China has accused the US of being “the empire of lies” after the publication of a report by American diplomacy, which Beijing described as “biased”. The report states that China is promoting disinformation around the world.

This report by the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department agency aimed at combating disinformation, accuses Beijing of spending billions of dollars a year on businesses “manipulation of information abroad”.

According to the report published on Thursday, China mainly promotes “digital authoritarianism” by funding propaganda, suppressing critical information or controlling Chinese-language media.

GEC coordinator James Rubin said that if nothing is done, he fears “a slow and methodical erosion of democratic values.”

In a statement issued on Saturday night, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the report “contrary to the facts and biased”, which “it’s the same misinformation.”

“The US is itself the pioneer of the information war aimed at public opinion,” he stressed.

The ministry reported in the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird during the Cold War, which aimed to influence the US and foreign media, or even the 2003 speech by then US Secretary of State Colin Powell before the UN Security Council in which he claimed that Iraq had weapons mass destruction.

“Events have repeatedly proven that the US is more than worthy of its title of the empire of lies,” China’s foreign ministry said.

“More and more people are seeing beyond the layer of lies that the US spins to cover up its own misdeeds and the less than glorious way in which it maintains its hegemony, tarnishing others,” he added.

Beijing also accuses Washington of spreading “the lie of the century” about Chinese policy in Xinjiang province.

The US, for its part, blames China that it is committing “genocide” in this province at the expense of the Uyghur Muslim minority.