For example, according to the DFRLab (2020), China’s medical aid to Italy was combined with a “carefully designed propaganda strategy pushed through official channels”, such as the Chinese Embassy account, who tweeted in support of Italy’s struggle. One of the main hashtags tweeted by the embassy’s account, #ForzaCinaItalia (“go China and Italy”), reached an abnormally large online crowd. Research later found that over 45% of the accounts that shared the hashtag in the twelve days since it was posted by the embassy were automated accounts. In another case, on 10 March, two days before China sent its medical aid package to Italy, a Facebook page named “Grazie Cina” (“Thanks China”) appeared and quickly amassed thousands of followers while exclusively sharing content that was either pro-China or depicting the EU as Italy’s main aggravator. For example, one post mentioned that China was “the only serious and responsible interlocutor [for Italy] to tackle this crisis,” and condemned Germany and other EU countries for “stealing 800,000 masks” and other medical supplies bound for Italy. Much of the content shared by this page originated from government-affiliated and state media social media accounts, and nearly 40% of accounts who shared the hashtag #GrazieCina were found to be bots (DFRLab, 2020). In another incident during the pandemic, multiple videos began appearing on social media sites, all depicting Italians playing the Chinese national anthem out of their windows, in praise of its government’s assistance to Italy. The videos were widely shared by accounts officially linked to the Chinese government, including the China Global Television Network, the spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry, and “Learn Chinese”, which has about 3 million followers. However, approximately one week later, research done by Italian fact checkers discovered that all the videos were shot in the same location. Furthermore, all videos used the same audio track, suggesting a coordinated editing campaign based on a singular case rather than a popular movement (DFRLab, 2020). Like Italy, the US has also not been immune to COVID-based disinformation. In the outset of the pandemic in the US, panic spread in various parts of the country as some Americans received text messages stating the government would soon impose a nationwide lockdown. It was later revealed that these messages were amplified by Chinese agents. The messages were so widespread that the White House’s National Security Council had to issue an announcement via Twitter that the messages were fake (Wong et al., 2020). Another case targeting the US occurred on 12 March, one day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID19 a global pandemic. The spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeted an article claiming the virus originated and spread in the US, and not China. The tweet received tens of thousands of retweets and likes, with the participation of several diplomatic accounts, and was later reinforced by more false articles repeating the conspiracy (Wallace, 2020). The Telegraph has found that the Chinese state has also been successfully circumventing social media political ads rules and buying advertisements that praised China’s success in handling the COVID-19 crisis. According to the Telegraph “the ads are part of a worldwide propaganda campaign, coordinated across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and traditional media, attempting to depict China as a global leader in the fight against Covid-19 and drown out accusations that it made the crisis worse by trying to cover up its own breakout” (Dodds & Cook, 2020). Economic: Beyond spreading disinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government has been also been found trying to push pro-China messages concentrating on economic issues. After President Trump imposed tariffs on China in early 2018, Chinese media 74