China's Campaign to Control What You Think and How You Behave

>> Markos Kounalakis: The world is witnessing China's dramatic military buildup and growing economic presence. What's harder to see is how China is entering our minds and influencing our behaviors. I'm going to introduce you to the concept that China would like to dominate your mind and consequently your behavior, I'm being a little hyperbolic here, but only to make a point.

The Peoples Republic of China and its Communist Party have invested heavily to develop global media systems, and journalistic institutions in order to dominate news narratives, and muddle previous and privileged perceptions. This determined plan intends in part to make people feel more positively towards China, it also wants to undermine criticism and change policies that aim to hold China accountable for the many unfair and aggressive actions it takes in trade, human rights and against other nations.

How does it do this, lets take a look, global mass media was dominated by the west in the pre-browser, pre-smartphone, pre-worldwide web environment of the 20th century. In the new, technologically advanced 21st century, however, western media institutions discovered that their free market, advertising based business models collapsed. They were unable to adapt quickly enough, simultaneously, in this new post-cold war Internet revolution world, global powers like Russia and a rising China found that they could suddenly compete in, and even dominate the newly reforming information domain.

While western media institutions were shedding their foreign correspondence and closing their overseas bureaus, places like Xinhua, China Global Television network and China Daily were kicking into overdrive. The Chinese party state was spending extraordinary amounts to put as many so called correspondents and bureaus in as many places as possible as quickly as they could.

This was most pronounced in areas where western correspondents had either retrenched or entirely disappeared. Latin America and Africa have been two ripe targets for this infusion of individuals and media infrastructure. Chinas media workers do not report and analyze the news to underpin and strengthen democracies instead, theyre there to undermine Western institutions and governing structures.

They feed these nations anti American and anti-western messaging and regularly accuse the west of being Neo colonialist. There is little to no credible western counter to this persuasive propaganda, the kicker? Chinese media institutions are not only misinformation and disinformation channels, they are also spy networks, we in the west call our journalists who gather information for the public reporters.

My book spin wars and spy games made clear that both China and Russia use their reporters as information gathering operatives to function as both witting and unwitting spies. The United States government came to some of these same conclusions when it recently required Chinese and Russian news organizations to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

An additional complicating factor is the role of social media platforms from Facebook to YouTube to Twitter x. These American based mass communications platforms have aided and abetted the distribution of our adversaries misleading narratives and disinformation. Add to this the China run an inordinately popular platform, TikTok. Given TikToks ability to micro target its audiences with individualized, tailored propaganda, susceptibility to the threat from China becomes even greater.

Much of how we behave and what we believe is shaped by our consumption of news, information, and data. As China and Russia continue to shape the global information environment and influence foreign electorates, authoritarian narratives, and preferences will increasingly dominate our political discourse. What does this propaganda sound like?

Heres how China put it recently Americas bullying tactics are incessant and diverse, but they all boil down to suppression, containment, and defamation. That attack on America sounds a little ham-handed, but China delivers this message daily and globally, both more subtly and via surrogates. The ongoing challenge to democratic, open societies will be to continue providing a healthy, trustworthy, and unpolluted information environment.

As a result, the battle for our hearts and minds is far from over and were slowly fighting back. Social media platforms have started to confront disinformation campaigns by clearly labeling Russian and Chinese media organizations as state-funded. Further, there are multiple academic, nonprofit, and government efforts to shore up local news organizations in the United States to provide citizens with credible and trusted information.

Finally, an active, healthy, conscious understanding and awareness of foreign influence campaigns against the West is the most powerful step towards managing their effectiveness and countering their power.