China has lashed out at The New York Times (NYT) for its report claiming Beijing’s bots were behind the disinformation campaign encouraging violence on the Charlie Kirk issue in the US. In a statement issued on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Beijing was against “spreading false information to slander China.”
Jian added that China condemned all illegal acts of violence and opposed “certain US media and individuals frequently directing the issue at China."
An article that appeared in the NYT on Thursday claimed China, Russia, and Iran were “spreading thousands of false or incendiary claims” about what happened to Kirk to “stoke political divisions or to portray the United States as a dysfunctional country.” Quoting an analysis by NewsGuard, a company that tracked disinformation online, the NYT said the official state media in the three countries mentioned Kirk 6,200 times from Sept. 10 to Sept. 17, framing the killing as a conspiracy. It then went on to underscore remarks made by Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who claimed “bots from Russia, China, all over the world, that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.”
When asked to comment on an inquiry regarding claim made by US relevant authorities that China and other countries are using Charlie Kirk's killing to defame the US globally, spreading thousands of false or incendiary information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian… pic.twitter.com/I1s3Ahfs9E
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) September 18, 2025
Chinese state-backed Global Times also didn’t mince words about the report. An article that appeared on Thursday night hit out at the NYT for its “attempt to distract attention from the country's own problems” and accused it of “evading the internal structural issues and political dysfunction within the US.”
In a hard-hitting piece, the Global Times said the US "blame-shifting" script was well-established. “When an incident occurs, external factors are identified and accused of amplifying the crisis, the issue is reframed as a matter of national security, and internal contradictions are ignored,” it said, adding that Kirk’s murder was no different.
It said the US media playing out this script was nothing but political deflection. “Non-contentious issues such as gun control, law enforcement gaps, and political violence were downplayed or ignored altogether, while the media and politicians easily turn to ready-made 'scapegoats' to divert attention from the real problems at hand,” it said.
The Global Times also pointed out the “truth” to the US, stating the “root of the problem still lies within the US itself”.
Highlighting political polarisation and gun violence, the piece said: “Media hype aimed at distracting attention toward external powers serves as little more than an ostrich burying its head in the sand - it cannot conceal the severity of domestic problems.”
