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A tale cooked up by US news website Axios earlier this month which alleged that a suspected Chinese spy got access to California politicians and a congressman in a political intelligence operation run by China many years ago was complete fiction, and such fabrication shows that some US personnel deliberately use the Cold War mentality to poison China-US relations, a source told the Global Times on Monday.

The alleged Chinese woman was an international student,  Axios claimed, and citing FBI agents and her acquaintances, it accused her of trying to gain access to and influence US political circles. 

One California politician Axios named was California Congressman Eric Swalwell, who denied the accusations and noted the report was political retaliation for his criticism and impeachment of the incumbent president. 

The source told the Global Times on Monday that the Axios report was completely fabricated to slander China, and urged the US media and relevant personnel to stop violating a Chinese citizen’s reputation and cease poisoning  China-US relations with a Cold War mentality.   

“What they should do now is to make contributions to stabilizing China-US relations instead of concocting and spreading rumors,” the source said.  

Chinese observers also scoffed at the fake story, noting such reports reflected the degradation of US politics and moral corruption of American media. 

Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times that American intelligence agents have no evidence on these politicians and have to cut in by hinting about their lifestyle and social activities. 

Shen, in particular, criticized some American media which has lost professionalism and moral integrity in the distorted domestic political environment.
 
“Is the story based on facts and evidence? Is it of any value to report things that happened almost 10 years ago?” Shen asked, stressing the Axios and some other US news outlets described the whole thing as an ongoing story to hype the “China threat” because they knew their reports were pointless when readers found they were outdated. 

Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday that the absurd story exposed how a fabricated story can be used as a weapon to attack domestic political rivals, and also serve to smear China.
 
Shen and Lü believe such reporting shows that US society is sickened by McCarthyism. The US systematically distorts an understanding of China and some US media was just abiding by “political correctness.”

Last week, some Western media, using an alleged name list of 1.95 million members of the Communist Party of China (CPC), have launched a new round of witch hunts by accusing the people on the list of working in foreign consulates in China and foreign companies' China branches for intelligence purposes, even though the authenticity of the database has been highly questionable.

Shen said these Western media outlets are hyping such news to display “their so-called responsibility of defending national security from the China threat.”

The narrative (of the spy story) aims to build another Cold War between China and the US, Lü said. 

“We hope the US can fix this sickened atmosphere among their media after the incoming Biden administration formally takes  office in January, because to be frank, this will harm the US as well,” Lü further said.

Shen emphasized the US government is molding China into “an enemy to fear” to shake off its guilt in domestic failure and divert pressure from ordinary Americans. 

The US keeps blame-shifting and nobody reflects on the failure, nobody resigns or takes responsibility…American government and society are rotten to the core and China should focus on our development goals rather than spending time on these worthless things, Shen said.