U.S. has for long fallen prey to China’s strategic misinformation: WH

Top official Sebastian Gorkha alludes to notion that Beijing is no threat, says it has led to its ‘bullying activities.’

Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President at the White House, has said that the threat from China to the U.S. is real. “We need to understand it but it’s been counteracted by a narrative that says if we trade with China, this will lead to a reform of China and that hasn’t worked,” he says. This comes after the recent thaw in bilateral ties following President Donald Trump’s ratification of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping’s ‘One-China’ policy.

The United States has for decades fallen prey to “strategic misinformation” that China is not a “threat” which led the Communist giant to start “bullying activities,” a top White House official has said.

“I think China has used strategic misinformation for a long time,” said Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President at the White House, alleging that China for the past several decades has been successfully putting out “strategic disinformation campaign.”

“I found this very early in my career,” said Mr. Gorka, who is a national security professional specialising in irregular warfare, including counter-insurgency and counterterrorism during an interaction at the Heritage Foundation, a top American think-tank.

Mr. Gorka said that this “misinformation campaign” has reached the top American leadership.

“It has reached the highest levels of U.S. government, successive administrations have said various things, China is not a threat, and then when they became more and more of a threat, when they started bullying activities, military activities that were troubling then the narrative changed a little bit to do we want a strong China?” he told the audience.

It is a real threat

“Trying to do everything in way to play down the fact that they pose a threat to the United States Security; and so it’s one of the key things that we have to counteract,” he said, adding that for a number of years through his writing and reporting he is trying to show the threat from China.

“It is a real threat and we need to understand it but it’s been counteracted by a narrative that says if we trade with China, this will lead to a reform of China and that hasn’t worked,” he said.

“They are exporting a version of an anti-democratic system; and so that’s why I think it’s really important that we focus more on understanding the nature of that threat,” Mr. Gorka said.

Born in Britain, Mr. Gorka became a U.S. citizen in 2016.

According to Politico, he reports to strategist Steve Bannon and includes the Strategic Initiatives Group, Mr. Bannon’s in-house think-tank, in his email signature.

His portfolio at the White House includes focusing on terrorism and national security.