China's government has invested billions of dollars across the world to wage a "propaganda, disinformation, and censorship" campaign "to exert control over the narratives in the global information space," the State Department said in a new report.
The 58-page report, compiled by the State Department-housed Global Engagement Center interagency and released on Thursday, took aim at the Chinese Communist Party for "exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media." It is based on a mix of information collected by the U.S. government and publicly available sources.
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"You can see a breathtaking ambition to have information dominance in certain parts of the world, crucial parts of the world," GEC Coordinator James Rubin said in a Thursday briefing. "That's the threat that affects our national security that affects the national security of other parties."
The release of the document comes amid speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden could hold a summit in the coming months, with the State Department saying Thursday, "There's no substitute for leader-to-leader communication."
CCP-controlled media have "routinely amplified" pro-Kremlin disinformation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including backing Moscow's false allegations that the United States bankrolled biological weapons facilities in Ukraine, the GEC said in the report, noting that Russia "has returned the favor by promoting PRC propaganda related to Taiwan and other PRC interests."
The GEC said China's media employees are typically posing as "influencers" on social media to influence global communications covertly while also acquiring telecommunications technologies to control the flow of information on the internet. China's government is bypassing Thailand's laws by buying up Thai media and "has become a leading provider of digital television services in Africa through StarTimes," the agency said.
The U.S. government noted in the report that an example of Beijing's propaganda operations came in 2022 when it amplified falsehoods about China's "diplomatic, military, and economic countermeasures against the United States" upon then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) visit to Taiwan.
As for examples of China "constraining global freedom of expression," the GEC said it obtained information on how ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the popular social media app TikTok, "directed that specific individuals" be placed on a list blocking or restricting them from using ByteDance platforms for opposing China's human rights abuses against Uyghurs, among other topics. China's government is detaining an estimated 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic-Muslim ethnic groups in camps and subjecting them to forced labor, torture, and sterilization, according to reports.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in 2021 that China "has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang," referring to Western China.
"Although backed by unprecedented resources, the PRC's propaganda and censorship have, to date, yielded mixed results," the GEC said in the report. "When targeting democratic countries, Beijing has encountered major setbacks, often due to pushback from local media and civil society."
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The GEC noted in the report that it "has a congressional mandate to recognize, understand, expose, and counter threats from state and non-state actors that engage in information manipulation."
It offered that the goal of the report is to rally "governments, civil society, academia, the press, the private sector, and publics around the world to more effectively collaborate in their efforts to protect the integrity of the information space."