Daily Times

The global smear campaign against China continues. The overriding objective is to hinder the country’s economic progress and political outreach, particularly under its BRI (Belt and Road Initiative); which offers connectivity to Central Asia and beyond, including Europe. Since CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) is considered the driving force behind the entire BRI project, Pakistan risks finding itself in the crosshairs. Indeed, enhanced bilateral cooperation with China is proving contentious for the US and some of its allies.

No doubt, the US has played a significant role in Pakistan’s socio-economic development. According to USAID, the development agency delivered close to $7.7 billion in the last decade to assist energy, education and health sectors, community resilience while boosting the strategic ties. Yet the problem here in Pakistan is that analysts remain puzzled as to how this figure was reached. After all, the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act (2009), which initially pledged $7.5 billion in civilian aid, was reduced by the Trump administration to just $4.1 bn. Thus no one really knows how much was actually spent on compensating political scavengers in Pakistan to protect US regional interests. Or, indeed, the definitive break-down of social sector investment.

This US narrative of vast financial aid tranches being handed over to Pakistan has gained momentum as the country moves further towards China. In its wakes, malicious campaigns have begun emerging, prompting experts to urgently warn Pakistan to strike a balance with other regional players to safeguard against economic and strategic conflicts. Yet the majority of the citizenry here, either fortunately or unfortunately, favour strong ties with China due to the latter’s support in their country’s hour of need. By contrast, the US is seen as exploiting this region to serve its own vested interests, dating back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan some 40 years ago.

The US resents the systematic loss of goodwill towards it, especially as a rapidly rising China is winning the popular vote. This may explain why Pakistan has to repeatedly clarify that it is not switching bloc alliance

The US resents this systematic loss of goodwill, especially as a rapidly rising China is winning the popular vote. This may explain why Pakistan finds itself having to clarify every other day that it is in no way switching bloc alliance. It may also throw light on the widespread anti-China campaigns that have been gaining ground here, particularly after the inking of the CPEC project. More recently, these have focused on Covid-19, as the country grapples with the third wave of this global pandemic. The underlying ‘message’ is that this is virus did not originate in bats but is, rather, man-made and that China has hoodwinked the whole world on this front. Social media is being used to spread this propaganda.

The rising curve of the Covid infections and deaths have created a climate of fear and confusion in Pakistan, despite cases being drastically under-reported. The WHO lists Pakistan as the world’s least Corona-testing country. Meaning that the on-the-ground situation would be recognised as being even more serious if testing were conducted as required. The unfortunate fallout of which would be to lend credence, in the public imagination, to claims that China deliberately created this virus

If left unchecked, this smear campaign will become impossible to contain. One damaging social media disinformation drive involved a WhatsApp message alleging that a Japanese Nobel Laureate had ‘confirmed’ that China manufactured Covid on the grounds that had it been natural, the virus would have only affected those countries with similar temperatures, instead of spreading to snowy climates and deserts alike. This message first appeared back in February 2020 and as of May of the same year, it had been shared more over 10,000 times in multiple languages. Keep in mind that the scientist in question publicly refuted the allegations last April. Moreover, another false assertion is the claim that he had worked in a laboratory in Wuhan, whereas the gentleman has only worked in Japan and the US.

Thus myself and others who are affiliated with the ‘Friends of China’ group have mobilised to report such malicious messages to the relevant social media platforms. Nevertheless, it is every citizens’ duty to exercise extreme caution when forwarding such messages. Particularly those that target China within the Pakistan context.

The writer is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, Director Devcom-Pakistan, a policy advocacy and outreach think tank in Islamabad. He can either reached at devcom.pakistan @gmail.com and tweets @EmmayeSyed