(To read the Reuters investigation on reuters.com, click on

www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda

/)

By Christopher Bing and Karen Lema

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.