Most Americans likely don’t fully appreciate the control the Chinese Communist Party has over U.S. news and entertainment industries.

Its reach is such that CNN, an American news network protected by First Amendment rights, will uncritically parrot CCP talking points regarding China’s allegedly impressive vaccination distribution program — talking points that, by the way, were created and disseminated by the same people who lied about the deadly pandemic every step of the way.

This is not even the first time CNN has uncritically repeated obvious CCP agitprop. It’s just the latest incident in a long line of incidents.

CNN declared Friday in a headline, “China's about to administer its billionth coronavirus shot. Yes, you read that right.”

The story is not a slight thing, published in some quiet corner of, say, CNN International. The left-wing news network promoted the story, which can be found on CNN's main website and on its official, stateside Twitter account.

The opening lines read, “Within days, China will reach a staggering 1 billion doses in its COVID-19 vaccination drive — a scale and speed unrivaled by any other country in the world. As of Wednesday, China had administered more than 945 million doses — three times the number delivered in the United States, and almost 40% of the 2.5 billion shots given globally.”

The report adds, “The number is all the more remarkable given its rollout had a slow start. China only reached its first million doses on March 27 — two weeks behind the US.”

The obvious question readers should ask is: According to what or whom?

As it turns out, the report relies entirely on “data from China's National Health Commission” — data which CNN even admits isn’t properly tabulated or broken down to explain which demographics have been fully vaccinated. But the worst part is that China has developed and distributed a vaccine that doesn't appear to work, based on the experience in Chile.

It’d be one thing if the CCP was merely boasting it has the whole vaccine distribution thing figured out. But it’s that extra step — claiming they’re doing a better job than the rest of the world — that gives the game away. This is clearly propaganda meant to position China as the most competent and efficient global superpower. It’s meant to also distract from the fact the CCP’s duplicity and malfeasance are directly responsible for the more than 3.5 million deaths caused by the pandemic. And CNN is apparently more than eager to push the party line.

Like all good propaganda, the claim China is somehow ahead of the rest of the world in vaccinations doesn’t even hold water when one accounts for doses administered per population. The U.S. has administered 315 million inoculations, meaning it is distributing vaccines at a rate of .94 per person. Israel has administered 10.6 million doses, meaning it is distributing at a rate of more than one dosage per person.

China, on the other hand, has allegedly administered 945 million vaccines (take this number with a grain of salt). With a population of roughly 1.4 billion people, this means China is administering doses at a rate of .715 per person.

Yet, in describing China’s distribution efforts, CNN uses the word “unrivaled.”

It gets worse. The CNN article goes well beyond merely parroting the CCP’s vaccination numbers. It goes on to credit China’s brutal one-party system for supposedly getting so many vaccinations administered.

"For those still reluctant," the report reads, "China has a powerful tool in its arsenal: a top-down, one-party system that is all-encompassing in reach and forceful in action, and a sprawling bureaucracy that can be swiftly mobilized. The top-down approach has been touted by officials as a strength of the Chinese system that helped curb the virus — and has again been deployed to accelerate inoculations."

The story also claims, with no trace of irony, that China successfully contained the virus that infected the entire world.

“Vaccinating a country of 1.4 billion people against COVID-19 is a massive undertaking. Due to China's successful containment of the coronavirus, many residents initially saw little urgency in getting vaccinated,” the story claims.

This isn’t weird wording or clumsy framing. This is straight-up CCP propaganda.

For what it’s worth, the CNN article makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that China's proprietary vaccine, Sinovac, is apparently as unreliable and shoddy as most products bearing the dreaded “Made in China” label. In fact, Chilean authorities just this week announced a blanket lockdown across the capital of Santiago following “some of the worst COVID-19 case numbers since the pandemic began, despite having fully vaccinated more than half its population,” Reuters reports.

Chile has administered roughly 23 million inoculations. Of that number, 17.2 million doses were of the Sinovac vaccine. Chinese ingenuity strikes again.

Lastly, it’s worth noting the story is authored by CNN reporters Nectar Gan and Laura He, both of whom are stationed in the network's Hong Kong bureau. In other words, reporters stationed in a country with a gun to its head produced the article.

I understand the need for Hong Kong-based reporters to walk on eggshells. After all, angering the CCP, which is just next door, could have fatal consequences. But there's a big difference between toeing the line and cheerleading the regime.

If producing stories such as the one mentioned above are what it takes for CNN to maintain a presence in Hong Kong, then it’s time the network asks itself: Who really benefits from this arrangement? Because I can tell you right now it's not the U.S. or Hong Kong.