Source: Global Times Published: 2024-09-29

By GT staff reporters

Editor's Note:

"Cognitive Warfare" has become a new form of confrontation between states, and a new security threat. With new technological means, it sets agendas and spreads disinformation, changing people's perceptions and altering their self-identity. Launching cognitive warfare against China is an important means for Western anti-China forces to attack and discredit the country. 

Some politicians and media outlets have publicly smeared China's image by propagating false narratives in an attempt to incite and provoke dissatisfaction with China among people in certain countries. These means all serve the US strategy to contain China's rise and maintain its hegemony. The Global Times is publishing a series of articles to reveal the intrigues of the US and its allies' China-targeted cognitive warfare and expose its lies and vicious intentions.

In the 18th installment of the series, the Global Times focuses on a recently passed act by US Congress, which is widely regarded as a funding mechanism for the US to badmouth China in the international community. As a latest case in the US’ high-profile cognitive warfare against China, this article discusses in detail the aspects of China that this act may seek to defame and slander, as well as where the substantial sum of $1.6 billion will ultimately be directed.


Spending vast amounts of taxpayer money to discredit another country seems inglorious, yet it has appeared more than once in public official documents of the US. Recently, the US Congress passed the H.R. 1157 to authorize more than $1.6 billion in five years to badmouth China, which has sparked questions and criticism both within the US and internationally.

According an act passed on September 9, the Congress authorized appropriations for the “Countering the People’s Republic of China Malign Influence Fund,” which planned to appropriate $325,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027 - $1.625 billion in total - to counter the so-called “malign influence” of China. Or in other words, to counter any aspects that the US perceives as unfavorable from China.

For many years, the US government has expended vast human and material resources globally to support so-called “independent media” and civic organizations, inciting anti-China sentiment due to a deep sense of crisis and fear regarding China's rapid development, said Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Relations at Renmin University of China.

“American politicians are desperate to maintain a world order in which they are the hegemonic monopoly, even if this order exists only in the discourse and propaganda narratives they construct,” Wang told the Global Times.

A widely questioned bill 

$1.6 billion is a staggering amount, allegedly double the annual operating expenditure of a major media outlet in the US like CNN. 

Behind the huge amount, content of the act is filled with clichés attacking the China’s political system under the guise of threatening US’ “national security” “economic security” and disrupting “international order.” Specifically, it mentioned the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a main target, saying some of the money will be used in supporting civil society and independent media to counter against BRI’s “malign influence.”

The term “malign influence” is vague and subjective, leaving a lot of room for interpretation, said Diao Daming, a professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. “Additionally, this act involves a massive funding arrangement spanning several years, suggesting that [the US] is planning a big layout to suppress, contain and discredit China on a global scale in the coming years,” Diao told the Global Times.

Unsurprisingly, some scholars and opinion leaders within the US have questioned and criticized the act. Marcus Stanley, director of studies at US think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the definition of “malign influence” in the bill is extremely broad. “For example, program funds could support any effort to highlight the ‘negative impact’ of Chinese economic and infrastructure investment in a foreign country,” Stanley wrote in his article House passes $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas on September 11.

In a September 27 opinion piece titled Wars, Propaganda Wars and Funding Them, US novelist and journalist Eve Ottenberg said that China’s BRI connects the world through beneficial infrastructure investments, while the US does something vaguely similar though far less helpful with its 800 foreign military bases.

“...the contrast between the two approaches at planetary linkage has reflected rather poorly on Washington in the Global South,” wrote Ottenberg. “Hence this target in the US propaganda war: take down BRI, no matter how much good it’s doing, because it’s a bad look for Uncle Sam.”

In addition, the transparency of this bill has also been widely questioned.

This just passed act authorized to appropriate $325,000,000 “for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027,” it required an annual summary “not later than September 30, 2023” and “annually thereafter for five years.” It suggested the fund had been put into use probably as early as October 2022, long before it was officially allowed to.

The act doesn’t seem to contain any requirement that US government financing to foreign media be made transparent to citizens of foreign countries, Stanley pointed out. Thus, it’s possible that the program could in some cases be used to subsidize covert anti-Chinese messaging, he said.

Where the money flows to?

H.R. 1157 didn’t explicitly mention who would operate the massive fund. 

Nonetheless, based on the act itself, some analysis of US scholars, and open documents of certain US institutions, it is likely that the money has flowed, or will flow, to a few infamous US government affiliated or backed organizations, such as the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), and federal agency the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which may use this money to support the overseas media and organizations engaged in anti-China activities.

USAID has been reported to fund subversive and opposition forces in many countries. The agency is largely involved in the $1.6-billion fund, as the act directly mentioned that the administrator of USAID must designate a senior official as the “assistant coordinator” of the program. 

USAID’s website shows that making grants to foreign media and civil society organizations is a key part of its efforts. Under this guise, USAID was found to have repeatedly funded both domestic and overseas groups to smear China.

In November 2023, for instance, a research lab at US-based William & Mary’s Global Research Institute named AidData released a report slandering the BRI. AidData’s website shows USAID is its major partner and funder.

According to a document from the US Department of State in April 2020, GEC is an institution set to “lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” 

At a congressional hearing in March 2020, Lea Gabrielle, the US special envoy and coordinator of GEC, bluntly said that their efforts include “increasing awareness of the problematic aspects of the Belt and Road Initiative,” and they had programs “to build global resilience to PRC disinformation through media training and support to investigative journalists.” She also mentioned the US government-back media literacy programs that support pro-US media outlets and individuals.

Ironically, a main way GEC supports and trains overseas media and journalists to counter “China disinformation,” is by paying them to create and spread lies attacking China.

In September 2021, Zimbabwe’s largest daily newspaper The Herald revealed that the US was funding and training local reporters to write anti-China stories and discredit Chinese investments, the Xinhua News Agency reported in October that year.

Noting that a local workshop drawing about a dozen private media journalists was held on 14-15 September 2021, The Herald article said that the journalists were asked to portray Chinese companies as “causing harm to communities, environment and workers,” and to produce and spread such content in the media, receiving payment of $1,000 per story from the US embassy through its proxy.

Carefully woven delusions

H.R.1157 was introduced by Republican Barr Andy, a member of a so-called House select committee on the strategic competition between the US and China.

Diao believed that introducing such an act is an attempt by some anti-China some politicians to take credit, and also a sort of an “exam answer sheet” submitted by the committee to assert itself. “After all, it is not certain that there will be such a committee in the next Congress,” he told the Global Times.

This was not the first time in recent years that the US allocated a large budget for cognitive warfare against China. In the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, Congress authorized $1.5 billion over the five years for a “Countering Chinese Influence Fund,” to globally counter the so-called 'malign influence' of China.

Wang pointed out that in the information age, when most people in many countries struggle to discern the truth among vast amounts of information, the US government attempts to spread false information in the international community, manipulating public opinion to discredit China, having a detrimental impact on the international discourse environment.

Yet these slanders are not as effective as some in the US hope they would be, with an increasing number of global visitors coming to see a real China in person today under the recently loosened entry policy?

The US has launched too many absurd public perception campaigns for the international community to ignore, Wang said. “Many countries have already seen through the true nature of the US and are beginning to resist its rampant behavior. The delusions carefully woven by the US will no longer succeed as easily,” he told the Global Times.