In a special report, US Department of State has accused People’s Republic of China of investing billions of dollars in disinformation, surveillance tactics to to influence the international community. The global engagement centre in its latest report highlighted that propaganda, disinformation and censorship are three main tactics being used by the XI government to manipulate and influence the information at the global level. The report came at a time when US and West have been at loggerheads with China over Taiwan, Xinjiang, semiconductors and other critical issues.
China’s foreign ministry has outrightly rejected the report stating that
report is in itself disinformation as it misrepresents facts and truth
According to the report, China has been pouring billions of US dollars into efforts to reshape the global information environment and bend the will of multiple countries to Beijing’s advantage.. “Beijing uses false or biased information to promote positive views of the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At the same time, the PRC suppresses critical information that contradicts its desired narratives on issues such as Taiwan, its human rights practices, the South China Sea, its domestic economy, and international economic engagement. More broadly, the PRC seeks to cultivate and uphold a global incentive structure that encourages foreign governments, elites, journalists, and civil society to accept its preferred narratives and avoid criticizing its conduct.”
According to the report, PRC’s approach to information manipulation included leveraging propaganda and censorship, promoting digital authoritarianism, exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media.
For China, values and boundaries do not matter and hence it uses overt and covert influence over content and platforms. According to the report,Beijing seeks to maximize the reach of biased or false pro-PRC content. It has acquired stakes in foreign media through public and non- public means and sponsored online influencers. Beijing has also secured sometimes restrictive content sharing agreements with local outlets that can result in trusted mastheads providing legitimacy to unlabeled or obscured PRC content. In addition, Beijing has also worked to coopt prominent voices in the international information environment such as foreign political elites and journalists. Beyond focusing on content producers, the PRC has targeted platforms for global information dissemination, for example, investing in digital television services in Africa and satellite networks.
For China, using online and real world intimidation is a normal practice. When PRC feels affected by any issue, it has employed online and real-world intimidation to silence dissent and encourage self-censorship, stated the report. The PRC has also taken measures against corporations in situations where they are perceived to have challenged its desired narratives on issues like Xinjiang. Within democratic countries, Beijing has taken advantage of open societies to take legal action to suppress critical voices. On WeChat, an application used by many Chinese-speaking communities outside the PRC, Beijing has exercised technical censorship and harassed individual content producers. Notably, dataharvested by PRC corporations operating overseas have enabled Beijing to fine-tune global censorship by targeting specific individuals and organizations.
China has always disrespected freedom of expression, stated the report which stated that PRC promoted digital authoritarianism, which involves the use of digital infrastructure to repress freedom of expression, censor independent news, promote disinformation, and deny other human rights.
Through disseminating technologies for surveillance and censorship, often through capabilities bundled under the umbrella of “smart” or “safe cities,” the PRC has exported aspects of its domestic information environment globally.
Beijing has also propagated information control tactics, with a particular focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America, stated the report. In parallel, the PRC has promoted authoritarian digital norms that other countries have adopted at a rapid pace. As other countries emulate the PRC, their information ecosystems have become more receptive to Beijing’s propaganda, disinformation, and censorship requests. The US department expressed deep concern over China posing a challenge to the integrity of the global information space. IF unchecked, Beijing’s efforts could result in a future in which technology exported by the PRC, coopted local governments, and fear of Beijing’s direct retaliation produce a sharp contraction of global freedom of expression. The Department warned that Beijing would play a significant – and often hidden – role in determining the print and digital content that audiences in developing countries consume. Multilateral fora and select bilateral relationships would amplify Beijing’s preferred narratives on issues such as Taiwan and the international economy. Access to global data combined with the latest developments in artificial intelligence technology would enable the PRC to surgically target foreign audiences and thereby perhaps influence economic and security decisions in its favor. Lastly, Beijing’s global censorship efforts would result in a highly curated international information environment characterized by gaps and inherent pro-PRC biases.
In this future, the information available to publics, media, civil society, academia, and governments as they engage with the PRC could be distorted by propaganda and disinformation and circumscribed by censorship. This would pose a direct challenge to all nations that seek to predicate their relations with the PRC on fact- based assessments of their sovereign interests. It is true that Beijing has not always succeeded but it has certainly spoiled the level playing field by mainuplating information and dissemination.