The U.S. State Department has echoed Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison's comments about the posting of a doctored photo by China on Twitter.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that the use of the doctored image was "a new low, even for the Chinese Communist Party."
Department representative Cale Brown said that the use of the image is another example of China's willingness to use "disinformation and coercive diplomacy." He added that its attack on Australia was "hypocrisy."
Morrison late Tuesday China time used China's social media app WeChat to address a diplomatic dispute over the posting of a doctored photo by China on Twitter.
Morrison's actions came after China refused to grant his request for an apology over the posting of the faked photo.
In a post on WeChat late Tuesday Australia time, Morrison said the dispute over the doctored image does not diminish the "respect and appreciation for the Chinese community in Australia."
Morrison said in the post that the country will deal with the "thorny issue" in a transparent manner and those that are implicated will be dealt with accordingly. He defended the country's handling of the war crimes investigation but criticized China's decision to use the "false image" in its political agenda.
Twitter is currently blocked in China. People in the country typically use China alternatives such as WeChat, which has billions of users worldwide. The platform currently has around 690,000 active daily users in Australia, most of which are Chinese.
Morrison initially demanded China issue a public apology after one of its top officials posted a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child Monday.
Instead of apologizing, China foreign ministry official, Zhao Lijian, pinned the post on the top of his official Twitter account, where it gained more attention. China officials also said that Australia's reaction to the photo was an "overreaction."
Apart from the U.S., other countries have expressed concerns over China's use of the fake image. New Zealand and France have both publicly slammed the Chinese foreign ministry's actions. France's foreign affairs spokesman said that China's actions were "insulting" for all nations that were involved in the Afghanistan conflict.
