Interview: U.S. fabricates Xinjiang-related misinformation to contain China, not to protect human rights -- Italian scholar

BEIJING, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The false accusations against Xinjiang made by the U.S. government, media and government-sponsored NGOs is not to protect human rights, but to contain China, an Italian scholar has said.

Solely for geopolitical interests, the United States has systematically fabricated and spread misinformation on Xinjiang, and "the main purpose of this campaign is to contain China and destabilize it," said Fabio Massimo Parenti, a foreign associate professor at China Foreign Affairs University and a professor of international studies at the International Institute Lorenzo de' Medici in Italy's Florence.

The source of accusations against China's human rights record is not based on verifiable facts but on concocted figures and stories, Parenti told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Some politicians as well as government agencies, media outlets, think tanks and academic institutions in the United States have long colluded in creating an enemy and fueling fear among people to justify certain U.S. foreign policies, Parenti said, adding those policies have all been based on a hegemonic logic and zero-sum mindset.

The U.S. media, in particular, is using "war journalism" again when reporting Xinjiang, Parenti noted.

"There are no significant differences between what American media has done with Kosovo, Iraq, Syria and with China's Xinjiang in terms of propaganda techniques: news fabrication, usage of false testimonies, false news repetition ad nauseam, censorship of alternative explanations and perspectives, campaign of personal discredit against independent journalists and scholars, etc," he said.

The United States, Parenti said, has developed the most sophisticated modern propaganda machine, which has been used to wage wars around the world for more than a century.

The history of the machine goes back to 1916, when the Committee on Public Information, also known as the Creel Committee, was created under late U.S. President Thomas Woodrow Wilson's administration to influence public opinion to support the country in fighting World War I, he noted.

Apart from U.S. media, NGOs affiliated with the U.S. government are another crucial chain in the circulation of fake information, Parenti said.

Take the World Uyghur Congress for example. The organization dedicated to separating Xinjiang from China is sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy, an agency directly financed by U.S. Congress, he noted.

Parenti said it is necessary and important to not only unveil the hypocrisy of the U.S. propaganda machine and the real interests behind, but also promote alternative channels for information production and circulation based on quality and higher professional standards.