Chinese Businessman Linked To Steve Bannon Behind US Disinformation Network

US media is report­ing that a Chi­nese busi­ness­man linked to media exec­u­tive and for­mer Trump advi­sor Steve Ban­non is at the cen­ter of a dis­in­for­ma­tion net­work in the US push­ing elec­tion and covid false­hoods. Accord­ing to a Wash­ing­ton Post report:

May 17, 2021 A sprawl­ing online net­work tied to Chi­nese busi­ness­man Guo Wen­gui has become a potent plat­form for dis­in­for­ma­tion in the Unit­ed States, attack­ing the safe­ty of coro­n­avirus vac­cines, pro­mot­ing false elec­tion-fraud claims and spread­ing base­less QAnon con­spir­a­cies, accord­ing to research pub­lished Mon­day by the net­work analy­sis com­pa­ny Graphi­ka.  The report, pro­vid­ed in advance to The Wash­ing­ton Post, details a net­work that Graphi­ka says ampli­fies the views of Guo, a Chi­nese real estate devel­op­er whose asso­ci­a­tion with for­mer Trump White House advis­er Stephen K. Ban­non became a focus of news cov­er­age last year after Ban­non was arrest­ed aboard Guo’s yacht on fed­er­al fraud charges.  Graphi­ka said the net­work includes media web­sites such as GTV, for which Guo last year pub­licly said he was rais­ing funds, along with thou­sands of social media accounts that Graphi­ka said ampli­fy con­tent in a coor­di­nat­ed fash­ion. The net­work also includes more than a dozen local-action groups over which Guo has pub­licly claimed an over­sight role, Graphi­ka found.

Read the rest here.

Accord­ing to the full report, pub­lished by net­work analy­sis firm Graphi­ka, the fol­low­ing com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions play key roles in Guo Wengui’s dis­in­for­ma­tion network:

• Sara­ca Media Group
• GTV Media Group
• Himalaya Super­vi­so­ry Organization
• Rule of Law Soci­ety and Rule of Law Foundation
• Himalaya Fed­er­al Reserve

In 2019, US media report­ed that Guo Media, a sub­sidiary of Sara­ca Media Group, con­tract­ed with Ban­non for at least $1 mil­lion for “strate­gic con­sult­ing ser­vices.” In addi­tion, the arti­cle reports that Guo referred to Ban­non as a GTV board mem­ber in an April 2020 clip of Guo speak­ing about over­see­ing the sale of shares in media out­let GTV.

Steve Ban­non served as the White House­’s chief strate­gist in the admin­is­tra­tion of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump dur­ing the first sev­en months of Trump’s term and has been cred­it­ed as one of the archi­tects of Trump’s “Make Amer­i­ca Great Again” move­ment. As a for­mer exec­u­tive of far-right media orga­ni­za­tion Bre­it­bart News, Ban­non also was Trump’s link to the so-called alt-right move­ment involved in the Jan­u­ary storm­ing of the US Capitol.