Editor's note: John Gong is a professor at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and research fellow at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at UIBE. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The January 6 investigation committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is finally showing some teeth, as it acquired a majority vote in Congress to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the committee investigating the deadly insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

One of the issues lying at the center of the investigation regards Meadows' role in promulgating a 36-page PowerPoint presentation that he received in an email and handed over to the House investigation committee, which apparently laid the foundation for a series of ensuing official and grassroots actions to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election involving many GOP members, and now also for the "Stop the Steal" political movement spearheaded by Donald Trump.

It has been widely reported that this PowerPoint document was circulated by a retired army colonel, Phil Waldron. He worked in cybersecurity and firearms and owns distilleries, reported the Washington Post, citing a company website and a state corporate filing. Waldron played a prominent role together with Trump's hired guns, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in trying to overturn the election. The New York Times also reported that this PowerPoint "appears to be based on the theories of Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, a Texas entrepreneur and self-described inventor who has appeared with Mr. Waldron on podcasts discussing election fraud." 

There is consensus by this time that this file is nothing more than an exercise in chicanery, full of manufactured radical far-right wing materials meant to disinform.

But what the U.S. mainstream press hasn't widely reported is that bulk of the presentation concerns a trumped-up China connection. As I counted, at least 10 pages of this 36-page PowerPoint presentation are related to conspiracy theories involving China.  

First, the presentation claims that Dominion Voting, which is the company that handled many states' ballot counting in 2020, somehow has an equity stake owned by Chinese interests via an investment deal involving UBS Securities.

Dominion Voting has come out to declare no equity ownership by any Chinese company whatsoever. The Associated Press published an article that speculated that the reason of the misguided China connection is probably due to its author's mixing of UBS Security LLC with UBS Security Ltd, which are two entirely different companies.

The second wild claim in the presentation concerns a Shenzhen-based company's alleged business connection with Smartmatic Software Operation, which it proclaims provided software solutions to Dominion Voting.

The alleged business connection doesn't exist, and the alleged vendor relationship between Smartmatic and Dominion Voting also doesn't exist – as a matter of fact they are competitors in the election service market.

Granted, America's far-right wing's conspiracy manufacturing is a booming industry. But putting China in the crosshairs, as this PowerPoint presentation vividly illustrates, is a recent development, appearing to be resonating well with the wave of anti-China sentiment in the United States from within the Beltway to America's Main Streets. This is especially true after Donald Trump's hate mongering of the "Chinese virus" for many months when he was still in power.

But probably more troubling is the reticence of America's so-called free press with respect to the rebuttal of the China-centered conspiracy. Yes, they have been telling the American people that Meadows' PowerPoint presentation is absolute garbage. But few media outlets have come out and say explicitly, loud and clear, that the central theme of this garbage is all about China, and that is a total fabrication. No, they haven't done that on a large scale yet.

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