NATO Report on Chinese Disinformation Reveals Escalating Threats

 Since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Chi­na has inten­si­fied its dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns against Alliance mem­bers, pos­ing an increas­ing threat to Euro-Atlantic secu­ri­ty. Beyond pro­mot­ing pro-Chi­nese nar­ra­tives and sup­press­ing crit­i­cism of the regime, dis­in­for­ma­tion ema­nat­ing from the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na (PRC) now aims to desta­bilise, dis­cred­it, and weak­en NATO coun­tries in ser­vice of its own geopo­lit­i­cal inter­ests. With rapid tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions, infil­tra­tion of local media ecosys­tems, and grow­ing coop­er­a­tion with Rus­sia, dis­in­for­ma­tion ema­nat­ing from the PRC is spread­ing fur­ther and faster than ever before. These alarm­ing devel­op­ments high­light the urgency of bol­ster­ing efforts to counter dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions ema­nat­ing from the PRC tar­get­ing Allied pop­u­la­tions and insti­tu­tions along with their image and glob­al interests.

Read more: https://www.nato-pa.int/download-file?filename=/sites/default/files/2025–09/011%20CDSRCS%2025%20E%20rev.1%20-%20DISINFORMATION%20EMANATING%20FROM%20THE%20PRC%20-%20TEITELBAUM%20REPORT.pdf

Key Points

• The report high­lights that dis­in­for­ma­tion ema­nat­ing from the PRC now aims to desta­bi­lize, dis­cred­it, and weak­en NATO coun­tries in ser­vice of its own geopo­lit­i­cal inter­ests, going beyond mere­ly pro­mot­ing pro-Chi­nese nar­ra­tives and sup­press­ing crit­i­cism of the regime.
• The emer­gence of new arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence tools and the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the social media net­work Tik­Tok are exac­er­bat­ing the risks posed by dis­in­for­ma­tion ema­nat­ing from the PRC, accord­ing to the NATO Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly analysis.
• The draft report exam­ines the mechan­ics of Chi­na’s infor­ma­tion manip­u­la­tion strat­e­gy, traces the evo­lu­tion of Chi­nese infor­ma­tion cam­paigns, maps out key dis­in­for­ma­tion actors and their tac­tics, and pro­vides an overview of poli­cies adopt­ed by NATO and its Allies.
• The report warns that with rapid tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions, infil­tra­tion of local media ecosys­tems, and grow­ing coop­er­a­tion with Rus­sia, dis­in­for­ma­tion ema­nat­ing from the PRC is spread­ing fur­ther and faster than ever before.

Chinese Disinformation Operations: Global Influence and Election Interference

Chi­nese dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions have evolved into mas­sive and aggres­sive influ­ence cam­paigns. France’s Mil­i­tary Col­lege describes them as employ­ing “Machi­avel­lian” tac­tics to manip­u­late West­ern opin­ion through a ten­tac­u­lar net­work of insti­tu­tions and covert oper­a­tions. Google has waged an ongo­ing bat­tle against these net­works, with the com­pa­ny ter­mi­nat­ing 15,876 YouTube chan­nels in the first quar­ter of 2025 alone as part of coor­di­nat­ed take­downs. Since 2022, over 130,000 Chi­na-linked chan­nels have been removed. These chan­nels upload con­tent designed to sub­tly shift view­er opin­ions through seem­ing­ly legit­i­mate news out­lets that embed pro-Chi­na messaging.

Chi­na has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed a net­work of social media influ­encers oper­at­ing across Insta­gram, Face­book, Tik­Tok, and YouTube. These influ­encers par­rot gov­ern­ment per­spec­tives to hun­dreds of thou­sands of unsus­pect­ing users, with the research firm Miburo iden­ti­fy­ing at least 200 state-affil­i­at­ed influ­encers work­ing in 38 lan­guages. These influ­encers fall into three strate­gic cat­e­gories: “hon­ey­pots” are attrac­tive young women whose apo­lit­i­cal con­tent nor­mal­izes CCP world­views. “Peers” are West­ern voic­es prais­ing Chi­nese soci­ety and tech­nol­o­gy. “Veiled” state media reporters con­ceal their affil­i­a­tions while attack­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tems. Plat­form label­ing of these accounts remains incon­sis­tent, allow­ing their influ­ence to spread unchecked.

Beyond social media manip­u­la­tion, Chi­na’s mil­i­tary has devel­oped AI-pow­ered “algo­rith­mic cog­ni­tive war­fare”. This strat­e­gy com­bines mass data col­lec­tion with social media algo­rithms to cre­ate detailed psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­files and enables micro-tar­get­ed influ­ence at an unprece­dent­ed scale. PLA strate­gists envi­sion AI-gen­er­at­ed, per­son­al­ized con­tent that lever­ages rec­om­men­da­tion algo­rithms to max­i­mize indi­vid­ual impact.

Chi­nese state-spon­sored infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions have tar­get­ed elec­tions in the Philip­pines. Tech analy­sis firm Cyabra found approx­i­mate­ly one-third of pro-Duterte accounts on X were fake. These net­works ampli­fied pro­pa­gan­da sites and state media while attack­ing Pres­i­dent Mar­cos, includ­ing Deep­fake con­tent, which includ­ed fab­ri­cat­ed audio and video tar­get­ing the pres­i­dent. These oper­a­tions helped pro-Duterte can­di­dates win five of twelve Sen­ate seats in the May 2025 elections.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Chi­na exploits dete­ri­o­rat­ing Cana­da-US rela­tions through sophis­ti­cat­ed inter­fer­ence cam­paigns, posi­tion­ing itself as a reli­able alter­na­tive to Amer­i­can “hege­mon­ic bul­ly­ing,” and the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment coor­di­nates exten­sive net­works with­in dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties. Cana­di­an intel­li­gence warns these oper­a­tions have become “nor­mal­ized” and “more insid­i­ous.” Tai­wan’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Bureau doc­u­ment­ed the esca­lat­ing threat with 2.16 mil­lion dis­in­for­ma­tion instances record­ed in 2024—a 60 per­cent increase.

Chi­na deploys AI-gen­er­at­ed deep­fakes, inau­then­tic account net­works flood­ing com­ment sec­tions, and fake mul­ti­lin­gual web­sites like the Czech “Bohemia Dai­ly” to guide inter­na­tion­al opin­ion against Tai­wan. Amer­i­can oper­a­tions like “Spam­ou­flage” pose as U.S. vot­ers to exac­er­bate social divi­sions around immi­gra­tion and for­eign policy.

Exter­nal References:
— For Bei­jing’s For­eign Dis­in­for­ma­tion, the Era of AI-Dri­ven Oper­a­tions Has Arrived — The Diplomat
— Chi­na is push­ing divi­sive polit­i­cal mes­sages online using fake U.S. vot­ers — NPR
— Chi­na’s Dis­in­for­ma­tion Dis­sem­i­na­tion Pat­terns in 2024 — GlobalSecurity.org
— Chi­na’s Dis­in­for­ma­tion Cam­paign in the Philip­pines — For­eign Policy
— Google removes 15K YouTube chan­nels for Chi­na influ­ence activ­i­ty — Social Media Today
— Chi­na qui­et­ly builds net­work of social media influ­encers to push pro­pa­gan­da — Asso­ci­at­ed Press
— The Red Wave: How Chi­na Weaponizes Dis­in­for­ma­tion — Amer­i­can Secu­ri­ty Project

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