Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign against China at height of COVID pandemic

A Reuters investigation published Friday revealed that the Pentagon ran a "clandestine operation" aimed at discrediting China's coronavirus vaccines and treatments, a campaign that U.S. public health experts and others condemned as a cynical ploy that endangered lives for political purposes.

According to Reuters, the Pentagon's secretive campaign was designed to counter what the U.S. "perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines," a country that was ravaged by Covid-19. The virus, which killed millions of people globally, was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019.

The campaign reportedly began in the spring of 2020 and was terminated in the middle of 2021 after it had expanded beyond Southeast Asia to Central Asia and the Middle East. U.S. officials involved in the effort worked "to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other lifesaving aid that was being supplied by China" using "phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos," Reuters found.

"Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits, and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines—China's Sinovac inoculation," the news agency added. "Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus—Tagalog for China is the virus."

One tweet that Reuters described as "typical" exclaimed that "COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!"

Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine who previously worked as a military physician, told Reuters that he was "extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would" conduct such an operation.

"I don't think it's defensible," Lucey added.

"We were literally ready to let people die to avoid giving China a PR win."

Others expressed outrage on social media. Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, called the Pentagon's campaign "truly shameful" and lamented that "we were literally ready to let people die to avoid giving China a PR win."

"That 'pork in the vaccine' nonsense you saw on Facebook was U.S. taxpayer-funded," Sandefur wrote.

Reuters reported that a "key part" of the Pentagon's strategy was to "amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law."

"Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day," the agency noted.

One senior U.S. military officer whom Reuters described as directly involved with the propaganda campaign in Southeast Asia told the outlet that "we didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners," so "what was left to us was to throw shade on China's." The U.S. and other rich countries repeatedly obstructed efforts to lift vaccine patents to more widely distribute coronavirus shots.

Pressed by Reuters, the Pentagon acknowledged that the U.S. military launched a propaganda effort attacking the efficacy of China's vaccine.

World Health Organization (WHO) guidance released in June 2022 stated that China's Sinovac vaccine is "safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above."

"A large phase 3 trial in Brazil showed that two doses, administered at an interval of 14 days, had an efficacy of 51% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 100% against severe COVID-19, and 100% against hospitalization starting 14 days after receiving the second dose," the WHO said.

Reuters reported that some within the U.S. State Department objected to the Pentagon's effort to promote skepticism about China's vaccine, arguing that a "health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation."

"But in 2019, before Covid surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign," Reuters observed. "The order elevated the Pentagon's competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries."

"The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even 'outside of areas of active hostilities,'" the agency added.