WP4 Final: The Problem of State-Sponsored Conspiracy Theories and the Required Global Solution
Around March 20th, the news that Moderna created COVID-19 topped the trending section of Weibo (the Chinese counterpart of Twitter), alongside Russian troops’ discovery of U.S. laboratories in Ukraine. Combining these two pieces of news, many media outlets reported that the lab in Ukraine was involved in the manufacturing of COVID. Apparently, the government was pushing the popularization of the trend as the top post under this thread was made by State-linked media Global Times, and 45 other state-owned media reposted (Teh). Hinting that COVID-19 was a conspiracy of the U.S. government, Global Times’ post cited “The Expose,” a far-right British website with little to no influence and regularly spreads anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
In recent years, China has taken a tough diplomatic stance with emphasis on nationalist narratives under Xi’s presidency, which is dubbed “wolf warrior diplomacy” due to the popular nationalist movie “Wolf Warrior II.” Such strategies have led to a worsened Sino-American relationship, with both countries citing each other as their biggest enemies (Yang 9). In other words, the implementation of new diplomatic strategies has coincided with the CCP’s propaganda on “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” which refuses any claim of China’s inferiority compared to the United States. It has thus become necessary for China to belittle the U.S. with whatever means. With increased verbal attacks on the United States alongside the spread of negative news about the United States, the Chinese authorities have made clear their stance on information as part of its “wolf warrior diplomacy”: they are willing to promote anything that makes the U.S. look bad regardless of authenticity. With such dynamics and in the name of national security, the promotion of conspiracy theories has inevitably become part of CCP’s propaganda.
At the same time, China is not the only country drawing an eye on the brand-new battleground of information, as almost all governments have the incentive to take advantage of the public with the rapid spread of information and misinformation through the internet, including conspiracy theories. Under the globalized trend of individual governments’ spread of misinformation, questions arise: are countries justified to spread misinformation and even conspiracy theories? If not, how can constraints be imposed upon governments so that they refrain from doing so? Examining this global problem with the case of China, I would argue that the spread of toxic nationalism domestically and the promotion of “whataboutism” internationally, both factors working together to formulate worldwide xenophobia and mistrust, outweigh the claim of national security, and international organizations need to take action since no individual government can be trusted on regulating themselves.
For the people who support the deployment of the conspiracy theory strategy, there is a seemingly strong argument regarding the strategy’s necessity. With the imminence of a “Cold War II,” proponents of such governmental propaganda claim that the spread of whatever information in favor of China would be an effective preventive measure of “cognitive warfare” launched by the U.S. or NATO. According to a NATO-sponsored study in 2020, the relatively new concept of “cognitive warfare” is a process that causes chaos in enemies’ societies by shifting the values of the populations through the spread of selected information (Claverie and du Cluzel 2). Since the selected information can be either true or false but would be disadvantageous to the country under the attack anyhow, those who argue in favor of the government spreading misinformation would say that the position of the people is more important than the authenticity of the information. “Yes,” they would say, “the information can be false, but at least it makes you hate the U.S., and that’s all that matters.” Under such reasoning, it would be okay for the Chinese government to manipulate the mind of the Chinese people as long as it preserves the immunity of manipulation from other countries. Thus, the government shall maintain China’s social stability, which is beneficial for all.
While the argument for spreading conspiracy theories may be plausible, it is still hard to deny the inherent harm of spreading misinformation, specifically conspiracy theories. According to Jing-Bao Nie, an adjunct professor of medical humanities at Peking University, the spread of COVID-related conspiracy theories can be damaging to international relations as it enhances the trend of mistrust and promotes the exclusiveness of nationalism (Nie 570). The potential harms of spreading conspiracy theories that Nie pointed out are significant as they can do damage in both domestic and international scenes. Given that the upside of the conspiracy theory strategy is confined to the potentially better social stability, the claim for it is hard to outweigh that against it, not to mention that conspiracy theories can often be harmful to social stability. Therefore, it is much more likely for the conspiracy theories themselves to be a bigger problem than the “cognitive warfare” of the United States.
Domestically, alongside the spread of conspiracy theories, the Chinese government has imposed policies incentivizing people to report espionage, with the reward being as much as 500,000 CNY. The “500K” phrase was soon popularized on the Chinese Internet and has most likely turned the action that supposedly promotes social stability into a witch hunt. People who are self-proclaimed patriots have started dubbing those they accuse of being online spies as “walking 500K,” and they are free to call anyone who disagrees with them a “walking 500K.” Saying that China is somehow not the best country? You are a 500K! Disagreeing with that COVID was created by the U.S.? Here comes another 500K… So on and so forth, those with the most extremist nationalist thoughts would eventually take over the Internet as those who can think for themselves would refrain from voicing their opinions. This trend of extreme nationalism would undoubtedly steer China towards the direction of populism and chauvinism, and if China continues its use of conspiracy theories as part of its propaganda, the conspiracy theories can only serve as catalysts of this process. Yes, the “patriots” shall prevail in the end with the spread of conspiracy theories, but only premised upon hunting down those who dare to doubt and the thought that “we” all believe in the government. But the problem is: who are “we”? The government’s spread of conspiracy theories would only narrow down the population of “we” as it precludes anyone with the ability to think, and the stable and harmonized internet that the government envisioned would turn out to be those who believe that 2+2=5 is correct if the government says so, instead of the uniformity of people who believe in 2+2=4. In that respect, as an old Chinese saying goes, the Chinese government is “drinking poison to stop its thirst” when seeking the political fiction of social stability in such a way.
On an individual level, the government’s spread of conspiracy theories is certainly harmful as it prevents access to more accurate information and indirectly limits the freedom of speech for those who are willing to question the authority. This undoubtedly contradicts the claim of national security because the aim of national security itself is ought to protect the rights of citizens instead of harming them. Nevertheless, it has been a popular strategy deployed by the government in recent years. Given that it would be extremely hard for the government to completely ignore the potential negative impacts, it is reasonable to believe that the purpose of the government’s use of such strategies is not national security. Rather, the government’s incentive can be better explained by the effort to take further control of the internet through the hypothetical witch hunt, so that it may promote further propaganda without dissenting voices.
Under such lines of reasoning, it would not be hard then to explain China’s actions that abuse the strategy of spreading misinformation. Looking back at China’s recent records, the “Moderna-Ukraine affair” was not the first time the Chinese government spread conspiracy theories regarding the U.S and COVID. In July and August 2021, State media outlets such as People’s Daily and CCTV news repeatedly quoted Facebook and Twitter posts of a Swiss biologist Wilson Edwards, suggesting that the virus originated from Fort Detrick, a U.S. military base outside of D.C., and U.S. authorities were pressuring the WHO investigators for that discovery (Ramzy and Chien). However, the Swiss embassy soon discredited the report as they found no Swiss citizen named “Wilson Edwards.” Initially, the report of state-owned media did not come without backlash, as multiple users of Zhihu, the Chinese counterpart of Quora, posted their concerns on the source of information. However, the posts were soon overtaken by those “patriotic” ones who direct their blame toward the U.S. without casting any doubt on the government. Such was the case of Zhihu, one of the most notable liberalist sites in China with a high percentage of users receiving higher education, and so the voices of objection were even weaker on other Chinese websites and social media. Under such circumstances, it would then be much easier for the government to manipulate the public with more misinformation premised on the uniformity of nationalist thoughts on the internet. This trend, while being confined domestically, is more than a domestic issue as it would provide a solid basis for international organizations to be concerned due to its clear infringement of the human rights to free speech and accurate information.
While the risk of spreading toxic nationalism within a country is already sufficient to counterargue the upside of state-sponsored conspiracy theories, the threat of the conspiracy theory strategy would be even larger on an international scene. As globalized as the world currently is, international trade has become an inseparable part of every country’s economy, and one does not need much knowledge to know that all businesses are premised upon mutual trust. If a country spread baseless claims about another, especially one of the country’s largest trading partners, it would be hard to maintain such a trust if it ever exists, which would hurt the development of both countries in the long run. Specifically, the spread of conspiracy theories internationally would lead to the abuse of “whataboutism,” which turns the nature of diplomatic relations and global competition from comparing who’s better to compare who’s worse, thus worsening international relations and halting the progress of global development. “Whataboutism” is a logical fallacy that has, unfortunately, been increasingly used in international relations for a country to attack another. If country A attacks country B with claim C1 premised upon P, country B can always counterargue with “what about C2” to demonstrate that P is being used inconsistently (Barceló Aspeitia 434). Since any C2 can shift the focus from C1 to the consistency of P regardless of its authenticity, country B is incentivized to use conspiracy theories to counterargue C1. Under such lines of argument, a country can make up as many conspiracy theories as it would like to so long as it distracts people’s attention, which would prevent the making of almost all diplomatic and economic progress. For example, China, facing human rights accusations from Western countries such as the U.S., is now spreading conspiracy theories about the U.S. to demonstrate how the U.S. has a double-standard approach to human rights. If this strategy is being continuously deployed, it would then be difficult for China to face its problems and make any possible progress in terms of economic development and international collaboration. It would even further harm the global economy as many countries that are currently cooperating with China are likely to be reluctant to continue due to the fear and mistrust caused by China’s spread of blatantly fake news.
While China gives a notable example of spreading conspiracy theories to evade its problems, the deployment of such a strategy is not confined to it. For example, in March 2020, the Trump administration openly called COVID “China Virus” and accused China of creating the virus in Wuhan labs. By appealing to the racist and xenophobic sentiments of some Americans, Trump and his administration undoubtedly attempted to distract people from America’s poor economic growth and failure to respond to COVID, thus pushing the blame toward China (Moynihan and Porumbescu). This example has shown that in a country that is characterized as being more democratic, its leader and the government, in general, are still incentivized to spread misinformation and even conspiracy theories to direct the attention of the public away when things are not looking good for them. Under the context of the global economic downtown, it is thus reasonable to fear the trend being further globalized as many governments would deploy it to evade their internal problems and direct the hatred toward foreign nations. This may lead to a worldwide humanitarian crisis of people being deprived of their rights to information and expression while contributing to the rise of toxic nationalism and xenophobia, not to mention the increased mistrust between nations that may harm peace and the global economy.
Since it has been demonstrated that we cannot trust individual governments to spread only accurate information, my proposed solution here would be the creation of an information-sharing website by neutral international organizations such as the UN and the legislation of relevant international laws. Under such a framework, members of the international organization would regularly meet and decide on the authenticity of information spread by governments. On each piece of information, countries would vote on whether the information is true and give out their reasons, and superpowers such as China or the U.S. would not have additional weight in their votes to prevent the manipulation of information. The opinions of all participating countries would then be collected and summarized in an article that would then be posted on the sharing website and translated to the official language of every country participating in the organization. To make this proposal enforceable and to target the countries with rich histories of censorship and spreading misinformation., the organization shall make international law requiring all countries not to censor the site, and request all countries to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions if a country breaks the rule.
Of course, there may be concerns or objections regarding my proposal, the most notable ones include how do organizations decide on what pieces of information to be decided and how can one promise the neutrality of the organization. Given the recent and unprecedented nature of the issue, I do not expect my proposal to be perfect, yet I would still defend it on the ground of its advantages compared to completely trusting national governments or political activism on the individual levels. In terms of how organizations decide on what pieces of information to be discussed, my best suggestion is to form a selection board consisting of countries such as China, the U.S., and Russia. This would not contradict the part that global superpowers would not have additional weight in their votes, as the selection process recognizes that information regarding these countries is often the most significant concerning world peace and development, while the voting and discussion process guarantees all countries equal weights to voice out their opinions. The outcome of the selection and deliberation processes would necessarily be more nuanced and complete than the discussions of national governments or individual activists, as it would collect the positions of all participating countries on consensually significant information. This naturally leads to my response to the question regarding the neutrality of international organizations: So long as the proposed website of the international organization faithfully conveys the positions of all participating nations regardless of their positions, it would then be hard to argue against its neutrality. While I would recognize the potential effectiveness of individual political activists debunking misinformation, I still hold my position that the international solution is superior given individuals’ relatively low influence compared to international organizations and their higher likeliness of bias. Here, it is also important to highlight the anti-censorship part of my proposal as individual dissenters are highly vulnerable to censorship, and the international organization would thus provide the best likelihood to provide a more consistent and accurate platform regarding information spread by national governments.
To conclude, while the spread of misinformation, specifically conspiracy theories by the government is especially prominent in China, we can find and take as a concern a global trend of adopting such a strategy. There may be proponents of the strategy who defend it on the ground that it promotes national security in the era of “cognitive warfare,” yet such a defense cannot stand as it is outweighed by both domestic and global problems that it may cause, specifically the toxic nationalism within the national society and mistrust in the international community. In that respect, there is a strong potential that the strategy would lead to the stall of development both domestically and globally. Therefore, for a more promising future for the global community and to prevent individual countries from adopting such strategies, we need global efforts to put us back on track with progress, especially under the uncertainty and economic downturn that the world is facing.
Works Cited
Barceló Aspeitia, Axel Arturo. “Whataboutisms and Inconsistency.” Argumentation, vol. 34, no. 4, 2020, pp. 433–47, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-020-09515-1. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Claverie, Bernard and Francois du Cluzel. “‘Cognitive Warfare”: The Advent of the Concept of ‘Cognitics’ in the Field of Warfare.” Cognitive Warfare: The Future of Cognitive Dominance, edited by NATO Collaboration Support Office, 2022, pp. 1–7, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03635889/document. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Ramzy, Austin and Amy Chang Chien. “Rejecting Covid Inquiry, China Peddles Conspiracy Theories Blaming the U.S.” The New York Times, 25 August 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/world/asia/china-coronavirus-covid-conspiracy-theory.html. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Moynihan, Donald and Gregory Porumbescu. “Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ slur makes some people blame Chinese Americans. But others blame Trump.” The Washington Post, 16 September 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/16/trumps-chinese-virus-slur-makes-some-people-blame-chinese-americans-others-blame-trump/. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Nie, Jing-Bao. “In the Shadow of Biological Warfare: Conspiracy Theories on the Origins of COVID-19 and Enhancing Global Governance of Biosafety as a Matter of Urgency.” Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Vol. 17 №4, 2020, pp. 567–574, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11673-020-10025-8. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Teh, Cheryl. “Social-media users in China are obsessing over a conspiracy theory claiming the COVID-19 virus was produced by US-linked laboratories in Ukraine.” Business Insider, 25 March 2022. https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-social-media-Global-Times-article-COVID-coronavirus-ukraine-laboratories-2022-3. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Yang, Dali L. “The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Estrangement of US-China Relations.” Asian Perspective, vol. 45, no. 1, 2021, pp. 7–31, https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.0.0001. Accessed 14 April 2022.
