PerspectiveThe Kremlin’s Disinformation Playbook Goes to Beijing
The coronavirus pandemic is exposing a growing competition between democratic and authoritarian governments. Jessica Brandt and Torrey Tausing write that as the U.S. and Europe struggle to contain the virus at home, Russia and China are seizing the moment to enhance their international influence through information operations.
The coronavirus pandemic is exposing a growing competition between democratic and authoritarian governments. Jessica Brandt and Torrey Tausing write for Brooking’s Order from Chaos that as the U.S. and Europe struggle to contain the virus at home, Russia and China are seizing the moment to enhance their international influence through information operations. Moscow and Beijing have long aimed to weaken the United States, blunt the appeal of democratic institutions, and sow divisions across the West. Their goals in this crisis are no different.
Brandt and Tausing note that information manipulation is just one of a suite of asymmetric tools Russia and China use to advance their political goals abroad. Other tactics include cyberattacks, economic coercion, malign financial activity, and societal subversion.
They add:
The efforts by Moscow and Beijing should remind Western leaders of the ongoing geopolitical challenges percolating beyond the pandemic. As decisionmakers focus on shoring up their public health systems and economies, Russian and Chinese information campaigns are having a mutually reinforcing effect. Strong responses are needed from the United States, Europe, and democratic partners to ensure that authoritarian disinformation does not take root in fertile ground.
The information space has long served as a platform for authoritarian influence and interference. Moscow is often at the forefront of this challenge, using social media trolls, government officials, and state-friendly news outlets to spread conspiracy theories and obscure the distinction between fact and fiction.
China has benefitted from Russia’s brazen disinformation campaigns in the West while itself deploying more subtle information manipulation strategies. But that might be changing. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, China has carried out a striking disinformation campaign of its own that borrows a few pages from the Kremlin’s playbook.
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While China’s overt assertiveness in this space might be new, its long-term goals are not. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long employed disinformation, censorship, and monitoring tools to suppress criticism at home and press on democracy’s inherent weaknesses abroad. Its information operations are coupled with economic coercion and strategic investments to enhance Chinese ownership in key industries and sway other countries’ policies.
