The EU is officially calling China a disinformation source over coronavirus

Tensions continue to rise between the United States and China, and the European Union is in the thick of it as well.

The EU often criticizes Russia for spreading disinformation across the continent, but on Wednesday the governing body leveled similar accusations at Beijing for the first time, specifically in regards to the coronavirus pandemic. In a new statement outlining its plans to combat COVID-19 falsehoods, the EU said "foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted operations and disinformation in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally."

Jakub Kalenský, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, said the willingness to call out China in this instance is a "good thing," especially because there are still officials in Brussels who want to refrain from exacerbating the situation. "Russia and China are by far the biggest part of the problem," he said.

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China, for its part, said it's "always opposed to the fabrication and dissemination of disinformation" and that it is a "victim," not an initiator of such actions. Read the EU's statement here and more at Politico.