U.S. told Philippines it made ‘missteps’ in secret anti-vax propaganda effort
A
health worker shows a vial of Sinovac Biotech’s Coronavac during the
vaccination of Philippine military at the national headquarters of the
Philippine Army in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, Metro Manila,
Philippines, March 2, 2021. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON,
July 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department admitted that it spread
propaganda in the Philippines aimed at disparaging China’s Sinovac
vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a June 25 document
cited by a former top government official earlier this month.
The
U.S. response to the Philippines was recounted in a podcast by Harry
Roque, who served as spokesman for former Philippine President Rodrigo
Duterte. Reuters subsequently reviewed the document, which hasn’t been
publicly released by either government. The news agency was able to
verify its contents with a source familiar with the U.S. response.
“It
is true that the (Department of Defense) did message Philippines
audiences questioning the safety and efficacy of Sinovac,” according to
the document, which references information sent from the U.S. Defense
Department to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and
Department of National Defense. According to the document, the Pentagon
also conceded it had “made some missteps in our COVID related messaging”
but assured the Philippines that the military “has vastly improved
oversight and accountability of information operations” since 2022.
The U.S. admission followed a June 14 Reuters investigation
that revealed how the Pentagon launched a secret psychological
operation to discredit Chinese vaccines and other COVID aid in 2020 and
2021, at the height of the pandemic. As a result of the Reuters
investigation, the Philippine Senate Foreign Relations Committee
launched a hearing into the matter and sought a response from the U.S.
According
to the June 25 document, Pentagon officials concluded its anti-vax
campaign was “misaligned with our priorities.” It says the U.S. military
told Filipino officials that operatives “ceased COVID-related messaging
related to COVID-19 origins and COVID-19 vaccines in August 2021.”
The
Philippines’ defense and foreign affairs departments did not respond to
requests for comment about the U.S. military’s admission that it ran
the propaganda program. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department
referred Reuters to the Defense Department for comment. Pentagon
spokesman Pete Nguyen declined to confirm the U.S. response cited in the
document. But he acknowledged the Pentagon did distribute “social media
content about the safety and efficacy of Sinovac.”
At
the time the Pentagon launched its campaign, national security
officials in Washington worried that China was exploiting the pandemic
to negotiate important geopolitical deals and undermine U.S. alliances
internationally by sending aid to the Philippines and other nations.
The
clandestine psychological operation uncovered by Reuters wasn’t limited
to the Philippines. It also targeted developing countries across
Central Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia in 2020 and 2021. The
Philippines and those other nations were, at the time, heavily reliant
on China’s Sinvoac to inoculate their populations against the deadly
virus.
Among
Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines was among those hit hardest
by the coronavirus. By 2024, COVID had killed almost 67,000 Filipinos,
and the number of infections there had reached more than 4 million,
according to World Health Organization data.
Working
with a group of defense contractors and other non-military partners,
the U.S. used networks of online bots and other phony social media
accounts to influence foreign audiences, Reuters found. The news agency
identified a network of hundreds of fake accounts on X, formerly
Twitter, that closely matched descriptions shared by former U.S.
military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. When Reuters
asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the
profiles after independently determining they were part of a coordinated
bot campaign. The Reuters article showcased a handful of these posts as
examples of the messaging.
Pentagon
spokesman Nguyen said an initial review by the Defense Department last
month “found that the U.S. military was not responsible for the
troubling social media content related to the Philippines” cited in the
Reuters report. Asked whether the social media accounts with those
particular posts were handled by contractors or other non-military
partners working on behalf of the U.S. government, Nguyen declined to
say. He also declined to answer questions about U.S. military anti-vax
propaganda efforts across Central Asia and the Middle East.
In
exposing the Pentagon’s anti-vax propaganda campaign, Reuters
interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials,
military contractors, social media analysts, academic researchers and
public health experts. The health experts called the propaganda campaign
indefensible, saying it put innocent lives at risk.
In
a statement to Chinese media after the Reuters investigation in June, a
Sinovac spokeswoman blasted the U.S. military. “Stigmatizing
vaccination will lead to a series of consequences, such as a lower
inoculation rate, the outbreak and spread of disease, social panic and
insecurity, as well as crises of confidence in science and public
health,” said Sinovac spokeswoman Yuan Youwei.
The
Reuters investigation has spurred a Senate investigation in the
Philippines led by Senator Imee Marcos, head of the Foreign Relations
committee. At a hearing on June 25, Marcos described the U.S. military
campaign as “evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical.” She questioned whether
it violated international law and wondered whether the Philippines had
any legal recourse.
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Reporting by Christopher Bing in Washington and Karen Lema in Manila. Edited by Blake Morrison.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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