from Hong Kong and Macao to enter Guangdong, and the Guangxi exemption for ASEAN tourist groups. Entry with a diplomatic, official, courtesy, or C visa would not be affected. Foreigners who come to China to engage in necessary economic, trade, scientific and technological activities, and for urgent humanitarian needs, can apply for visas from Chinese embassies and consulates abroad. Entry of foreigners who receive visas after this announcement is not affected.

Earlier, on March 22, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) issued an order that any flight with Beijing as the final destination needed to go through one of 12 cities for port of entry process. These 12 cities included Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Hohhot, Shanghai Pudong, Jinan, Qingdao, Nanjing, Shenyang, Dalian, Zhengzhou, and Xi’an. Travelers who passed the coronavirus prevention test could continue to fly to Beijing.

Hong Kong International Airport reported that, per Beijing’s request, the airport will not provide land or water transportation to mainland China.

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On March 25. China decided to remove the travel ban between cities (except Wuhan) in Hubei province. Wuhan’s transportation control and people’s restrictions from going out will also be lifted on April 8.

However, there were concerns that this may led to the spread of the coronavirus.

Radio France International reported that Wuhan reported that, a few hours before announcing the loosening up Hubei Province, a doctor had been confirmed to have the Coronavirus infection. Beijing had reported zero infections for four days from March 19 to 22.

Beijing City requested that all people who went to Hubei on either a business or a personal trip not return to Beijing. Some Hubei citizens felt that they were treated as third-class citizens, where Beijing people were the first class and other citizens second class. Ying Yong, the Hubei Provincial Party Secretary “appealed to all societies throughout the nation to treat Hubei people kindly.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Infection Count: 60 Percent Hidden Infection Cases in Wuhan Are Not Reported
• Infection Count: Cured Patients Tested COVID-19 Positive Again
• Infection Count: Zhang Wenhong Worried about Shanghai’s Confirmed Infection Count Being Zero
• Infection Count: Shandong Internal Report Had Much Higher Infection Counts Than the Published Numbers
• Infection Count: Caixin Showed Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau Was Lying

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To portray itself as the world leader in fighting the novel coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has painted a rosy picture that China has won the battle with the coronavirus while other countries are in deep trouble. However, this propaganda campaign backfired. Many Chinese overseas have been lured to return to China and the CCP quarantined them in the fear of infection. The CCP then started to tell the overseas Chinese not to come back.

The CCP also took on the “content farms” that spread rumors that other countries were in trouble. These farms were following the CCP’s propaganda strategy, but their “excellent achievements” contributed to the backfire.

The Paper, a newspaper in Beijing, compared some of the articles from these content farms and found they were amazingly similar in both the title and the contents throughout the article.

It gave the comparison result of two articles, one about Chinese in Ethiopia and one about Chinese in Hungry. The two articles had almost exactly the same contents, with the only exception being the swapping out of the country name, capital city, and a pseudo person (Mr. Xu vs. Ms. Liu).

It pointed out that that these articles were pushed onto many Chinese Communist websites in different countries. Three companies, all under a person named Guo Hong in Fujian Province owned those websites.

Radio Free Asia reported that Fujian police investigated Guo Hong’s husband Xue Yumin, the actual man who ran the operations in those companies, along with other fake media owners who supported the CCP’s propaganda campaign, under the charge of “fabricating fake information that led many Chinese overseas to return to China and jeopardize China’s epidemic control.”

A senior media practitioner Mr. Liu pointed out that the CCP has a long history of brainwashing overseas Chinese. Though they stay outside of China, they still rely on China’s state machine and Chinese media to obtain information. And thus, content farms have found it easy to cheat them at this time.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Propaganda and Lies: Mainland Chinese Calling the Returning Chinese “Flying Thousands of Miles to Poison Chinese”
• Propaganda and Lies: Overseas Chinese Fell for the Propaganda That China’s Epidemic Was Over
• Propaganda and Lies: The Truth about the Video “An American Spread Virus in Wuhan Subway”
• Propaganda and Lies: Italian Media Called out CCP for Spreading Fake News
• Propaganda and Lies: Chinese Bots Flooded Twitter to Spread That U.S. Is the Origin of the Coronavirus

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To speed up the coronavirus testing, Spain ordered 5.5 million testing kits from China. However, Spanish media reported that the Health Bureau in Spain had confirmed that China’s testing kits had a quality problem.

In theory, these testing kits were supposed to have at least an 80 percent accuracy rate. But the actual results in Spain showed only 30 percent of the results were accurate. A microbiology expert who participated in the testing of the kits said, “Using these quick testing kits has no meaning.”

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• “World Leader”: The Coronanivus Testing Kits Czeck Republic Bought from China Have 80% Error Rate
• “World Leader”: Global Times Called Sweden “Irresponsible” for “Surrendering to Coronavirus”
• “World Leader”: China’s Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Is Ready for Human Testing
• “World Leader”: Experts: China’s Epidemic Control Model Cannot Be Adopted by Other Countries
• World Leader: Taiwan Set an Example for the World

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