Edward Lucas
The covid-19 public health crisis involves more than a fight against the coronavirus. It has prompted an information war in which the United States and its allies are losing ground to adversaries, particularly Russia and China. While the pandemic enables disruption of the information environment, it also presents a research opportunity. Based on a literature review through January 2021, evaluated at an expert seminar, this policy brief provides a baseline analysis of changing tactics, narratives, and distribution strategies in Russian and Chinese information operations (IOs) relating to the covid-19 pandemic.
Key findings:
China copied Russia’s tactics, spreading disinformation globally for the first time, particularly on the virus’s origins. But it lacks Russia’s skillset;
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) turned to destructive and conspiratorial narratives in an attempt to blunt criticism of its initial failure to contain covid-19;
China’s previous approach built economic ties and influence with political elites, whereas Russia’s lies and disruption targeted broader public opinion;1
Russia’s approach evolved little; it recycled previous narratives, spreading a broad range of covid-19 disinformation;
Evidence supports the theory that Russia seeks to strengthen itself in relative terms by weakening the West, while China seeks to strengthen itself in absolute terms;
Collaboration agreements between state media and circular amplification of narratives during the pandemic do not (yet) amount to evidence of strategic Sino-Russian coordination; and
Covid-19 disinformation has not only hampered public health provision, it makes societies more vulnerable to future IOs.
RUSSIAN AND CHINESE INFORMATION OPERATIONS BEFORE COVID-19
Russia’s strategic aim is to undermine the foundations of the liberal democratic order by delegitimizing the United States as a credible partner, intensifying divisions within the transatlantic alliance, and eroding public support for values and institutions.2 Its approach is confrontational, destructive, and often clandestine.
Russia conducted social media manipulation campaigns in at least 70 countries in 2019, twice as many as in 2017, marking a continued increase in sophistication and intensity.3 Tactics include concealing, disguising, coopting, penetrating, and manipulating.4 Spreading conspiracy theories muddies the information environment and undermines public confidence in the nature of truth.5 Local proxies help Russia exploit social tensions and obfuscate the origins of its disinformation. Their existence also hampers regulation by raising freedom of speech concerns.6 The Kremlin mainly relies on Western social media platforms, whereas China can also use its own platforms that are subject to control from Beijing.7 While geopolitical success attracts the attention of others, China was slow to converge with Russia’s aggressive IO tactics before covid-19.
China
Before 2020, China’s IOs were more subtle, patient, and risk-averse than Russia’s, even though Xi Jinping brought a more aggressive approach to Chinese foreign policy.8 The CCP started spreading disinformation on social media outside of mainland China as early as 2017, but this focused on elites, building a positive image of China and creating a consistent narrative.9 Global influence campaigns included promoting favorable content through state media outlets and cultivating or purchasing foreign outlets as proxies.10
Before 2020, Chinese disinformation focused on hot-button issues that impacted the CCP’s core claims to legitimacy: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang.11 In 2018, China used disinformation to interfere in Taiwan’s legislative elections, apparently benefiting the pro-Beijing opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT).12 Chinese embassies and ambassadors began opening social media accounts on Western platforms in 2019 during the protests in Hong Kong, a trend that continued into 2020.13
Notable Differences
In 2020, half of English-language Chinese state media reporting was about China, while only 5% of Russian English-language state media reporting focused on Russia. Despite recent changes (see below), these statistics confirm that Russia seeks to strengthen itself in relative terms by weakening the West, while China seeks to strengthen itself in absolute terms.14
China is confident whereas Russia doubts its soft power. China has its own strengths in the media and information space and already owns five of the six most-followed news pages on Facebook.15 China inserted content into mainstream foreign publications whereas Russia largely influenced the information environment through social media, fringe proxies, and its own media outlets.16
Russia’s IOs were more confrontational, while China’s were more under-the-radar.17 The Kremlin was willing to live with the consequences of interfering in elections and spreading disinformation. China acted more cautiously with the hope that building influence in a less overt and disruptive manner would bring future benefits.
Unlike the Kremlin, the CCP relied more on suppressing negative information, both domestically through its censors, and overseas through the growing Chinese media presence, companies’ dependence on the Chinese market, covert funding of think tanks and universities, as well as links with political elites.18
During covid-19, experts witnessed significant convergence between the two state actors with China spreading mutually contradictory conspiracy theories and Russia further closing its information space; it remains to be seen whether these are long-term changes.
THE COVID-19 EXPERIMENT
Russia’s approach to disinformation didn’t evolve as rapidly as China’s. But its success has inspired other actors to use the Russian playbook. In 2020, China’s IO tactics converged with Russia’s “firehose of falsehood” model, including spreading multiple conflicting conspiracy theories to undermine people’s trust in facts.19 For the first time, China actively spread disinformation on a global scale, partially with diplomats’ increased use of Western social media.20 But Kremlin-sponsored content receives substantially more engagement, reflecting Russia’s better understanding of Western political dynamics.15 This potentially provides China with a ready-to-use toolkit that complements its own strengths.
Russian Narratives
During the covid-19 pandemic, Russian disinformation has recycled many anti-Western narratives from previous crises. Disinformation plugs into existing master narratives such as NATO’s nefarious role, the European Union’s (EU’s) incompetence and decay, democracies’ failure to deal with crises, and endemic Western Russophobia. With time, conspiracies build upon each other and prime target audiences for ever more disinformation.
Covid-19 as a Western bioweapon
Allegations that the United States created the covid-19 virus received the largest social media engagement.21 This echoed Operation Denver, the Soviet attempt in the 1980s to blame the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the United States.22 Russia revived narratives that tied military laboratories and U.S. troops to the outbreak, including accusations that a U.S.-led military exercise helped spread the virus.23 This disinformation particularly affected the largest Western democracies and countries on Russia’s periphery.24 Special targets were Ukraine and Georgia, where Russia shared more information about covid-19 than local media in an attempt to dilute the information environment with pro-Kremlin and anti-Western narratives.25
The failure of Western response
Russia also spread propaganda and disinformation criticizing the West’s response, including prophesying an imminent collapse of Schengen, NATO, and the EU.26 An underlying, sometimes overt theme, was that authoritarian governments can more effectively control the virus than democracies, which are inherently weak.27 China and Russia used the Capt. Crozier incident — the firing of the commanding officer of a U.S. aircraft carrier after he raised the alarm about a covid-19 outbreak on his ship — as a prime example of the failings of U.S. public administration.28
Medical solidarity
At the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the EU banned the export of medical supplies and EU member states reimposed border controls.29 Legitimate criticism of this soon turned to disinformation. Russian media praised its own aid to the Western Balkans and countries within the EU even though the Italian newspaper La Stampa discovered that most of the equipment was purchased as normal exports — not received as aid — and that it was mostly faulty.30 A Russian senator played up historical Russian-Polish animosity to push a false story that Poland refused Russian access to Polish airspace while Russia attempted to send humanitarian supplies to Italy.31 Sputnik Italia amplified the disinformation and the narrative received three million Twitter impressions.11 The distribution of narratives differed depending on the target country. In the Balkans, where public opinion is largely supportive of EU accession, Russian media falsely showed Italians replacing EU flags with Russian flags.32 In the developing world, Russian IOs painted Russian and Chinese vaccines as public goods compared with Western pharmaceutical companies who had profit motivations.33
Covid-19 anti-vaxxer narratives
Russian vaccine disinformation appeared as early as January 2020 after a long effort to cultivate relationships with anti-vaccine campaigners.34 Some of the most prolific vaccine disinformation came from a Russian-backed separatist group in Ukraine which claimed that vaccine tests from U.S.-based Moderna killed five Ukrainians.35 This disinformation reached 14 million people by targeting right-wing and left-wing vaccine skeptics.11
In August, Russia announced that it had developed Sputnik V, the world’s first covid-19 vaccine, though safety concerns had not been addressed.36 A state-backed disinformation campaign argued that it was the world’s only safe option.11 Russia was betting that even if the vaccine fails, it would still receive a short-term soft-power victory with non-allies like Mexico and Brazil signing up to buy the vaccine and German Chancellor Angela Merkel considering producing the vaccine in the EU.37 Even though Russia did not join, it also criticized the United States for being irresponsible for not joining the multilateral COVAX effort.38
Engaging with anti-vaxxers, yet simultaneously promoting its own vaccine, exemplifies Russia’s embrace of contradictory conspiracy theories. Forfeiting a singular narrative allows the Kremlin to target a larger population.39 The virus is simultaneously a plague and a hoax, with responses incited including panic, fake cures, and conspiracies about 5G towers.40
Russian Tactics, Distribution Strategies, and Target Audiences
The pandemic has enabled the Kremlin to entrench control over the information environment. While Russia’s IO tactics did not change as noticeably as China’s, the Kremlin continued refining existing tactics, particularly on how to blur the lines between legitimate and illegitimate sources and obfuscating reliable information. Overseas, Russian IOs advanced geopolitical goals.
Suppression and surveillance
The Russian government used the pandemic to consistently suppress information about the virus and targeted doctors who criticized the government.41 With technology bought from China, Russian authorities expanded digital surveillance capabilities and tested the use of facial recognition and QR codes for quarantine control.42 While its information space is more open than China’s, Russia has been inspired by China’s model of closed internet standards and cyber sovereignty — supporting international norms that recognize a country’s right to tight control over its internet and censorship of political content.43 Russia learning from Chinese approaches to information control, including China’s export of its closed information system, deserves more research.44
Use of proxies
Russian tactics include using proxies and impersonating real organizations.45 Russian media amplified statements by Italian politicians praising Russian medical equipment.31 In Ukraine, proxies spread panic about evacuees returning from China.46 This led to violent protests and a governor’s resignation.11 Recently, 20 journalists learned they had unwittingly become writers for a Russian-backed outlet called Peace Data [the name is a pun on Russian obscenity] which was impersonating a real media outlet.47 In France, researchers discovered websites of GRU front organizations spreading covid-19 disinformation.48The average viewer would not have noticed the Russian links.11 Websites have removed Russian authors and hidden Russian-language content.14 Pro-Kremlin outlets have begun copying text from other sources to avoid mistakes, using fewer hashtags to avoid detection by natural language processing systems, and blurring or removing watermarks.49
While many individual websites in the pro-Kremlin information environment receive limited engagement, their content is still amplified by more popular sites which makes it challenging to trace disinformation to its source. On Twitter, 1% of Russian disinformation accounts tweeted more than 35% of shared tweets while 0.1% tweeted 18% of shared tweets.50 Russian disinformation is usually already spreading on fringe websites and in online alt-right circles and subsequently amplified by government-backed outlets.51
Targeted approach
Russia also uses diverse tactics and distribution strategies. In countries where Russian is widely spoken, the Kremlin spreads its disinformation through Russian-language TV and proxies like the Russian Orthodox Church.52 For elderly populations, Russia focuses on chain emails instead of social media.53 In the Middle East and Latin America, Russia wants citizens to view RT as a legitimate news source, though it still spreads disinformation through Sputnik Mundo and News Front-Español.54 During the covid-19 pandemic, RT en Español has been largely neutral, sometimes even critical of Russia and China.11
Narrative laundering
Throughout 2020, Russia consistently tied covid-19 IOs to its geopolitical goals, particularly regarding sanctions and the Kremlin’s interests in Russia’s near abroad. Russia argued that Western sanctions were inhumane, and its Foreign Ministry spokesperson even said that sanctions on Venezuela were approaching genocide.55
Ukraine and Georgia have traditionally been testing grounds for Russian hybrid warfare and the pandemic has been no exception. To reduce Ukraine’s maneuverability in peace talks, Russia incited violent protests and used organic covid-19-related protests to portray western Ukrainians as particularly violent and ignorant.56 In the Caucasus, Russian media falsely accused Georgia of exploiting the pandemic to violate the South Ossetian border with EU support.57 Farther afield, Russian outlets amplified narratives already circulating in the West that Syrian relief groups like the White Helmets were using the pandemic to accelerate regime change.11 The Kremlin is particularly adept at amplifying disinformation already circulating in the West. This blurs the lines between foreign and domestic disinformation. Russia had at least some short-term geopolitical success with polls finding that most Serbians falsely believed Russia delivered more aid to their country than the EU.58
Chinese Narratives
The pandemic has put the CCP in a vulnerable position, forcing a turn to more destructive and conspiratorial narratives in an attempt to change global opinion about China’s initial failure to contain covid-19.59 State media and government officials spread disinformation about the origins of covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, and this continues into 2021. The CCP insists that the origins of the pandemic are unknown.60 Once China successfully contained the virus within its borders, its propaganda focused on vindicating China’s draconian approach while criticizing the West for its failed response. Finally, China amplified stories about its international leadership, including collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and sending shipments of medical assistance to hard-hit countries. The underlying narrative was that China’s governance model is more effective than the West’s.61
The origins of the virus
Starting February 11, 2020, in an early sign that China was attempting to shift blame away from itself, Chinese media dropped any mention of #Wuhan in their Twitter posts about the virus.62 Chinese media started mentioning a now-deleted Japanese TV report arguing that covid-19 might have been present in the United States in 2019.63 On March 12, Zhao Lijian, the spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, retweeted a video which argued that the U.S. military could have brought covid-19 to Wuhan during the 2019 World Military Games.11 Chinese think tanks blamed U.S. military bioweapons labs for the origins of the virus.17 While not recycled to the same extent as Russia’s, these tactics have a history: Mao Zedong blamed the United States for spreading viruses during the Korean War.64
In October, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Prague stated, “China was the first country to report the epidemic, but that does not mean that the epidemic originated in China.”65 They went on to spread disinformation that the virus appeared in many countries before China.11
China’s success in containing the virus
China’s narrative followed the common theme that democracy is messy and ineffective compared with authoritarian systems. In praising its own response to the pandemic, the CCP wanted the world to believe that China’s official data was accurate and transparent, that the outbreak was under control, and that the country could serve as a model.66 To gain legitimacy, Chinese media amplified positive comments from Western leaders like former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin who said that the Chinese government “has manifested extremely effective organization and mobilization ability, which is exactly the advantage of the Chinese system.”67
Like other Chinese narratives about its response to the virus, there was a mixture of potentially truthful propaganda and disinformation. Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, tweeted a photo of a hospital being constructed in 16 hours, but researchers discovered that the photo was in fact of an apartment building.68 By late February, “wolf warrior” diplomats [the term comes from a popular Chinese action movie] became increasingly critical, accusing the West of using covid-19 as an excuse to contain China’s rise.69 In France, the Chinese Embassy called out French authorities for letting the elderly die in their nursing homes.70
Chinese mask diplomacy
To boost its image as an international leader, China sent doctors and medical equipment to other countries. Most Chinese reporting about this was disinformation since the majority of China’s aid was faulty or purchased as normal exports instead of given freely.71 Chinese media also made no distinction between assistance from the government and nominally private Chinese organizations.72 Chinese media and local embassies amplified praise from Europeans thanking China for its support with pro-China sentiment in Italy rising from 10% in January to 52% in March 2020.73 Like Russia, China criticized the EU for its initial ban on the export of medical equipment and the United States for its lack of support for the WHO.74
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