Illulstration:Liu Rui/GT

CNN on Saturday reported that "among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered [one] pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest," The FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country's nuclear weapons," citing more than a dozen unnamed sources. The report said that the so-called anonymous sources included incumbent and former national security officials. One former FBI official said, "It would impact our ability for essentially command and control with the nuclear triad."

How scary this is! The Pentagon and even the nuclear command and control system are under major threat from Huawei's equipment just under the noses of the US, and this is happening against the backdrop in which the US government has exerted maximum pressure and exclusion on Huawei. How can this make those Americans who believe in the "China threat" fall sleep? It has to be said that the imagination and storytelling ability of the US national security department have rapidly "improved" after years of practice and exercise in exaggerating the "China threat." This time, they came up with a "panic rating" playbook.

One might ask, are the communications defense capabilities of the Pentagon or even the US nuclear chain of command so weak? Can a civilian cell tower device easily monitor or jam them? Where does the US spend its annual defense budget of more than $800 billion? Or has Huawei's technology reached a mythical and unfathomable level of development? Equip oneself with basic professional knowledge, anyone will naturally think about whether factors such as frequency, modulation mode, coverage, data structure of civilian base stations have zero intersection with the military ones.

As soon as answers to these queries are found, one will immediately notice how absurd this CNN report is. However, in a society where the country's former top politician publicly suggested "injecting oneself with disinfectant" to kill the novel coronavirus, and where part of the public burned the 5G equipment because they believed the idea that 5G base stations spread COVID-19, many groundless allegations contrary to common sense lack neither soil for their birth nor the conditions to spread on a large scale. And if rumormongering and rumor-spreading become an increasingly common national behavior, or a geopolitical tactic, its destructive and deceptive nature will become even larger. This is exactly the US way of "competing" with China.

Just two days before the CNN released its report, the British news agency Reuters issued an "exclusive" about how the Joe Biden administration was investigating whether US cell towers with Huawei equipment could capture information from the country's military bases and missile silos. It is wondered whether the US and British media and intelligence agencies themselves were laughing up their sleeves when they said such things. Since 2018, the US government has removed or replaced as much equipment from the Chinese tech company as possible, however some Huawei equipment, mostly outdated 4G and even 3G products, is still being used in remote areas in the US. Some experts say that some devices in the US have already been used for about eight to 10 years, but according to the US medit,  it is only now that Washington discovered that using Huawei gear "could disrupt US nuclear arsenal communications." Wouldn't it be a slap in the face of Washington by CNN and the FBI?

For years, Washington has been making up lies about Huawei and "security threats from China." But it still hasn't found a single piece of solid evidence. It can rely only on fabricating new lies to layer over the old ones, proving that US lies are simply embarrassing in the face of reality. US Congress last year allocated $1.9 billion to Federal Communications Commission's Rip and Replace program aimed at helping rural telecom providers replace Chinese network equipment. But the plan didn't work quite well, as the actual funds requested were almost three times the available budget. Earlier this year, several major US airlines also joined a boycott of domestic 5G equipment. The hyping of the "China threat" in the face of problems has become a helpful tactic for Washington to deal with these complex conflicts and divergences at home. And now the US even unwarrantedly labels China for committing the "heinous crime" of disrupting US nuclear arsenal communications. The question is, how long can China still "cover up" the US' incompetence?

It is worth noting that most of this type of information, which appears to be nonsense to the professionals, is leaked to the media by anonymous sources. As one can imagine, these people know it's a lie, so they don't even dare to reveal who they are. However, such anti-intellectualist nonsense has been spreading unobstructedly in the US and Western public opinion arenas. They seldom receive scientific and rational correction and clarification. While anti-China sentiment has gradually become "politically correct" in the US, ignorance and paranoia are taking Washington's high ground. It is regrettable to witness such a collective regression and degradation.