Beijing Claps Back At State Department Report, Calls US An 'Empire Of Lies'

China has responded sharply to the U.S. Department of State's report accusing it of investing billions annually in its "information manipulation" campaign. Beijing called the U.S. an "empire of lies."

"It is the U.S. that invented the weaponizing of the global information space. The relevant center of the U.S. State Department which concocted the report is engaged in propaganda and infiltration in the name of 'global engagement.' It is a source of disinformation and the command center of 'perception warfare,'" a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.

The spokesperson further noted that "facts have proven time and again that the U.S. is an 'empire of lies' through and through."

Beijing's remarks came after the U.S. State Department released a special report on Sept. 28, accusing China of spreading "false or biased information" to promote its desired views.

Beijing simultaneously restricts or suppresses critical information it deems contradictory to its desired narratives, including the Taiwan conflict, human rights concerns, South China Sea disputes and information about China's economy and international engagement, the report added. It also warned that China's manipulation of information could have a negative effect on global freedom of expression.

"From Operation Mockingbird, which bribed and manipulated news media for propaganda purposes in the Cold War era, to a vial of white powder and a staged video of the "White Helmets" cited as evidence to wage wars of aggression in Iraq and Syria earlier this century, and then to the enormous lie made up to smear China's Xinjiang policy, facts have proven time and again that the US is an 'empire of lies' through and through," the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson argued.

Despite Washington's efforts to "produce enough lies," "more and more people in the world have already seen through the U.S.'s ugly attempt to perpetuate its supremacy by weaving lies into 'emperor's new clothes' and smearing others," the statement read.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the State Department report was "written with a Cold-War mentality" and was merely another tool "to keep China down and buttress American hegemony."

This is not the first time China has been accused of spreading lies. In 2022, Beijing was accused of using Taiwan's local elections as a "testing ground for techniques to disrupt the democratic process through internet disinformation."

Sarah Cook, senior advisor for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the nonprofit Freedom House, wrote in 2021 that multiple investigations have shown how "pro-Beijing forces" were conducting manipulative activities on global social media platforms to disseminate information that favors China.

Cook said the scale of propaganda activities was "unmatched," even by the Kremlin, which was accused of using bots and trolls to manipulate algorithms on search engines and social media.