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Fox News issued an apology over the weekend for airing unsubstantiated claims made by businessman and television personality Kevin O’Leary who alleged opponents of a data center project he is involved in are proxies for the Chinese government, according to US media reports. 

A Chinese expert noted though FOX made a rare apology for this case, it cannot offset the negative impacts of the habitual blameshifting and invoking China at every turn – a mentality prevalent yet misleading in the US.

O’Leary made certain claims relating to the opponents of his project. He has now corrected the record and explained he has “no evidence” that the Alliance for a Better Utah, Josh Kantor or Taylor Knuth (opponents to the project) are funded by China, according to the statement, which was read by anchors on a number of Fox shows, reported the Hill. 

Fox News Media is “likewise aware of no evidence that they are funded by, or acting in the direction of, or in coordination with Chinese interests in opposing Mr. O’Leary’s project,” the network said, adding that “Fox News Media also apologizes for the error,” The Hill reported. 

The 40,000-acre artificial intelligence data center campus in Utah has sparked major pushback over the project’s scale and environmental concerns from local residents. O'Leary made the accusation against China in May and wrote in a Facebook post on June 25 local time that he had no evidence that the opponents he called out on Fox, which included the Alliance for a Better Utah and Elevate Strategies, are working with China, according to The Hill. 

A Chinese expert who requested to remain anonymous told the Global Times on Tuesday that blaming China for domestic problems has increasingly become a habitual response of many people in the US. They tend to cite China as excuses for both matters they support and those they oppose, which in turn leads to a kind of internal cognitive confusion. 

For the US itself, this is also something that warrants vigilance, as it is very detrimental to forming a rational public opinion environment domestically. The issue of computing power centers is entirely a matter of internal interest distribution and strategic gaming, and has nothing to do with China at all, the expert added. 

Such mentality has become so prevalent in the US that when FOX apologizes for one data center, there are loads of other groundless accusations within the framework of “China threat” remain unaddressed and keep misleading the public, experts said. 

The US media outlet’s apology over false claims linking China to data center development reflects a growing recognition that attributing domestic problems to China is an increasingly untenable narrative, another Chinese expert who requested to keep anonymous told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

This incident also reflects changes in segments of US public opinion, media, and some elites in how they perceive China’s development process as well as the US’ own internal problems. The tendency to blame China for domestic issues risks undermining media credibility, deepening the divide between elites and the public, and weakening the US’ capacity for self-reflection and governance reform, the expert said. 

The expert also said that apologies on China-related issues by the US media are rare, and this case stood out because the claims were seen as so far removed from common sense that a correction was necessary to avoid undermining credibility.