Not Always Selfless

Chinese Soft Power in the Visegrad Region

6 April 2020

Julia Jabłońska

The country has overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of giving in to it, it has helped others, instead of thinking only about itself – in times of coronavirus China has consistently built its positive image. And to those who persistently repeat that it all started in Wuhan, China suggests asking: “did it really?”

The Global Times, a Chinese propaganda machine, recently reported that cases of “an unexplained strain of pneumonia with highly suspected symptoms of #COVID19” had already appeared in Italy in early November and December last year.

So the pandemic started in Italy? Or maybe in the United States?

“This is so astonishing that it changed many things I used to believe in,” wrote Lijian Zhao, one of the spokesmen for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Twitter, recommending an article to prove that the pandemic started in the United States.

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