(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Reuters published an article Thursday about how then-President Donald Trump launched a covert CIA propaganda campaign against China in 2019—a campaign that’s likely still continuing to this day.
According to Reuters, the CIA created a small team of operatives who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about the Chinese Communist Party while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets.
“The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world,” Reuters reported.
“The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing’s tightly controlled internet.”
The program was reportedly the result of a Trump order, authorizing the CIA to take action not only in China, but also in countries around the world where the United States and China are competing for influence.
According to Reuters, Matt Pottinger, a senior National Security Council official at the time, crafted the authorization, which cited Beijing’s alleged use of malign influence, allegations of intellectual property theft and military expansion as threats to U.S. national security.
Two intelligence historians suggested that the program is still operational—telling Reuters that when the White House grants the CIA covert action authority, through an order known as a presidential finding, it often remains in place across administrations.
Reuters said Trump’s program is reminicnet of the CIA’s Cold War-era operations against the Soviet Union. During that era, the CIA spammed Communist countries with news articles and radio broadcasts critical of their governments.
“In the 1950s, for example, the CIA created an astrological magazine in East Germany to publish foreboding predictions about communist leaders, according to declassified records,” Reuters noted.
Paul Heer, a former senior CIA analyst, reportedly cautioned that the program could backfire.
Heer said that China could tell its citizens: “Look at the United States intervening in the internal affairs of other countries and rejecting the principles of peaceful coexistence.”
“And there are places in the world where that is going to be a resonant message,” he said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
