Germany confirms China's attempt to influence coronavirus management report

Germany has confirmed that Chinese diplomats are trying to persuade government officials to promote China's handling of the coronavirus crisis in a positive light. The Welt newspaper reported that the German Foreign Ministry has been aware of the efforts since March.

Criticism of the German government's appeasement with China

Margarete Bauze, human rights spokesperson for the Greens, who has raised questions about Beijing's efforts to influence German government colleagues, says the Interior Ministry's response once again reveals Berlin's silence and appeasement with the Chinese government.

In an interview with the "Welt" magazine, he emphasized that this silence continues even though the European Union's foreign policy coordinating body considers China to be among the countries that support the propaganda campaign of spreading false news and conspiracy theories during the Corona crisis.

Bauze criticizes the German government for not even being willing to take a clear and explicit stance against China's attempts to influence government employees.

On May 25, the European Union accused Russia and China in a report of continuing to spread "fake news" about the coronavirus crisis, adding that these two countries continue to "targetedly spread false news and information and mislead" global public opinion about the coronavirus.

EU report revised under pressure from China

Politico reported a day later, citing three unnamed sources, that the EU’s draft report had a more critical and blunt tone that had been softened “under pressure from China.” The New York Times ran a similar story about Chinese pressure to remove and rewrite parts of the report.

The Welt newspaper reported on Sunday that the German Foreign Ministry had been aware of Chinese diplomats' contacts with some government officials since March and had informed other ministries about the matter.

The publication says that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's most important intelligence agency, has also confirmed that Chinese authorities have stepped up their efforts to advance the government's propaganda policies in connection with the coronavirus crisis. The German Foreign Ministry has not responded to repeated questions about the story and has refused to confirm or deny it, according to the report.

The first cases of the novel coronavirus outbreak were officially confirmed in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, in the final days of last year.

There is ample evidence that China's leaders knew about the outbreak of COVID-19 long before it happened and remained silent about it.

The arrest of a doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital and several of his friends who had reported on the coronavirus outbreak before it was officially confirmed, and forcing them to deny their statements from the very first days, fueled distrust of Beijing's official propaganda about the coronavirus crisis.

Source: DW