The Infodemic—April 1
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Here are a few narratives - real and fake - that have caught our attention:
“A very, very large planeload of things,” is how Donald Trump described the aid that Russia has sent to the United States. Apparently it hasn’t arrived yet and it’s not yet clear what is inside the plane. Meantime, we teamed up with reporters at La Stampa to figure out what Russians sent to Italy. More on that below.
China’s Ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, has been working hard to show how China’s response to Covid-19 is a huge win for authoritarianism. In a weekend blog post entitled “observations of a Chinese diplomat stationed in Paris,” he described Europe’s coronavirus response as “highlighting the limits of individualism and selfishness.” He went on to describe Asia’s “sense of community that’s sorely lacking in Western countries,” citing it as a reason why Europe and the US are struggling to contain the pandemic. Shaye praised China’s coronavirus response most of all, saying the lockdown wouldn’t have been possible “without a great regime.” “China is labeled a "dictatorship,” he wrote, “but when the epidemic started to rage, it was China that the whole world asked for help, not the so-called “flagship of democracy” – the United States.” Shaye’s comments are in line with a coordinated propaganda campaign waged by the Chinese Communist Party that seeks to divert any blame for the pandemic away from China.