Charlie Kirk Killing Opens Opportunity for Chinese & Russian Manipulation

Char­lie Kirk’s killing has cre­at­ed new oppor­tu­ni­ties for Chi­na and Rus­sia to exploit Amer­i­can polit­i­cal divi­sions through dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns. On Sep­tem­ber 12, 2025, Newsweek report­ed that Utah Gov­er­nor Spencer Cox warned for­eign adver­saries are active­ly work­ing to “encour­age vio­lence” using bot net­works, with the con­ser­v­a­tive commentator’s assas­si­na­tion high­light­ing how domes­tic crises become flash­points for for­eign manip­u­la­tion. The arti­cle begins:

The killing of con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Char­lie Kirk in Utah has laid bare grow­ing polit­i­cal vio­lence and social dis­cord in the Unit­ed States, poten­tial­ly mak­ing it more vul­ner­a­ble to main­pu­la­tion amid deep­en­ing polar­iza­tion and mis­trust of insti­tu­tions. For­eign pow­ers such as Rus­sia and Chi­na, which chal­lenge Amer­i­ca and its allies from Europe to the Mid­dle East to Tai­wan and the South Chi­na Sea, have long been accused of exploit­ing such divi­sions through dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns that inflame ten­sions and weak­en con­fi­dence in Amer­i­can gov­er­nance. Kirk’s death high­lights the very envi­ron­ment these actors seek to exploit, a point made by Utah’s Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Spencer Cox, who warned they are active­ly work­ing to “encour­age violence.”

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-china-russia-oppourtunity-us-division-2128734

Key Points

• Gov­er­nor Cox warned that “we have bots from Rus­sia, Chi­na, all over the world, that are try­ing to instill mis­in­for­ma­tion and encour­age vio­lence” fol­low­ing Kirk’s assassination
• Chi­na has pre­vi­ous­ly lever­aged U.S. social crises through the “Spam­ou­flage” net­work, where Chi­nese-linked accounts imper­son­at­ed vot­ers and spread divi­sive mes­sages using AI-gen­er­at­ed content
• Russ­ian Deputy Chair­man Dmit­ry Medvedev blamed “left-wing lib­er­al scum who sup­port Ban­derite Kiev” for polit­i­cal crimes while sug­gest­ing MAGA sup­port­ers are back­ing “mur­der­ers”
• Har­vard pro­fes­sor Juli­ette Kayyem not­ed that Chi­nese and Rus­sians “fill the space with con­firm­ing nar­ra­tives that pit Amer­i­cans against each oth­er” dur­ing moments of uncertainty

Russian Chinese US Narrative Manipulation: Targeting American Discourse

Rus­sia and Chi­na have increas­ing­ly embed­ded them­selves into U.S. nar­ra­tive spaces through a vari­ety of covert and overt tac­tics. Moscow has relied on net­works such as the Strate­gic Cul­ture Foun­da­tion, which lever­ages for­mer West­ern offi­cials to legit­imize Krem­lin mes­sag­ing. Both pow­ers also seek to mold the infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ment through manip­u­lat­ed online knowl­edge plat­forms, where coor­di­nat­ed edit­ing cam­paigns reshape sen­si­tive issues. Bei­jing com­ple­ments this with offline polit­i­cal pres­sure, push­ing sym­pa­thet­ic grass­roots actors and local offi­cials into lob­by­ing Wash­ing­ton for Chi­na-friend­ly out­comes, while also orches­trat­ing fab­ri­cat­ed reports of mil­i­tary strikes to desta­bi­lize trust in real-time news flows.

These cam­paigns echo broad­er find­ings that U.S. vot­ers are being direct­ly tar­get­ed by Chi­nese online influ­ence oper­a­tions, with researchers doc­u­ment­ing fake per­sonas and tai­lored pro­pa­gan­da aimed at divi­sive domes­tic issues. Ana­lysts at CEPA like­wise high­light how Sino-Russ­ian con­ver­gence in for­eign infor­ma­tion manip­u­la­tion increas­ing­ly blurs the line between par­al­lel and coor­di­nat­ed activ­i­ty, espe­cial­ly as both pow­ers weaponize shared nar­ra­tives around U.S. decline and West­ern hypocrisy.

U.S. intel­li­gence has fur­ther warned that Rus­sia, Iran, and Chi­na are expect­ed to use AI-dri­ven tools to inten­si­fy nar­ra­tive shap­ing around elec­tions, sig­nal­ing a future in which these dis­in­for­ma­tion ecosys­tems become even more adap­tive and resilient.

Exter­nal References:
1. US vot­ers tar­get­ed by Chi­nese influ­ence online, researchers say
2. Chi­na-Rus­sia con­ver­gence in for­eign infor­ma­tion manip­u­la­tion and interference
3. Rus­sia, Iran, Chi­na expect­ed to use AI to try influ­ence US elec­tion, report says

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.