As scientists continue to study how the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Wuhan, China, and around the world, the infection’s early pathways have proven fertile ground for speculation and conspiracy theories. Although COVID-19’s earliest origins may remain uncertain, the story of one volley in the ongoing U.S.-China blame game shows that misinformation about the disease can be traced to specific speculations, distortions, and amplifications. 

A hostile messaging war between U.S. and Chinese officials seeking to deflect blame for the pandemic’s harms has included the U.S. president labeling the pandemic a “Chinese virus” to a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson spreading unfounded speculation that the U.S. military had a hand in introducing the virus to Wuhan. That speculation fed off of widely debunked theories that the virus was human-engineered and the fact that U.S. military personnel took part in the Military World Games in Wuhan in October 2019.

On March 12, Zhao Lijian, a deputy director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Information Department, took to Twitter with a video clip in which U.S. Centers for Disease Control chief Robert Redfield said some patients who died from COVID-19 might not have been tested. Zhao added: “It might be US army [sic] who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

Lijian Zhao shares a tweet alleging U.S. military involvement in introducing the virus to Wuhan.
 

A few hours later, Zhao shared an article from a conspiracy site entitled “Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.”

Another Tweet by Lijian Zhao claiming to have evidence for a U.S. origin of the virus.
 

Zhao’s implication that the United States and its military could be behind Wuhan’s outbreak, even inadvertently, sparked outrage. The U.S. government summoned Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, over the remarks. Cui later publicly disavowed the U.S. military conspiracy theory, and Chinese officials have not further amplified it.

Groundless speculation about the origins of the pandemic did not begin with Zhao, but the case of his eye-catching tweets reveals how China’s changing propaganda tactics have interacted with mangled news reporting, social media conspiracy theorizing, and underlying U.S.-China tensions—all resulting in high-profile misinformation about a public health crisis. 

An examination of social media posts across Weibo, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit in English, Chinese, and Japanese reveals the context and pathways that brought this particular conspiracy theory to Chinese state media and diplomatic channels. Weeks of speculation and online conspiracy theorizing about military links to the virus’ origins or emergence, combined with a broadening uncertainty about the circumstances of Wuhan’s outbreak and increasingly brittle U.S.-China rhetoric, laid the groundwork for Zhao’s inflammatory tweets and the reaction that followed.

Theories Involving the U.S. Military Circulated on Social Media as Early as January

Speculation or conspiracy theory writings about a potential role for the U.S. military in Wuhan’s outbreak circulated weeks before Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, amplified the idea on Twitter.

Since several platforms have pledged to remove disinformation related to the origin of the coronavirus, and our research started in mid-March, some materials could have been removed. Still, speculation about a U.S. role can be traced at least as far back as January. Though the earliest speculation did not necessarily catch on, some early references include:

• January 2: a Chinese-language YouTube channel had shared a video dismissing the idea that the pneumonia in Wuhan was the result of U.S. genetic warfare, which could imply at least some dissemination of the idea prior to this. 

• January 20: a Twitter user claimed the virus was 90% similar to one that had earlier been reported to a U.S. viral gene database.

• January 21: another Twitter account wrote plainly that the “pneumonia of unknown origin in Wuhan” was caused by a “biochemical weapon developed by the U.S. military.”

• January 31: a video appearing to be an old TV segment on alleged U.S. biological warfare during the Korean war was shared to YouTube with a title asking, “Were SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 U.S. Plots?”

By February 1, Twitter activity included speculation that the virus was linked to U.S. attendance at the Military World Games, which took place in Wuhan in October 2019—an idea that featured in the conspiracy theory article Zhao shared almost six weeks later. One account posted messages in response to CNN and BBC reporting claiming that the virus emerged near the hotel where U.S. participants stayed.

A Tweet posted verbatim several times suggesting a link between the Wuhan Military World Games, the U.S. military, and the coronavirus outbreak; here in a reply to a Tweet by CNN
 

The earliest instance of allegations of U.S. involvement that we found on Facebook was a Chinese-language post on February 6 linking to a now-removed YouTube video with the title, “The United States Made the Wuhan Virus 5 Years Ago? Causes Human Infection With Infectious Pneumonia. Situation Out of Control.” The YouTube channel behind the removed video, however, is still active and has posted another video on the conspiracy theory to its 246,000 followers. 

A post on 新聞世界 (“News World”) alleges U.S. involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak and links to a video titled “美国5年前制造了武汉病毒？可致人感染传染性肺炎。局面失控。” (“The United States Made the Wuhan Virus 5 Years Ago? Causes Human Infection With Infectious Pneumonia. Situation Out of Control.”)
 

On February 21st, a now-deleted Japanese TV report suggested that COVID-19 had been active in the United States in 2019. This report was shared in various posts on Facebook and Chinese social media, which used the report as evidence to speculate that U.S. military participants in the Military World Games might have carried the virus with them.

A Facebook page sharing Chinese social media posts and an image from a Japanese TV report that had suggested COVID-19 was active in the United States in 2019. The post raises conspiracy theories.
 

From Unknown Animal Origin to Unknown Geographical Origin

Chinese state media has carried a variety of narratives about the pandemic over time, and indeed it has carried competing theories as expressed by different sources. In general, however, over the period from January leading up to the attention-getting Foreign Ministry tweets in March, reporting shifted from suspicions of animal origin to questions about whether the virus could have been carried to Wuhan by humans from another location.

• January 29: The foreign-facing state broadcaster CGTN noted that although “the exact origins of this virus are still unknown, medical researchers believe it originated from an animal.”

• February 10: CGTN shared a video on its Facebook page labeled “Facts Tell” and dismissing “bogus claims” in coronavirus-related conspiracy theories. It stated that the coronavirus is not man-made and argued against a Washington Times article speculating that the virus might have escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.

Chinese broadcaster CGTN’s February 10 video states that the novel coronavirus is not man-made
 

• February 22: The Global Times — a provocative and often nationalistic tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily — cast doubt on the geographic origin of the virus, citing a Chinese study claiming that the coronavirus did not originate in the Huanan Seafood market as originally believed. 

• February 23: A Global Times article published by People’s Daily Online referenced the now-deleted Japanese TV report speculating that COVID-19 might have been active and misidentified as influenza in the United States in 2019. The article quoted social media speculation that U.S. participants in the Military World Games in October might have carried the virus to Wuhan

• February 27: The prominent Chinese doctor Zhong Nanshan remarked at a press conference that the geographic origin of the virus was still unknown and that it could have come from outside of China. His comments were carried widely, including by CGTN.

• In Facebook posts on March 5 and March 6, the official Chinese newswire Xinhua proclaimed the origin of the virus “undetermined” and suggested it may have originated outside China

• March 11: The People’s Daily on Facebook mentioned the Huanan Seafood Market as the “potential origin” of the virus.

Over a period of six weeks, official Chinese media references broadened uncertainty about COVID-19’s origins from an unknown animal to an unknown place.

Under Pressure, China’s Foreign Ministry Sows Doubt About the Outbreak’s Origins

By March 4, uncertainty about the geographic origin of the virus had made it to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s podium, where Zhao Lijian argued against the idea that the pandemic was a “China virus” and referenced Zhong Nanshan in saying that the outbreak first appeared in China but it may not originate there. The Chinese Embassy in South Africa amplified that point on Twitter on March 8. 

Zhao was not only expressing uncertainty about origins; he was pushing back against persistent efforts to label SARS-CoV-2 a “Chinese virus” weeks after the World Health Organization had designated the disease “COVID-19” in part to avoid stigma related to geographically-linked names like “Wuhan Coronavirus.”

The criticism aimed at China’s government over its handling of the outbreak had been wide-ranging, and U.S. officials had also engaged in some conspiracy theorizing of their own. Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, had advanced a number of unfounded or speculative theories about the virus’ origin in late January and February. A conspiracy theorist talk radio website had also claimed “proof” that the virus was a Chinese military bioweapon in an article rated “false” by Politifact. 

By the time Zhao was pushing the U.S. military import theory and his Foreign Ministry colleagues were questioning whether the virus came from China at all, therefore, the U.S.–China blame game dynamic over the virus had already incorporated unsupported theories.

Still, Zhao’s March 12 speculation on Twitter that “It might be US army [sic] who brought the epidemic to Wuhan” drew widespread public attention, as Chinese government spokespeople had long made even their more inflammatory claims from the podium, as opposed to on Twitter. 

Zhao’s tweet was in part based on testimony by U.S. CDC Director Robert Redfield that it was possible some U.S. deaths assumed to be caused by influenza were actually COVID-19 cases—a message Zhao’s boss Hua Chunying, the ministry’s top spokesperson, also leveraged to argue “It is absolutely WRONG and INAPPROPRIATE to call this the Chinese coronavirus.”

This louder, more assertive online behavior from Chinese diplomats could well be the new normal. Reuters reported that Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued handwritten instructions last year to show a “fighting spirit.”

False Narratives on COVID-19’s Origins Remain Widespread

Ultimately, Zhao’s attention-grabbing tweets and statements from the Foreign Ministry podium may or may not set the tone for future Chinese government messaging. The international reaction, and Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai’s repudiation of the most blatant misinformation, may have changed the landscape for now.

Outside the halls of officialdom, however, social media remains a fertile and shifting ground for speculation and conspiracy theories. When searching for “新冠病毒” (“novel coronavirus”) on YouTube on March 22, 2020, the second autocomplete search suggestion was “The novel coronavirus is an American genetic weapon” (““新冠病毒是美国基因武器”). Trying the term again today, on March 31, however only yields the top result from the March 22 search Li Yongle, a popular YouTube channel various educational videos on various topics. This suggests Google-owned YouTube is still, as promised, taking measures to restrict disinformation related to the origin of COVID-19.

Screenshot from March 22, 2020:  “The novel coronavirus is an American genetic weapon” (““新冠病毒是美国基因武器”) is now the second autocomplete suggestion in YouTube if one searches for “novel coronavirus” in Chinese (“新冠病毒”). Suggestions have since been restricted.
 

On Chinese video sharing platform Watermelon Video (西瓜视频), the first suggestion when searching for “U.S. Army” (“美军“) on March 23 was “What did the U.S. Army do in Wuhan” (“美军到武汉干什么”). Today it is the fourth suggestion.

Screenshot from March 23, 2020: On Chinese video sharing platform Watermelon Video (西瓜视频), the first suggestion when searching for “U.S. Army” (“美军“) is “What did the U.S. Army do in Wuhan” (“美军到武汉干什么”). Today (March 31) it comes fourth.
 

In times of uncertainty, speculation, and political blame games, continued vigilance is key when it comes to assessing and sharing information—even, or sometimes especially, when it comes from state channels. Social media companies need to maintain their efforts to proactively remove unfounded speculation and disinformation on their own platforms, regardless of who posts it. Citizens and journalists should question the intentions an actor promoting online content may have before possibly amplifying misleading voices. The COVID-19 pandemic makes careful handling of information and fact-based decision-making even more crucial than usual.

An expanded version of this article was published on June 8, 2020 in the Harvard Misinformation Review.

The perception of China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been a significant challenge for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past two months. The CCP has been attempting to control the narrative and deflect blame since the start of the outbreak, both domestically and abroad. It has done this by drawing on its substantial state- and CCP-owned media apparatus.  

Chinese state media produces and disseminates daily English-language content to English-speaking audiences via Facebook and Twitter (platforms that are technically banned in China). Chinese state media’s English-language Facebook pages post very frequently, and have extremely large audiences. CGTN has over 96 million Page likes; CNN in contrast has only 32 million. These media properties run ads regularly to grow their audiences, which suggests that China invests in these pages as a tool for communicating its message to the English-speaking world. Facebook’s Ads Library shows specific regional ad targeting in India (Punjab State), Nepal, Bangladesh (Dhaka) and the Philippines (Manila), suggesting that English is used to communicate state views to a broad global audience.

To look at how coronavirus narratives targeting English-speaking audiences have played out on Chinese state media, and how they evolved as the outbreak has moved through various phases, we analyzed a data set of Facebook posts containing the keyword “coronavirus” from two distinct sets of media properties: 1) a collection of English-language Chinese (state) media outlets, and 2) a collection of U.S. media outlets*. This “coronavirus” dataset contained 6,870 posts from Chinese media between December 31, 2019 and March 16, 2020, and 13,522 posts from U.S. media outlets over the same period. While Chinese media has increased its coronavirus coverage in January and stayed at a consistent level since then, U.S. media Facebook posts on the coronavirus stayed at low levels until late February, then soared (see histograms below).

 
Chinese outlets (left) increase the number of Facebook posts on coronavirus in late January. U.S. media coverage was light until a sudden increase of posts since late February.

China’s media spin: rapid recovery 

Chinese and U.S. media articles display different levels of both alarmism and optimism in their coverage of the global pandemic. Chinese outlets included many articles with a focus on positive stories such as the number of recovered patients and examples of successful treatments, while U.S. media reported on new cases of infections and trends in death. For example, Chinese state media reported on a coronavirus patient who gave birth to a healthy baby not infected with coronavirus, whereas the U.S. media told the story of a different newborn in Wuhan who had become the youngest coronavirus patient. CNN credited the story’s source as Chinese state media CCTV, yet no English-language Chinese state media posted this story on their Facebook pages. 

Chinese state outlet China Daily (left) reports on a baby born to a coronavirus patient with no infection, whereas CNN (right) reports on a newborn baby becoming the youngest person diagnosed with coronavirus

We searched our dataset for the word “patient” and analyzed words commonly used before or after “patient” in Facebook posts made by Chinese state media and U.S. mainstream media. From December 31, 2019 to March 16, 2020, the term “infected” was commonly used in connection with “patient” in both the American and Chinese media (see word clouds below). However, beyond that common term, there are significant divergences, such as the U.S. media reporting on patients as “sick” or “affected”, and the Chinese media frequently mentioning treatment- and recovery-related terms such as “treating”, “recovered”, “discharged” and “cured”.

Words frequently used in connection with the word “patient” by Chinese media (left) and U.S. media (right); Exclude “patient” and the term “coronavirus” for better visibility of other terms. Chinese media use several recovery- and treatment-related terms.

The English-language Chinese state media has also aggressively reported positive stories about the make-shift hospitals built for China’s immediate emergency response to the coronavirus outbreak. Leishenshan and Huoshenshan hospitals were built in just a few days in late January to early February. Chinese state media disseminated stories about how the international community was “impressed” with China’s rapid building capacity, calling the quick progress of the construction a “miracle.” U.S. media also reported on the rapid building of the hospitals but presented them in a less positive light, saying they were a response to overwhelmed medical facilities or that the temporary structures should not be characterized as hospitals. 

 
Chinese state outlet CGTN (left) calls the hospital a “construction miracle”, whereas NPR (right) reports on the building, but qualifies it that the term “hospital” for the building ”may not be exactly on point”

The Li Wenliang Case

A significant story that played out as the coronavirus outbreak unfolded was that of late whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, who was one of the first to report the existence of the novel disease warning fellow medics in a chat group on December 30, 2019. His warnings were shared publicly and reached a wide audience online. On January 3, 2020 police detained and forced him to sign a letter stating he had made “false comments.” In a late January post on Chinese social media Weibo, Li reported from his hospital bed that he was in an intensive care unit with breathing difficulty. Li Wenliang died of COVID-19 on February 7, 2020 at age 34. The significant public anger that erupted over his death created a very dangerous moment for the Chinese regime, and required Chinese media to delicately balance covering his story without casting the Chinese government in a bad light.

In our dataset, there are 24 posts by Chinese media and 24 posts by U.S. media containing “Li Wenliang”. The word clouds below represent the 50 most common words used in these articles after filtering out common words such as “the” and excluding the terms “coronavirus”, “li”, and “wenliang”. While in U.S. media, prominent terms associated with Li Wenliang include “silenced”, and “authorities”, these terms are notably absent in Chinese media. Chinese media instead focus on him being an “ophthalmologist” and expressing “condolences”.

Image

Individual popular Facebook posts illustrate this contrast: The Facebook post with the highest engagement (49,093 Reactions, 2,242 times shared) posted by Chinese state media in English state they “deeply mourn” his death and that he passed away after “all-effort rescue.” There is no mention of the whistleblower controversy and the restrictions placed on him early in the outbreak.

Chinese state media outlet People’s Daily (left) post on Li Wenliang “mourning” his death, without mentioning his whistleblowing and repression faced by authorities; Most popular post in U.S. media on Li Wenliang (right) mentions he was “threatened” by Chinese officials

In contrast, the most popular social media posting on Li Wenliang in the U.S. media (27,263 Reactions, 43,190 times shared) mentions that he was “threatened” and that he had “sounded the alarm” on coronavirus. Other articles and posts in U.S. media link Li Wenliang’s case to censorship and suppression in China, mentioning how Chinese netizens have demanded freedom of speech since the details of Wenliang’s story were brought to light.

A popular NPR post links Li Wenliang’s name to censorship in China

‘Buying the world time’ vs. ‘Botching the response’

Early in the global outbreak, Chinese outlets declared a local victory over the virus, stating that China’s efforts had prevented coronavirus from infecting the world, boasting: “Were it not for the unique institutional advantages of the Chinese system, the world might be battling a devastating pandemic.”  As global coronavirus infections near two hundred thousand, and cases of infection and deaths outside China surpass those within, this narrative has become less defensible.

 China has responded by increasing its efforts to position itself as a world leader in virus response and a model of effective governance whilst blaming the United States for the coronavirus pandemic. While U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien has stated that China’s silencing of whistleblowers and covering up early cases in fact exacerbated the global outbreak, Chinese state media has disseminated a statement by Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General of the WHO who visited China on a WHO-mission, saying that China’s response “bought the world time” and that the global community should be “grateful.”

Chinese state media (here: Xinhua) widely shared a statement by Bruce Aylward of the Chinese WHO office saying that China’s response had bought the world time 

The narrative of China’s strategy ‘buying the world time’ has been covered and discussed in U.S. media as well, after World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also stated that China's response had bought the world time. MSNBC included the phrase in a Facebook post from March 13, 2020, which went on to discuss whether U.S. leadership had in fact missed the opportunity to take advantage of that time. The New York Times also referenced the phrase in the headline of a nuanced article on the same day, which similarly wondered why the rest of the world had simply watched the epidemic unfold. 

U.S. media outlet MSNBC discussing the comparative response of China and the U.S., including the narrative that “China has bought the world time”

Looking Forward

Chinese state media is not unique in evolving its narratives, or in spreading misinformation or omitting facts to cast itself in the best light possible for a global audience. In the U.S. media environment, the Fox News network has also dramatically shifted their coverage of the coronavirus disease in response to political considerations, adjusting their coverage to make the U.S. executive branch leadership look like leaders. This tone change was so brazen that the Washington Post labeled it “a petri dish for misinformation.” While we did not include far left or far right U.S. media sources in our data set for the above analysis, other US news outlets also downplayed the threat.

In the latest activity from the U.S. media, there is now a dichotomy in coverage: many conservative outlets are accusing the Chinese government of causing a global pandemic due to the significant missteps in their early response, and deflecting blame from the Trump Administration's own failures. The other side is reporting on the problematic response in the United States, while highlighting later successful Chinese containment efforts.

The blame game will not be helpful. It is both true that the Chinese government made strikingly bad decisions in its early response to the virus - and also that the United States will suffer from its own lack of preparation. Meanwhile, amid the bungled U.S. COVID-19 response - including a lack of coordination even with close allies - the Chinese government is supporting hard-hit countries by sending supplies and medical experts, garnering praise from around the world. As Western democracies struggle to land on effective COVID-19 responses, experts expect a more aggressive narrative to come from Beijing.

* Chinese media: CGTN; People’s Daily, China; China Xinhua News; China Daily; Global Times; CGTN America
U.S. media: ABC News; ABC World News Tonight with David Muir; AP; CBS News; CNBC; CNN; CNN Politics; Fox News; Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, NBC News, NPR; NPR Politics; POLITICO; Reuters; The Atlantic; The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; TIME; Washington Post