Chinese AI Information Operations Seize Alarming Advantage Over US Military

Chi­nese AI infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions have reached unprece­dent­ed sophis­ti­ca­tion, requir­ing urgent Amer­i­can coun­ter­mea­sures. On May 9, 2025, Glob­al Secu­ri­ty Review report­ed that Chi­nese state-linked enti­ties are deploy­ing advanced arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties to shape glob­al infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ments, with tools that match or exceed West­ern equiv­a­lents while being offered free to poten­tial users world­wide. The arti­cle begins:

The DoD must incor­po­rate arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) capa­bil­i­ties to counter the influ­ence of Chi­na. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will inevitably deter­mine who shapes future con­flicts. Chi­na is active­ly using these capa­bil­i­ties to gain deci­sion dom­i­nance. Focus­ing on infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions is crit­i­cal. Drones, for exam­ple, use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties, as do defen­sive sys­tems. How­ev­er, con­flict between near-peer adver­saries and com­peti­tors is still unlike­ly as gray zone and hybrid con­flict are the dom­i­nant avenues for com­pe­ti­tion. With the infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ment tran­scend­ing all domains of war­fare, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties become the go-to capa­bil­i­ty to ensure and main­tain infor­ma­tion advantage.

Read more: https://globalsecurityreview.com/chinas-ai-driven-information-operations-are-here-the-us-needs-an-ai-rma/

Key Points

• Chi­nese threat actor Spam­ou­flage Drag­on uses gen­er­a­tive AI to cre­ate con­vinc­ing online per­sonas that influ­ence pub­lic opin­ion across glob­al infor­ma­tion environments.
• Chi­na has devel­oped free advanced AI mod­els like DeepSeek and Qwen that rival or exceed West­ern equiv­a­lents despite US export restric­tions on crit­i­cal components.
• Experts believe Chi­na’s strat­e­gy mir­rors its “debt-trap diplo­ma­cy” by cre­at­ing tech­no­log­i­cal depen­den­cy on Chi­nese AI sys­tems among nations that can­not afford West­ern alternatives.
• The arti­cle calls for com­pre­hen­sive mil­i­tary AI inte­gra­tion across all US defense oper­a­tions, not just spe­cial­ized branch­es, to counter Chi­na’s infor­ma­tion advantage.

China’s AI Influence Operations: Disinformation, Surveillance, and Global Reach

Chi­na has rapid­ly expand­ed its use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to shape glob­al nar­ra­tives and manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion, inte­grat­ing AI-pow­ered strate­gies for infor­ma­tion war­fare that merge psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­fil­ing, algo­rith­mic tar­get­ing, and social media manip­u­la­tion. Chi­nese state-linked actors have lever­aged advanced AI mod­els for sur­veil­lance and dis­in­for­ma­tion, gen­er­at­ing fake per­sonas, automat­ing the spread of divi­sive con­tent, and ampli­fy­ing polar­iz­ing debates on plat­forms like Tik­Tok and X. These cam­paigns have tar­get­ed demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties world­wide, includ­ing efforts to inter­fere in North Amer­i­can elec­tions and to inten­si­fy social dis­cord in Tai­wan through gen­er­a­tive AI-dri­ven disinformation.

By deploy­ing deep­fakes, AI-gen­er­at­ed news, and coor­di­nat­ed bot net­works, China’s oper­a­tions have become more sophis­ti­cat­ed and chal­leng­ing to detect, with the abil­i­ty to tai­lor pro­pa­gan­da for spe­cif­ic audi­ences and lan­guages. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of open-source and pro­pri­etary Chi­nese AI mod­els, often enhanced through eco­nom­ic espi­onage and glob­al tal­ent recruit­ment, has fur­ther accel­er­at­ed Beijing’s capac­i­ty to influ­ence, sur­veil, and dis­rupt infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ments at scale, pos­ing an urgent chal­lenge to elec­tion secu­ri­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience.

Exter­nal References:

1. Ope­nAI finds new Chi­nese influ­ence cam­paigns using its tools — Axios

2. Tai­wan says Chi­na using gen­er­a­tive AI to ramp up dis­in­for­ma­tion — Reuters

3. Mea­sur­ing the US-Chi­na AI Gap — Record­ed Future

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.