NEW DELHI: China ran a disinformation campaign to hurt sales of the French Rafale fighter jet after India used the planes in May for the first time against Chinese weapons deployed by its neighbor Pakistan, a bipartisan US commission said this month in a report that the Chinese rejected as false information.
The report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was published on Tuesday and followed the signing of a letter of intent by Ukraine to obtain up to 100 Rafale fighters made by Dassault Aviation over the next 10 years.
More than half a dozen countries have bought the Rafale, whose reputation took a hit this year when Pakistan’s Chinese-made J-10 fighter shot down at least one Rafale used by India during a four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
China used fake social media accounts to share AI-generated images as well as video game images of supposed debris of aircraft that Chinese weaponry had destroyed, the commission said in a report to US Congress.
“The report issued by the committee itself is false,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in response to a Reuters request for comment.
