Prague-based Sinopsis has published a new investigation by Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, Chan Wei See, and Wong Kai Hui into the propagation of pro-Russian narratives about the invasion of Ukraine through Chinese state media and other official channels and into Chinese-language Malaysian communities on Facebook:
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, we have observed a flurry of pro-Russia disinformation presented in Chinese language circulating among the online communities of Chinese-speaking Malaysians. This disinformation aims to shape the audience’s views towards the war and its various stakeholders.
Most of this disinformation was carefully crafted to fit the established cognitive frameworks of “US vs. China” prevalent among Chinese-speaking Malaysians. It often tapped into the popular pro-Beijing sentiment among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Consequently, the messages and narratives were unique and different from the pro-Russia disinformation spreading in Europe and other languages. This phenomenon warrants a more detailed and systematic investigation to better understand the nature and structure of such influence operations.
To investigate this influence operation, we went beyond disinformation. In our dataset, we included propaganda that might be factual but was presented in a biased and misleading way to promote a particular point of view. We are aware that pro-Ukraine/US/West narratives in the Chinese language were also promoted and spread simultaneously, but it was less pervasive compared to the opposite, hence we did not include them in this investigation.
This investigation aims to identify:
- The main narratives of pro-Russia propaganda in the Chinese language that were distributed on major social media platforms targeting Chinese-speaking audiences in Malaysia during the Russia-Ukraine war; and
- The networks that promoted and disseminated such propaganda, and their actors and distribution patterns. [Source]
One narrative the authors focus on is the claim that the U.S. is deliberately prolonging the war in Ukraine in order to undermine its supposed rivals in the European Union:
The prime mover of this narrative in the Chinese language sphere was the Chinese state media. Our investigation traced the narrative to a professor at the National Defence University and Air Force Major General, Qiao Liang, who coauthored the book “Unrestricted Warfare”. He was interviewed by Chinese state-owned media China News on 26 February 2022, two days after Russia invaded Ukraine. He opined that the US was leveraging the Ukraine crisis to damage the European market so it could benefit from the influx of European capital and the surge in arms sales, thereby consolidating the dominant position of the US dollar. This report was reposted by other Chinese state media, including Youth.cn, Huaxia, Sina and Wangyi (163).
[…] The narrative continued to make occasional appearances on Chinese state media throughout the war. China’s persistence in pursuing the narrative is perhaps most revealing when People’s Daily, the most authoritative mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, also amplified the narrative.
In an in-depth analysis titled “The US has Disrupted European Stability by Exploiting the Crisis in Ukraine” published on 30 May 2023, the daily said, “Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the US has been actively fanning the flames and implementing extreme sanctions, leading to the crisis expanding and persisting, resulting in the largest geopolitical disaster in post-Cold War Europe. The US is using the crisis to further bind Europe’s dependence on the US in energy and security, and restrain European strategic autonomy. The deteriorating security situation prompted European countries to increase military spending, allowing the US to reap benefits. The economic losses and refugee crisis caused by the war are disproportionately borne by European countries.” [Source]
