This research shows how the Chinese Communist Party uses tailored, reactive messaging in response to regional events, and analyses the effectiveness of that messaging in shifting public discourse online.

The author of this paper argues that Australia has performed better in curtailing the influence of China on media than most countries in East and Southeast Asia. It is suggested that these countries stay alert and work together to forge a cross-nation network in exchange...

This report explores how the Chinese party-state’s globally focused propaganda and disinformation capabilities are evolving and increasing in sophistication. Concerningly, this emerging approach by the Chinese party-state to influence international discourse on China, including obfuscating its record of human rights violations, is largely flying under...

This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using a range of influence channels to shape, promote and suppress messages in the Solomon Islands information environment. Through an examination of CCP online influence in the aftermath of the Honiara riots in late 2021...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using technology to enforce transnational digital repression and influence unwitting audiences beyond China’s territory. The impact of these operations isn’t widely understood, and the international community has failed to adequately respond to the global challenges posed by the CCP’s...

This report explores community groups and individuals in the Xinjiang diaspora that are linked to the Chinese Communist Party's united front system, as well as the methods and tactics used by that system to activate and guide them.

The Chinese government commands a robust communication machine, including traditional global media outlets available in dozens of languages, China’s so-called 'wolf warrior' diplomats, pro-government trolls, and paid social media influencers. To better understand how primed keywords can lead search engine users to state media, this...

This publication explores the changing nature of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) engagement with Australian states and territories, local governments, city councils, universities, research organisations and non-government organisations nested in Australian civil society.

This report includes summaries of the evidence received about the motivations for foreign interference, the forms that it can take, the elements of social media platforms and their usage that foreign interference attempts often seek to exploit, and the social and cultural features that foreign...

This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses foreign social media influencers to shape and push messages domestically and internationally about Xinjiang that are aligned with its own preferred narratives.

This report analyses two Chinese state-linked networks seeking to influence discourse about Xinjiang across platforms including Twitter and YouTube. This activity targeted the Chinese-speaking diaspora, as well as international audiences, sharing content in a variety of languages.

This report provides a primer on the roots of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) within China’s policy system, and sheds light on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intentions to use cyberspace as a tool for shaping discourse domestically and internationally.

This report examines the Asia–Pacific regional influence-for-hire marketplace using case studies of online manipulation in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and Australia.

The Chinese military's focus on information warfare is expanding to include information operations on social media. This report describes how the People's Liberation Army (PLA) might direct social media disinformation campaigns against the United States and its armed forces, especially the U.S. Air Force

This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), fringe media and pro-CCP online actors seek to shape and influence international perceptions of the Chinese Government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including through the amplification of disinformation.

This report provides a snapshot of the Chinese Communist Party's coordinated response targeting the BBC, and also analyses some of the secondary effects of this propaganda effort by exploring the mobilisation of a pro-CCP Twitter network.

This report is based on detailed research into 24 Chinese-language media organisations operating in Australia, analysis of their coverage of events, and investigations into the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) efforts to influence media in this country.

Misinformation is now a top-level policy issue. This paper assesses the benefits and risks associated with the identification and regulation of news and information.

This report proposes common-sense media literacy techniques to help prevent the spread of misinformation, as well as a series of experimental steps to reach out to conspiracy believers.

Over the past decade, state actors have taken advantage of the digitisation of election systems, election administration and election campaigns to interfere in foreign elections and referendums. This research identified 41 elections and seven referendums between January 2010 and October 2020 where cyber-enabled foreign interference...

General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations is a classic example of the Chinese Communist Party’s doublespeak. Almost every statement was hypocritical when examined in light of such CCP actions as the suppression...

While most major international social media networks remain banned from the Chinese market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Chinese social media companies are expanding overseas and building up large global audiences. Some of those networks—including WeChat and TikTok—pose challenges, including to freedom of...

This latest report in the series on COVID-19 disinformation and social media manipulation investigates vaccine disinformation emerging – the day after Russia announced plans to mass-produce its own vaccine - from Eastern Ukraine’s pro-Russian media ecosystem.

This report investigates a campaign of cross-platform inauthentic activity that relies on a high-degree of automation and is broadly in alignment with the political goal of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to denigrate the standing of the United States.