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| Protestors hold signs promoting “disinformation” [lies] about Bob Fu. (Photo: China Aid) |
(Midland, TX —Oct. 23, 2020) Throughout the past month, Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire, has launched and fueled a disinformation campaign targeting Bob Fu, founder of China Aid, the underground church leader who escaped China in the mid-1990s. Like Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister who used propaganda [disinformation and/or lies], to support the Nazi regime, Guo spreads falsehoods trying to eliminate Fu and other opponents.
Using lies [propaganda and disinformation] to sow confusion and plant doubt over self-evident causes by casting suspicion on crusaders, especially long-serving ones like Bob Fu, portrays a strategy “alive and well” throughout the world.
Why would a self-proclaimed anti-Communist [Guo] put other anti-Communists [like Bob Fu] on a hit list? The answer reflects the essence of a disinformation campaign.
In one of his propaganda videos, Guo, puffing on a cigar, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap, said, “Let’s eliminate traitors in the world,” Guo—who’s lived in the United States since 2015—fingered Fu and other Chinese dissidents. His targets served jail time under China’s Communist Party (CCP) before the United States granted them asylum. Guo, professing anti-CCP sentiments himself, said of the dissidents, “They all deserve to die.”
Since Guo pinned Fu atop a “global traitor elimination list,” busloads of protesters began showing up outside Fu’s home in Midland, Texas. Mindy Belz wrote in:
The FBI and local law enforcement found the threats credible. ChinaAid, the human rights organization Fu founded, has closed its offices for now. On Oct. 5, police moved Fu, his wife, and two of their three children into protective custody at an undisclosed location. The first time I spoke to Fu by phone, he said, “The threats are very real.”
- …Strategic Vision, a research firm that became the target of a Guo defamation suit, concluded Guo “was not the dissident he claimed to be” but “a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.” His media stunts, according to the firm, actually are aimed at uncovering Chinese nationals believed to be helping the U.S. government.
- We in the free West sit surrounded by many “weapons of mass distraction”—disinformation from media and even leaders designed to foster chaos rather than order, to sow doubt where truth should be obvious. But this isn’t mere entertainment or someone’s shtick. Bob Fu’s story shows how disinformation can endanger even “average” Americans. We can’t afford to dismiss it with cynicism or complacency.
- Fu is fortunate to have a long public record and supporters stretching around the globe, particularly from Midland to Washington, D.C. Midland Mayor Payton held press conferences to help defuse the scene at Fu’s house, encouraged neighbors not to confront the protesters, and vowed to protect their property. Police have arrested protesters for trespassing, even jaywalking, he said.
- Area pastors held a rally for Fu at a nearby outdoor amphitheater and issued statements of support. On Capitol Hill, where Fu has provided expert testimony at least 13 times before congressional committees, lawmakers rallied to his defense.
- Fu and his family continued in hiding, his offices for ChinaAid closed and the work to shed light on CCP atrocities suspended. “We are holding together,” Fu told me. “The children are realizing there is a price to pay for religious advocacy, even on U.S. soil.”
 Bob Fu shares his story in God’s Double Agent. (Photo: China Aid) |
