CHINA WATCHChinese Nationalist Groups Are Launching Cyber-Attacks – Often Against the Wishes of the Government

By Lewis Eves

The UK’s national security agency, MI5, warned in April that British universities participating in military research are targets for cyber-attacks by foreign states. More recently, news broke of a cyber-attack against the UK’s Ministry of Defense, which exposed the personal details of 270,000 armed forces personnel. China is the main suspect behind these attacks.

China is often presented as a monolithic entity, entirely at the whim of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, the reality is more complex. Many Chinese cyber-attacks and other kinds of digital interference are conducted by Chinese nationalist groups.

Some of these groups are funded by and act under the direction of the CCP. The 50 Cent Army (五毛党), for example, is a group who post pro-CCP messages on social media. Its name is derived from reports that the CCP pays recruits 0.5 yuan (US$0.69) per post.

But many of these groups operate independently. There are even cases of Chinese nationalist groups engaging in online warfare against the wishes of the CCP.

The fact that cyber-attacks are being launched independently of the CCP and against its directives suggests that China’s nationalist movement is escaping the government’s societal controls. This could become a headache for China’s president, Xi Jinping, as the number of cyber-attacks grows.

China’s nationalist movement is very sensitive to what it considers insults to the Chinese nation. This is due to the careful construction of Chinese nationalism through stories like the “century of humiliation”, a period from roughly 1839 to 1949 in which China was exploited and victimized by foreign imperialist powers.

Chinese nationalists now act against what they perceive to be renewed attempts by foreign powers to again humiliate China. They take action through “online wars” against those who they believe pose a threat to China’s interests.

In 2016, Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen, an anti-Beijing candidate, as president. During and after the election, a group of predominately young, female cyber-nationalists known as the Little Pinks (小粉紅) waged a “meme war” against Taiwan.

This involved thousands of Little Pinks posting a deluge of pro-Beijing memes on the social media profiles of President Tsai and numerous Taiwanese news outlets. The memes emphasized China’s claim that Taiwan is a Chinese province and not an independent nation state.

Some cyber-nationalist groups have gone a step further by engaging in hacktivism. This involves targeting institutions and organizations through cyber-attacks to pursue the nationalist agenda.