CHINESE DISINFORMATION WAR AGAINST WORLD

 An emerging community of digital authoritarians. The PRC promotes digital authoritarianism, which involves the use of digital infrastructure to repress freedom of expression, censor independent news, promote disinformation, and deny other human rights.3 Through disseminating technologies for surveillance and censorship, often through capabilities bundled under the umbrella of “smart” or “safe cities,” the PRC has exported aspects of its domestic information environment globally. Beijing has also propagated information control tactics, with a particular focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In parallel, the PRC has promoted authoritarian digital norms that other countries have adopted at a rapid pace. As other countries emulate the PRC, their information ecosystems have become more receptive to Beijing’s propaganda, disinformation, and censorship requests. Future Impact The PRC’s global information manipulation is not simply a matter of public diplomacy – but a challenge to the integrity of the global information space. Unchecked, Beijing’s efforts could result in a future in which technology exported by the PRC, coopted local governments, and fear of Beijing’s direct retaliation produce a sharp contraction of global freedom of expression. Beijing would play a significant – and often hidden – role in determining the print and digital content that audiences in developing countries consume. Multilateral fora and select bilateral relationships would amplify Beijing’s preferred narratives on issues such as Taiwan and the international economy. Access to global data combined with the latest developments in artificial intelligence technology would enable the PRC to surgically target foreign audiences and thereby perhaps influence economic and security decisions in its favor. Lastly, Beijing’s global censorship efforts would result in a highly curated international information environment characterized by gaps and inherent pro-PRC biases. In this future, the information available to publics, media, civil society, academia, and governments as they engage with the PRC could be distorted by propaganda and disinformation and circumscribed by censorship. This would pose a direct challenge to all nations that seek to predicate their relations with the PRC on fact-based assessments of their sovereign interests. This future is not pre-ordained. Although backed by unprecedented resources, the PRC’s propaganda and censorship have, to date, yielded mixed results. When targeting democratic countries, Beijing has encountered major setbacks, often due to pushback from local media and civil society. Global understanding of PRC information manipulation is a starting point for a future in which the PRC’s ideas, values, and stories must compete on an even playing field