The United States has accused China and Russia of "accelerating" their advertising cooperation with regard to the emerging corona virus, with what it considers Beijing's increasing adoption of Russian "misinformation" technologies.
"Before the crisis linked to Covid-19, we noticed a certain level of coordination between Russia and the People's Republic of China in regards to advertising," said Lia Gabriel, the coordinator of the Center for Combating Foreign Propaganda at the US State Department.
"But with this pandemic, cooperation has accelerated," she added during a conference call.
According to the US State Department, Beijing has stepped up what Washington has described as a "disinformation campaign to defend the Chinese administration of the epidemic and criticism of the United States."
Li Gabriel said that the Chinese authorities "are increasingly using technologies that Moscow has employed for a long time" and talked about its increasing use of "software to publish its theses on social media through a large number of fake Twitter accounts that were created to intensify propaganda and misinformation", she said.