NEW DELHI: Prabir Purkayastha, editor of news website NewsClick, along with other Indian Leftists, engaged in discussions on how to defend China’s position regarding its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. These conversations included controversial US millionaire and Chinese propaganda peddler Neville Roy Singham.
During the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, Singham introduced his Beijing-based team to Purkayastha, Prasanth Radhakrishnan, a member of his team, and economist Srujana Bodapati through email. The purpose was to discuss a “research for a three-article series on China and its handling of the virus (and new request).”
Vijay Prasad, based in the US and editor of the Left-leaning website Tricontinental where the series was eventually published, also participated in the discussions. In an email dated March 30, 2020, Singham introduced his team, NewsClick journalists, Prasad, and others to Chinese journalist and his team member Weiyan Zhu, who had previously worked with China Daily.
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In the email, Singham, reportedly running a global propaganda network for the Communist Party of China (CCP), referred to the NewsClick journalists and Vijay Prasad as “international friends who work together on creating information for the people.”
Vijay Prasad is said to be the nephew of Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat.
“We are working together on a three-part series of articles on China and the handling of the corona virus. They will be originally syndicated by Globetrotter. Then all three will be assembled into a Tricontinental publication. The first is almost done (final editing by Globetrotter),” reads the email accessed by The New Indian.
Globetrotter is a global news syndicate platform where Vijay Prasad serves as the chief correspondent, and Purkayastha has been a fellow writer since 2021.
In the email, the US tech millionaire strongly advises against sharing the conversation with anyone else. “Vijay must have control of this. Once it is published then it can be circulated,” Singham wrote.
Attempts to reach Prabir Purkayastha and Vijay Prasad via phone calls and messages did not yield any response.
The articles titled “China and CoronaShock,” “CoronaShock and the Hybrid War Against Venezuela,” and “CoronaShock and Socialism” were published over a period of three months starting from April 28, 2020.
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These articles aimed to counter allegations that China mishandled the coronavirus outbreak and that there were lapses in its reporting. Instead, they claimed that the US and other democratic countries did not heed China’s cautionary words. One of the articles quoted Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan to argue, “although the COVID-19 first appeared in China, that does not necessarily mean it originated here.”
“There is no evidence that the Chinese government systematically suppressed information; there is only evidence that a few doctors were reprimanded by their hospitals or by the local police station for divulging information to the public and not using the established protocols. There is also no evidence that the Chinese direct reporting system was faulty; instead, there is only evidence that the system, like any system, could not easily adjust to unknown or unclassified outbreaks,” reads a paragraph from one of the news stories.
In 2021, the residences and offices of NewsClick editor Purkayastha were searched for several days. Subsequent reports quoted Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials stating that foreign funds of ₹38.05 crore were fraudulently infused into NewsClick over three years.
Following the publication of The New York Times report, the ED seized a flat in Delhi’s upscale Saket neighborhood linked to the NewsClick editor.