MANILA — The Philippines is still seeking clarification from the Pentagon about a secret U.S. propaganda operation that aimed to cast doubt among Filipinos about Chinese vaccines at the height of the COVID pandemic, a foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
A Reuters investigation on June 14 detailed how the Pentagon ran a clandestine influence campaign in 2020 and 2021 to denigrate the Sinovac vaccine and other pandemic aid from China across the developing world. READ: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic | Lawmakers push for probe into Pentagon’s anti-vax propaganda operation The effort was intended to counter what Washington then saw as China’s growing geopolitical sway around the globe, including in Southeast Asia. It began under former President Donald Trump and ended months after President Joseph Biden took office.
“We have not received an official and formal response yet on any confirmation, denial or anything. We are waiting on that. We continue to monitor and ask for information,” Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Jose Victor Chan-Gonzaga told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is investigating the U.
S. information campaign. As soon as the Reuters article came out, Chan-Gonzaga said the foreign ministry had contacted the U.
S. embassy in Manila through “our regular consultations mechanism” but had been referred to the U.S.
Defense Department. Contacted for further comment on Tuesday, the U.S.
embassy al.
