Analysts who study disinformation say the Chinese Communist Party is following the Kremlin’s lead in seeking to highlight America’s mistakes and weaponize the culture wars and identity politics that are currently rocking the West.
Like the Kremlin and Russia’s state-run media, analysts say Communist Party propagandists are focusing attention on racial injustice and income inequality in the United States and Western Europe, aiming to divert attention from Beijing’s own human rights abuses, including the detention of more than a million Muslim Uighurs.
According to a recent study by the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, “the civil unrest that followed police violence against African-Americans was used to counter criticism of police abuse of power against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.”
“The Chinese Communist Party’s disinformation efforts are becoming more sophisticated,” said Dexter Roberts, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative and author of the report China’s disinformation Strategy. Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative and author of China’s Disinformation Strategy, said.
Sarah Cook, director of China and Hong Kong at Freedom House, a New York-based democracy and human rights research organization, also noted in an op-ed in the latest issue of Freedom House’s China Media Bulletin that Beijing’s disinformation tactics are becoming more sophisticated and more complex.
She said that recent studies have generally shown that “the overall complexity and impact of the massive human and financial resources being devoted to disinformation efforts has increased, and the link between official and disinformation accounts has become more apparent, making it more difficult for the Communist government to reasonably shift blame.”
She added, “When CCP-linked social media bots and online spammers emerge on the global disinformation scene in 2019, most analysts conclude that the depth and breadth of their influence is quite limited, especially in terms of actual user interaction and relative to more seasoned players in this space, such as the Russian regime. As many observers of Chinese affairs would expect, this assessment now appears to be changing.”
The messaging on Chinese social media sites reflects Beijing’s growing concern about racial politics in the United States.
Last month, Beijing released a report on human rights violations and the treatment of minorities in the United States, concluding that “racism is comprehensive, systematic and persistent in the United States.” China’s Communist government said that “ethnic minorities suffer from systematic racial discrimination and are in a difficult situation” in the United States.
The report, released by the Communist Party’s State Council Information Office, also claims that the U.S. “government’s reckless response to the epidemic has gotten out of hand, resulting in a human tragedy.
For years, the Communist government has said that foreign and Western media should stop interfering in China’s “internal affairs,” essentially using that argument to refute allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing.
Now, analysts say, Beijing’s strategy is more confrontational and follows the Kremlin’s tactics, seeking to turn passivity into initiative in the face of the West.
Just days before the Communist Party released the report, Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Adviser Sullivan engaged in a heated exchange with Chinese officials in Alaska during the first high-level U.S.-China face-to-face meeting since President Biden took office.
In his opening remarks, Blinken cited Washington’s “deep concern about the actions of the Chinese Communist Party – including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion against our allies.
U.S. officials say the CCP’s actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.
“That’s why they’re not just internal affairs and why we feel obligated to raise these topics here today,” he added in brief opening remarks during a media photo op.
Yang Jiechi, the top Chinese Communist Party official in charge of foreign affairs, responded with a 17-minute sermon. He complained about “U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs, and also raised the issue of human rights in the United States.
“China continues to make progress on human rights, but there are many problems with human rights in the United States,” he said.
Blinken replied: “Throughout history, what we’ve done is face these challenges openly, openly and transparently. Not try to ignore them. Not pretend they don’t exist. Not trying to sweep them under the rug.”
The CCP’s harsh rhetoric underscores Beijing’s increasingly proactive and aggressive strategy in the information war. This is consistent with the CCP’s so-called “war wolf” diplomacy. “Battle wolf” diplomacy began to emerge in 2020, after Communist Foreign Minister Wang Yi instructed China’s envoys abroad to be more assertive in representing Beijing’s interests abroad and to speak out in defense of China’s Communist government in the face of international criticism.
Communist diplomats have become increasingly shrill in tone and violent in temper.
Critics say the ambassadors are spreading fake news and doctored images, and drawing hard comparisons between Western failures and Chinese Communist government policies, practices that have sparked an international backlash.
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