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Economist’ Runs Chinese Coronavirus Propaganda Disguised as News

Chinese outlets flout federal disclosure laws in disinformation campaign

The Economist is running Chinese propaganda from an outlet that is violating U.S. law to spread the message that Chinese president Xi Jinping has done a masterful job handling the coronavirus pandemic.

The propaganda advertorials, which are ads designed to look like news stories, come from the Beijing Review, an entity backed by the Chinese Communist Party. The outlet has never registered with the Department of Justice as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and does not include a legally required disclaimer that the ad is being pushed by a foreign nation.

“President Xi [Jinping] leads the battle against COVID-19 outbreak toward victory,” an advertorial published in the March 21 edition of the Economist reads. “China has rolled out ‘probably the most ambitious, agile, and aggressive disease containment effort in history.'”

The Chinese government has routinely placed propaganda articles intended to mimic news reports. Most Chinese official mouthpieces, however, are registered as foreign agents in the United States and include the necessary disclaimer in their publications. The Beijing Review does not, making the dissemination of its materials in the United States the most egregious violation of law thus far.

The State Department has sharply condemned the advertorials, which China pays American media to disseminate, arguing that the outlets that published the advertorials are complicit in the spread of Chinese influence in the United States.

“This Administration has been very clear that all Americans need to become familiar with, and guard against, the Chinese Communist Party’s tools of influence and interference in our politics,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. “When media organizations host ads from PRC [People’s Republic of China] state media, they are helping the PRC to propagandize the American people.”

Beijing Review is an English-language weekly magazine published by the China International Publishing Group, China’s largest foreign publishing company that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The magazine, which claims to have a circulation of more than 70,000 per issue, has published advertorials in the Economist since at least 2018, according to the Economist‘s own reporting.

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