Jabbed in the Back: Russian, Chinese COVID-19 Disinformation Campaigns

I. Introduction
The public health and economic catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic has also become a battle about the nature of truth itself. From the emergence of the first reports of a virus in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, opportunistic leaders in China, Russia, and elsewhere have used the virus as an excuse to further erode democracy and wage information warfare. They have inundated an already polluted information environment with disinformation and propaganda about the virus’s origins and cures, and, most recently, vaccines. Russia largely followed its preexisting playbook of using crises to inflame tensions in foreign societies. China borrowed some tools from Russia but used them for different ends, sanitizing its own record and spreading conspiracy theories on a global scale. Little evidence suggests explicit cooperation despite some instances of narrative overlap and circular amplification between the two actors. Significant differences remain in Beijing’s and Moscow’s strategies and tactics in the information environment.

Building off of Information Bedlam,² CEPA’s overview of academic and think tank literature written on Russian and Chinese information operations (IOs) during COVID-19, CEPA’s researchers collected and analyzed original data to complement research conducted by other think tanks and academic institutions.³ CEPA collected English-language website articles and social media messaging from Russian and Chinese government officials and state-backed media from March 2020 through March 2021. By determining rhetoric choices and the prioritization of narratives throughout the 144,000-piece database, we were able to isolate and analyze the unique tactics that Russia and China used to advance their information operations across the transatlantic space throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

II. Lessons Learned
As the world experiences vaccinations and coronavirus variants at different rates, Russian and Chinese COVID-19 information operation(IO) narratives and tactics continue to evolve. Alongside the evolution of IOs in 2021, CEPA’s data largely support the conclusions reached in Information Bedlam: The CCP deployed more destructive and conspiratorial narratives than in its previous to the information space, while Russia recycled previous narratives and didn’t substantially change its approach from previous crises. Yet the data also raise new questions and prompt a reexamination of the extent to which China is following Russia’s playbook in the information environment.

Since our last report examining the COVID-19 IO literature in March 2021, Russian and Chinese IOs have continued to evolve. Russia has innovated in spreading vaccine disinformation throughout Europe. In May 2021, social media influencers in France and Germany reported that a London-based group controlled from Moscow offered to pay them to spread disinformation about the Pfizer vaccine.⁴ As vaccination campaigns in the US and UK increasingly encounter problems with demand instead of supply, Russia’s misleading vaccine reporting may prove more successful.⁵ Vaccine disinformation will also present serious challenges in developing countries where citizens already do not trust the West and where Russia and China often have large media presences.⁶ Since the Biden administration asked the US intelligence community to provide a more conclusive report on the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab, the CCP has stepped up its efforts to spread conspiracies about the virus’s origins, including recirculating disinformation from early in the pandemic about Fort Detrick, a US military lab.⁷

In 2020, while China aggressively defended its response to COVID-19 and criticized Western efforts to combat the virus, its narratives remained mostly positive, kept China at the center of attention, and showed remarkable consistency between state-backed outlets and diplomats. Even though Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, and others aggressively circulated disinformation on COVID-19’s origins and Western vaccines, the transatlantic policy and research community focused more attention on China’s destructive disinformation than the data suggest is warranted.⁸ This is not surprising considering the increasing bipartisan and transatlantic consensus on the need to counter Chinese influence in the information environment and, of disinformation, the shock of Chinese disinformation spreading globally for the first time during an international crisis.

While some policymakers are worried about Sino-Russian convergence in the information environment, this will be challenging because China insists on narrative consistency, while Russia opens a firehose of falsehoods.⁹ State-owned Russian media contradicted not only one another on COVID-19 narratives but also official Russian sources like the foreign ministry. Even though official government sources largely stayed clear of promoting disinformation on the virus’s origins, vaccines, or other COVID-19 topics, the broader pro-Kremlin information ecosystem showed no such restraint.¹⁰ The rigidity of the CCP’s control over the Chinese information environment ensures that disinformation and propaganda from state media will differ little from that spouted by government officials. Though this gives the CCP more control over its COVID-19 messaging, it also means the Chinese are much less successful than the Russians at targeting content to specific audiences, even with substantially more resources.

1. Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, “Russia’s ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model,” RAND Corporation, July 11, 2016, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html. [↩]

2. Edward Lucas, Jake Morris, and Corina Rebegea, “Information Bedlam: Russian and Chinese Information Operations During Covid-19,” Center for European Policy Analysis, March 15, 2021, https://cepa.org/information-bedlam-russian-and-chinese-information-operations-during-covid-19/. [↩]

3. CEPA worked with Omelas to collect the data; see endnotes throughout the paper for complementary research from other think tanks and academic institutions. [↩]

4. Liz Alderman, “Influencers Say They Were Urged to Criticize Pfizer Vaccine,” The New York Times, May 26, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/business/pfizer-vaccine-disinformation-influeners.html?referringSource=articleShare. [↩]

5. Sheera Frenkel, Maria Abi-habib, and Julian E. Barnes, “Russian Campaign Promotes Homegrown Vaccine and Undercuts Rivals,” The New York Times, February 5, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/technology/russia-covid-vaccine-disinformation.html. [↩]

6. Samuel Brazys and Alexander Dukalskis, “China’s Message Machine,” Journal of Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, October 8, 2020), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/766184. [↩]

7. Alana Wise, “Biden Asks U.S. Intel to Push for Stronger Conclusions on the Coronavirus’ Origins,” NPR, May 26, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000642995/biden-asks-u-s-intel-to-push-for-stronger-conclusions-on-the-coronavirus-origins.; Katerina Ang and Adam Taylor, “As U.S. Calls for Focus on COVID ORIGINS, China REPEATS Speculation about U.S. Military Base,” The Washington Post (WP Company, May 27, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/27/virus-china-fort-detrick/; “Online Petition for Fort Detrick Probe Draws 20m Signatures; China Urges US to Open UNC Lab, Disclose Military Games Patients,” Global Times, July 30, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1230123.shtml. [↩]

8. Sarah Cook, “Beijing’s Coronavirus Propaganda Has Both Foreign and Domestic Targets,” Freedom House, April 20, 2020, https://freedomhouse.org/article/beijings-coronavirus-propaganda-has-both-foreign-and-domestic-targets.; Gerry Shih, “China Turbocharges Bid to Discredit Western Vaccines, Spread VIRUS Conspiracy Theories,” The Washington Post (WP Company, January 20, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/vaccines-coronavirus-china-conspiracy-theories/2021/01/20/89bd3d2a-5a2d-11eb-a849-6f9423a75ffd_story.html. [↩]

9. Lucas et al, “Information Bedlam” [↩] [↩]

10. “Viral Overload,” Omelas, May 12, 2020, https://www.omelas.io/viral-overload. [↩]