The State Department on Thursday accused China of using “deceptive and coercive methods” to shape the global information environment, acquiring stakes in foreign newspapers and television networks, using major social media platforms to promote its views and lobbying. on international organizations and media. to silence Beijing’s critics.
The accusations, detailed in a report by the department’s Global Engagement Center, reflect concerns in Washington that China’s information operations pose a growing security challenge to the United States and to democratic principles around the world by promoting “digital authoritarianism.”
China not only pushes its own propaganda, according to the report, but exports digital surveillance tools to control information and people online. Although many of the tactics detailed are not new, the report warns that they could “lead nations to make decisions that subordinate their economic and security interests to Beijing.”
“Every country has the right and every right to tell its story to the world, but a nation’s narrative must consist of facts and must rise or fall on its own merits,” said James P. Rubin, coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, he said in a briefing. Referring to the People’s Republic of China, he continued: “On the contrary, the People’s Republic of China promotes coercive techniques and increasingly blatant lies.”
The report echoes a series of recent studies detailing the growing – and changing – scope of China’s information campaigns. It came a day after officials revealed in a Senate briefing that Chinese hackers who gained access to the email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other officials this year stole 60,000 emails from the Department of Commerce alone. State.
According to the State Department report released Thursday, China’s efforts have evolved from a primary focus on promoting or defending the country’s political views on issues such as Taiwan and Hong Kong to one that aims to sow disinformation to discredit the United States within and outside the country.
That has included accusations about the origins of the Covid pandemic, the new US-Australia security partnership and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, revealed last month that it had taken down a Chinese campaign using more than 8,000 accounts, pages or groups on the two platforms, the largest inauthentic network it had found so far. Microsoft and other researchers also linked China to spreading false claims about the causes of the deadly wildfires in Hawaii.
That campaign included images generated by artificial intelligence, a tool that researchers, like the State Department, warn could greatly enhance China’s efforts.
China’s control over information internally is virtually absolute, but it is increasingly expanding its influence abroad, with its state channels broadcasting in 12 languages.
The report says China has spent billions of dollars to build an expansive state news operation under the Central Propaganda Department and the United Front Work Department, which the report said oversees investments in foreign media aimed at Chinese communities. the Chinese diaspora.
The report cited investments in media organizations in the Czech Republic, Australia and Thailand, where Tencent skirted a law against foreign ownership to acquire Sanook, the country’s most popular news site.
China has also become a leading provider of digital television services in Africa through StarTimes, a Chinese company that now reaches the majority of viewers on the continent.
While the department’s report relied heavily on public information, it included references to insights apparently based on classified information.
That included “information from the US government” about an agreement with a newspaper “in an East African country” to publish paid articles from China without disclosing the connection and the fact that until at least the end of 2020, ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok maintained “a periodically updated internal list” of people who were blocked or restricted on the platform.
The report also detailed what it described as a fictitious author, Yi Fan, whose writings in English have appeared in publications around the world since 2015 under bylines describing him as an independent analyst.
China has also become adept at using social media platforms that authorities banned within the country’s Great Firewall. China now operates 333 diplomatic or official media accounts on Twitter, now known as X, with nearly 65 million followers, according to the report.
Those official accounts, he added, were reinforced by botnets and inauthentic accounts. From June 2020 to January 2021, a single network of accounts posing as British citizens accounted for 44 percent of retweets and 20 percent of replies to posts by Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador at the time and one of the outspoken “wolf warriors.” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Although more than half of Liu’s retweets during this period came from accounts that were ultimately suspended for violating Twitter’s terms of service at the time,” the report said, “new accounts continued to appear to prolong this inauthentic amplification.” . Twitter has since removed labels identifying foreign government accounts.
China uses similar narratives to quell criticism. The report noted that more than 1,000 fake accounts attempted to drown out a report last year by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization, that detailed the undisclosed presence of Chinese police officers in 53 countries. The campaign used accounts with the same name as the organization in what appeared to be an effort to activate Twitter’s policy of downplaying inauthentic campaigns.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center was established in 2011 with a focus on countering terrorism and violent extremism. In 2017, Congress expanded its mandate to focus on propaganda and disinformation.
The impact of China’s effort can be difficult to measure, and the report suggests that Chinese campaigns often encounter resistance in other countries. However, the country’s Communist Party appears committed to reshaping the international environment suitable to its political objectives.
“We have every reason to believe this will continue,” said Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, a researcher at the RAND Corporation and co-author of a recent report on China’s dependence on artificial intelligence to strengthen its information operations. “They’re more likely to double down than stop.”
