China Shifts to Overt Disinformation Operations Against Japan

Chi­na is shift­ing to overt dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions against Japan using state-linked chan­nels. On 28 Novem­ber 2025, ASPI and Japan Nexus Intel­li­gence report­ed that Chi­nese state media and diplo­mat­ic social media accounts inten­si­fied efforts to erode Japan’s stand­ing as an Indo-Pacif­ic defence part­ner. The arti­cle begins:

Chi­nese state media and diplo­mat­ic social media accounts inten­si­fied efforts to erode Japan’s stand­ing as an Indo-Pacif­ic defence and secu­ri­ty part­ner in 2025, research by Japan Nexus Intel­li­gence and ASPI shows. Where­as ear­li­er cam­paigns relied heav­i­ly on covert, coor­di­nat­ed and inau­then­tic net­works, the lat­est find­ings reveal a shift­ing threat: Bei­jing is increas­ing­ly using overt, state-linked chan­nels to push desta­bil­is­ing mes­sag­ing into the region­al infor­ma­tion envi­ron­ment. This shift serves sev­er­al pur­pos­es. Overt mes­sag­ing allows Chi­na to project its nar­ra­tives with greater scale, legit­i­ma­cy and weight, espe­cial­ly when tar­get­ing gov­ern­ments, local elites and media ecosys­tems in South­east Asia and the Pacific.

Read more: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/normalising-disinformation-china-shifts-to-overt-operations-against-japan/

Key Points

• Ref­er­ences to the Chi­nese Peo­ple’s War of Resis­tance Against Japan­ese Aggres­sion and the World Anti-Fas­cist War surged to about 780,100 on X and in news cov­er­age between Jan­u­ary and Octo­ber, up from around 16,800 in 2024, with a peak around Chi­na’s 3 Sep­tem­ber Vic­to­ry Day parade.
• Chi­nese embassies in Fiji, the Philip­pines, and Aus­tralia ampli­fied Chi­na Dai­ly, Xin­hua, and Peo­ple’s Dai­ly Online arti­cles crit­i­cis­ing Japan’s his­tor­i­cal con­duct, with the Mani­la embassy stat­ing the peo­ple of Chi­na and the Philip­pines fought shoul­der to shoul­der against Japan­ese aggres­sors dur­ing WWII.
• Chi­na Mil­i­tary Online described Japan’s Tal­is­man Sabre exer­cise par­tic­i­pa­tion as enhanc­ing offen­sive mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties through reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion in exer­cis­es, argu­ing that the activ­i­ty under­mined peace and sta­bil­i­ty in Indo-Pacif­ic and endan­gered the post-war inter­na­tion­al order.
• Fol­low­ing Toky­o’s announce­ment of 60 bil­lion yen in aid at the 2024 Pacif­ic Islands Lead­ers Meet­ing, Chi­nese ana­lysts claimed Japan’s actions would not bring true secu­ri­ty and would only trig­ger coun­ter­mea­sures, with Xin­hua accus­ing Japan and the US of mil­i­taris­ing the region.

Chinese Influence Operations in Asia: AI Disinformation and Election Interference

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions across Asia have inten­si­fied through AI-pow­ered dis­in­for­ma­tion, elec­tion inter­fer­ence, and sys­tem­at­ic cul­ti­va­tion of local elites. Bei­jing deploys arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence plat­forms like GoLaxy to devel­op real­is­tic social media pro­files and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly pro­file indi­vid­u­als vul­ner­a­ble to manip­u­la­tion, with cam­paigns extend­ing from Indi­a’s bor­der states to the Mal­dives, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

In the Philip­pines, Chi­nese oper­a­tions blur the line between influ­ence-ped­dling and espi­onage. The Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil con­firmed evi­dence of state-spon­sored infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the May 2025 midterm elec­tions, with inves­ti­ga­tors link­ing pro-Duterte fake news accounts to Bei­jing-backed net­works. Tech analy­sis firm Cyabra found approx­i­mate­ly one-third of all pro-Duterte accounts on X were inau­then­tic, while deep­fake con­tent tar­get­ed Pres­i­dent Mar­cos with fab­ri­cat­ed audio and video. Beyond dig­i­tal tac­tics, Bei­jing has trans­formed sis­ter city arrange­ments into strate­gic footholds in provinces near Tai­wan, lever­ag­ing the Fil­ipino-Chi­nese dias­po­ra through Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment operations.

India faces a dis­tinct chal­lenge giv­en its min­i­mal Chi­nese dias­po­ra. Bei­jing has adapt­ed by deploy­ing AI trans­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy to con­vert posts from Chi­nese to Eng­lish or Ben­gali while cul­ti­vat­ing sym­pa­thet­ic media fig­ures and fund­ing uni­ver­si­ty cen­ters that pro­mote nar­ra­tives blam­ing the Unit­ed States for bilat­er­al ten­sions. Meta has dis­closed at least two major fake account net­works since 2023, tar­get­ing Indi­a’s gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary over bor­der issues. A Sep­tem­ber 2025 report from The Diplo­mat doc­u­ment­ed how Meta removed 157 Face­book and 17 Insta­gram accounts tar­get­ing Myan­mar, Tai­wan, and Japan, with accounts pos­ing as local cit­i­zens while crit­i­ciz­ing civ­il resis­tance to Myan­mar’s junta.

Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty researchers note that AI-gen­er­at­ed deep­fakes heav­i­ly influ­enced the Philip­pines’ May 2025 elec­tions, with the coun­try earn­ing the label “patient zero” in the glob­al dis­in­for­ma­tion epi­dem­ic. CSIS tes­ti­mo­ny before Con­gress empha­sized that Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment efforts in South­east Asia war­rant greater atten­tion from U.S. experts and intel­li­gence agencies.

Exter­nal References:
• For Bei­jing’s For­eign Dis­in­for­ma­tion, the Era of AI-Dri­ven Oper­a­tions Has Arrived — The Diplomat
• Dis­in­for­ma­tion by design: lever­ag­ing solu­tions to com­bat mis­in­for­ma­tion in the Philip­pines’ 2025 elec­tion — Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press
• Chi­nese Influ­ence Activ­i­ties with U.S. Allies and Part­ners in South­east Asia — CSIS

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.