U.S. anti-propaganda law risks revival of Cold War: Chinese media

Days after U.S. President Barack Obama signed a counter-propaganda bill into law, Chinese media has warned that with such a move China and the U.S. might be heading towards or more accurately slipping back into an ideological war.

An article in the Global Times said that many observers consider the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act a response to China and Russia's growing soft power.

"Although China is only mentioned once in the act, there is no doubt the future rival of the US is included as a target," it said.

American Senators Rob Portman and Chris Murphy, architects of the legislation, insinuated that the billions China spends investing in foreign propaganda efforts are worrying, and claimed that China uses disinformation to seize the initiative in moves such as land reclamation in the South China Sea which "catches the US and its allies off guard."

It said that ideology used to be a bone of contention in the Cold War but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its significance in international relations decreased and peace and development has become the main topics of the world.

Major powers have also cast aside ideology from being an essential element in their interactions, and now focus their attention on the economy and geopolitics.

It added that even yet ideology has never been abandoned. The end of the Cold War has always been praised by the Western world as a victory for their values.

With this act, the U.S. has, once again, revived the road to an ideological war. To some extent, the U.S. is resurrecting McCarthyism, creating antagonistic emotions in and out of the U.S. The current will breed more splits in US society and more distrust between China and the U.S., it said.

The article warned that to bring up ideological weapons is not a wise choice saying it is a deceit by which the U.S. still wishes to contain China's rise.

Washington should understand the old mind-set of overwhelming one ideology with another will only lead the world into Cold War again.