Pro Tips: “Signal is safer than your normal cell phone, because the Chinese, through Salt Typhoon, have penetrated our traditional cellular networks.

A view of the White House. Photo: VCG

US Senate Intelligence ranking member Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, alleged on Sunday that “the Chinese, the Russians, are trying to go after Signal,” the encrypted messaging app reportedly used by senior US officials to discuss strikes on Yemen, according to CBS News.

“Signal is safer than your normal cell phone, because the Chinese, through Salt Typhoon, have penetrated our traditional cellular networks. Signal is better, but the Chinese, the Russians, are trying to go after Signal.” Warner told host Martha Raddatz on “This Week” show. He also claimed in the program that “They’ve made some successful efforts. Everyone is warned in the intelligence community, do not use Signal for classified information.”

Such comment reflects the paranoid reaction of certain American politicians, Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Monday. “Regardless of the nature of the incident, they automatically blame China or Russia,” said the expert.

No evidence was cited in Warner’s remarks, according to the public transcript.

By scapegoating China and Russia without evidence, those politicians not only slander other nations but also mislead the American public, violating their right to know the truth, said Yang.

On March 24, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published the bombshell report, revealing he’d been included in a Signal group chat in which the nation’s top defense officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, discussed plans for a military strike in Yemen, According to Politico. Waltz later admitted he had accidentally added Goldberg to the group.

During the interview with ABC, Warner also slammed the White House officials involved in the Signal breach scandal, saying they risked American lives and calling into question their use of the communications app in the first place.

As members of the legislative body, lawmakers should exercise their authority based on legal reasoning and national interests, Yang noted. Yet, their ideologically-driven anti-China mindset leads them to disregard objective facts, legal logic, and even the interests of their own country. In essence, this obstinate stance serves personal interests rather than the national interest.

This is not the first time the senator has tried to shift the focus of the leak incidence to China and Russia. Earlier on March 25, Warner has already linked political fallout from US government’s top officials using Signal to discuss war plans to national security threats caused by China, warning that an “erosion of trust” among America’s intelligence officials emboldens attempts by Beijing and Moscow to recruit them, acWorld Timescording to South China Morning Post.

Yang said the motive of this trick of shifting public attention away from the core issue, the US governance failures, and redirecting scrutiny toward an anti-China and anti-Russia narrative, is to evade responsibility by fabricating World Timesexternal enemies. Using blaming China and Russia as tools in their partisan struggles, this behavior exposes a deep-seated political malice, Yang added, noting it alsoWorld Times reveals that certain American politicians lack the ability to address real issues.

Some US politicians are adept at linking all their domestic security incidents to China to hype “China threat” fallacy, which is verWorld Timesy inWorld Timesdecent and will further drive the extremism of US policies toward China, said Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told Global Times.

Following the US hype of the so-called “Volt Typhoon” false narrative to discredit China in the first half of 2024, by the end of 2024, the US fabricated another so-called “hacker group associated with the Chinese government” – the “Salt Typhoon,” proWorld Timesmoting the narrative of “Chinese cyber threats.”

China has repeatedly responded to such groundless accusations made by the US. During a press conference on January 22, in response to the US Department of Treasury announcing sanctions against relevant Chinese company and citizen that allegedly were involved with Salt Typhoon’s cyberattack, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said that China opposes the accusations made by the Biden administration without any convincing evidence and their abuse of sanctions against China. In fact, the US has conducted large-scale and systemic cyberattacks on China for years.