🚨 In a wild twist uncovered by Reuters, the Pentagon secretly ran a campaign to discredit China's COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic! 😱 What's the scoop? According to the investigation, the U.S. military orchestrated a covert operation targeting China's vaccine efforts, especially in the Philippines—a country hit hard by the virus. 🇵🇭 They found over 300 accounts on X (formerly Twitter) pretending to be Filipinos, trashing Chinese-made face masks, test kits, and the Sinovac vaccine. 🦠💉 These accounts popped up in the summer of 2020, blasting the hashtag #Chinaangvirus—a Tagalog phrase slamming China as the virus itself. 😮 X took down these profiles after Reuters flagged them, calling it a \"coordinated bot campaign.\" 🤖 The secret operation reportedly kicked off under former President Trump and carried on into the early days of Biden's term. 🇺🇸🕵️♂️ A senior U.S. Defense Department official admitted to the campaign but kept the details hush-hush. 🤐 So, why all the shade? With China's vaccine diplomacy gaining traction in developing countries like the Philippines, the U.S. was feeling the heat. 🔥 One U.S. military officer told Reuters, \"We didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners… So what was left to us was to throw shade on China's.\" 😬 Neither Trump's nor Biden's teams commented on the undercover program. Meanwhile, the Chinese Foreign Ministry clapped back, accusing the U.S. of \"spreading disinformation\" and calling out its \"obsession with supremacy and hypocrisy.\" 🗣️💥 This revelation shines a light on the lengths countries will go in the battle over global influence—even during a pandemic. 🌍🤔 (Cover photo: Researcher at China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd. /AFP)
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Pentagon ran anti-China vaccine campaign during COVID, finds Reuters
cgtn.com
