Two years into office, President Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation. Three former officials told Reuters that the CIA created a small team of operatives who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about Xi Jinping’s government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets. The effort, which began in 2019, has not been previously reported.

The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world, the sources told Reuters. Although the U.S. officials declined to provide specific details of these operations, they said the disparaging narratives were based in fact despite being secretly released by intelligence operatives under false cover. The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing’s tightly controlled internet, two former officials said. “We wanted them chasing ghosts,” one of these former officials said. […]

The CIA operation came in response to years of aggressive covert efforts by China aimed at increasing its global influence, the sources said. During his presidency, Trump pushed a tougher response to China than had his predecessors. The CIA’s campaign signaled a return to methods that marked Washington’s struggle with the former Soviet Union. “The Cold War is back,” said Tim Weiner, author of a book on the history of political warfare. Reuters was unable to determine the impact of the secret operations or whether the administration of President Joe Biden has maintained the CIA program.

Abstract credit: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/03/14/2315243/cia-used-chinese-social-media-in-covert-influence-operation-against-xi-jinpings-government

    • Sonori@beehaw.org
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      7 months ago

      Probably not, after all this was all done on social media locally owned by the target country, so if anything this would push the US to foucus more on large platforms full of voters like Facebook.

    • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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      7 months ago

      I mean in a sense yes, but it’s not been a secret China has been using tiktok for similar purposes among other things.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    NSA watching the CIA use their in-house world’s greatest espionage hardware and resources just to spam Chinese Facebook with memes:

    spoiler

    Isn’t this the plot to MGRR?

  • justdoitlater@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Wow “a small team of operatives”, for a country with 1,4 billion people… please dont try so hard /s