China censored Vice President Mike Pence’s criticism during the debate Wednesday night of the communist government’s handling of the coronavirus.
A tweet by Nathan VanderKlippe, the Beijing correspondent for Toronto Globe and Mail, featured a screenshot of the Chinese broadcast with the message “No signal please stand by” while Pence was speaking.
The signal returned when Harris resumed speaking.
China censored Pence’s comments on China. Signal returned when Harris began talking again. pic.twitter.com/0VEMAqDA95
— Nathan VanderKlippe (@nvanderklippe) October 8, 2020
The full segment is seen here:
“China is to blame for the coronavirus, and President Trump is not happy about it,” Pence said. “He’s made it very clear. He made it clear again today. China and the World Health Organization did not play straight with the American people. They did not let our personnel into China to get information on the coronavirus until the middle of February.”
The vice president also noted that since President Trump was elected, he’s been standing up to China, which for years had been “taking advantage of America.”
Meanwhile, Pence accused Joe Biden of being a cheerleader for China.
VanderKlippen said China “censored Pence’s comments on China. Signal returned when Harris began talking again.”
The Federalist reported the censorship “comes a month after reporting from the U.S. intelligence community accused China and Iran of attempting to undermine the incumbent president’s re-election chances in hopes of a Joe Biden presidency.”
The Russians, on the other hand, are attempting to “denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment.'”
The Federalist cited William Evanina, the head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.
“Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters’ preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people’s confidence in our democratic process,” he said.
“They may also seek to compromise our election infrastructure for a range of possible purposes, such as interfering with the voting process, stealing sensitive data, or calling into question the validity of the election results. However, it would be difficult for our adversaries to interfere with or manipulate voting results at scale.”
