China sought to block an EU report alleging that Beijing was spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to four sources and diplomatic correspondence reviewed by Reuters.
The report was eventually released, albeit just before the start of the weekend in Europe and with some criticism of the Chinese government rearranged or removed, a sign of the balancing act Brussels is trying to pull off as the pandemic scrambles international relations.
The Chinese Mission to the EU was not immediately available for comment and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the exchange.
An EU spokeswoman said: “We never comment on content or alleged content of internal diplomatic contacts and communication with our partners from another countries.”
Another EU official said that the disinformation report had been published as usual and denied any of it had been watered down.
Four diplomatic sources told reporters that the report had initially been scheduled for release on Tuesday, but was delayed after Chinese officials picked up on a Politico news report that previewed its findings.
A senior Chinese official contacted European officials in Beijing the same day to tell them that “if the report is as described and it is released today, it will be very bad for cooperation,” EU diplomatic correspondence reviewed by Reuters showed.
The correspondence quoted senior ministry official Yang Xiaoguang (楊曉光) as saying that publishing the report would make Beijing “very angry” and accused European officials of trying to please “someone else” — something that the EU diplomats understood to be a reference to Washington.
The four sources said that the report had been delayed as a result, and a comparison of the internal version of the report obtained by Reuters and the final version published late on Friday showed several differences.
For example, on the first page of the internal report shared with EU governments on Monday, the EU’s foreign policy arm 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 observed.”
The public summary posted on Friday to the bloc’s disinformation portal (euvsdisinfo.eu) attributed the disinformation to “state-backed sources from various governments, including Russia and — to a lesser extent — China.”
The public summary did note “significant evidence of covert Chinese operations on social media,” but the reference was left to the final six paragraphs of the document.
Disinformation about the pandemic is emerging as a flash point between the US and China, and officials on both sides have traded allegations of hiding information.
The disputes have sometimes caught the EU in the middle. With more than 1 billion euros (US$1.08 billion) per day in bilateral trade, the EU is China’s top trading partner, while China is second only to the US as a market for EU goods and services.
In a Webcast on Friday with the Friends of Europe think tank, Chinese Ambassador to the EU Zhang Ming (張明) said: “Disinformation is an enemy for all of us and it should be addressed by all of us.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS