China Influence Operations Target India Using AI and Disinformation

These cas­es under­score not only how the US-Chi­na con­tes­ta­tion is shap­ing the glob­al intel­li­gence land­scape but also one of the most seri­ous chal­lenges that open democ­ra­cies are fac­ing today in man­ag­ing Chi­nese aggres­sive tac­tics when it comes to influ­ence oper­a­tions. These have been aimed at shap­ing inter­na­tion­al opin­ion, exploit­ing domes­tic fis­sures through the fea­tures of our democratic/parliamentary sys­tem, and seek­ing to viti­ate the infor­ma­tion­al ter­rain with­in which deci­sion-mak­ing is ges­tat­ed. Chi­na’s influ­ence oper­a­tions have a glob­al reach, hav­ing been honed and prac­tised for near­ly a cen­tu­ry under the aegis of the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment, ever since the Chi­nese Civ­il War pre­dat­ing the estab­lish­ment of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na (PRC) in 1949.

Read more: https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/what-ashley-tellis-arrest-should-tell-india-about-chinese-influence-ops-9473545

Key Points

• Chi­na uses a front com­pa­ny, GoLaxy, to devel­op the Smart Pro­pa­gan­da Sys­tem, aim­ing to lever­age Chi­na’s AI pow­er to tell Chi­na’s sto­ry, ampli­fy Chi­na’s voice, and expand Chi­na’s influ­ence globally.
• Chi­nese intel­li­gence ser­vices used West­ern AI tools such as Chat­G­PT under the Sneer Review pro­gramme to gen­er­ate com­ments in Eng­lish, Chi­nese, and Urdu for dis­sem­i­na­tion across social media plat­forms as part of a glob­al influ­ence campaign.
• Chi­na attempt­ed to use AI-devel­oped social media pro­files to pro­long sec­tar­i­an con­flict in Indi­an bor­der states like Manipur to aug­ment its strate­gic influ­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the­atres such as Myanmar.
• Chi­na’s infor­ma­tion war­fare sup­port­ed the India Out cam­paign on Mal­di­vian social media in the late 2010s and ear­ly 2020s, with rad­i­calised youth in Nepal and Bangladesh vul­ner­a­ble to AI-gen­er­at­ed manip­u­la­tion cam­paigns led by Chi­nese platforms.

China’s Influence Operations in India: AI, Social Media, and Academic Infiltration

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions in India have inten­si­fied through sophis­ti­cat­ed mul­ti-plat­form cam­paigns tar­get­ing the coun­try’s diverse infor­ma­tion ecosys­tem. This esca­la­tion fol­lowed the dead­ly 2020 Gal­wan Val­ley bor­der clash that sig­nif­i­cant­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed bilat­er­al rela­tions. Chi­na deploys AI trans­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy to auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­vert posts from Chi­nese to Eng­lish or Ben­gali, while oper­at­ing Eng­lish-lan­guage con­tent farms to reach Indi­an audiences.

Beyond dig­i­tal tac­tics, Bei­jing has worked to cul­ti­vate sym­pa­thet­ic Indi­an media fig­ures who advo­cate friend­ship even at the cost of Indi­a’s sov­er­eign­ty. Chi­na has also deployed coor­di­nat­ed inau­then­tic behav­ior on social media plat­forms. Meta dis­closed at least two major fake account net­works since 2023 that crit­i­cized the Indi­an gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary while focus­ing on bor­der issues. A sep­a­rate cam­paign cre­at­ed a fic­ti­tious pro-Sikh activist move­ment called “Oper­a­tion K” to foment division.

Bei­jing also spreads mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tives, such as claims of a “Lit­tle Chi­na in India” in Manipur that refus­es to speak Hin­di or mar­ry Indi­ans. Sim­i­lar­ly, Chi­nese state media out­lets, includ­ing Glob­al Times and CGTN, have ampli­fied pro-Pak­istan nar­ra­tives dur­ing India-Pak­istan ten­sions. These coor­di­nat­ed cam­paigns on Wei­bo and Twit­ter aim to under­mine Indi­a’s cred­i­bil­i­ty while show­cas­ing Chi­nese mil­i­tary superiority.

Aca­d­e­m­ic infil­tra­tion includes Chi­nese embassy-fund­ed uni­ver­si­ty cen­ters host­ing events where Chi­nese aca­d­e­mics pro­mote nar­ra­tives blam­ing the US for India-Chi­na divi­sions. This extends to media manip­u­la­tion, as jour­nal­ists vis­it­ing Tibet on Chi­nese-spon­sored trips return using Bei­jing’s ter­mi­nol­o­gy like “Xizang” and prais­ing CCP rule, which threat­ens Indi­a’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims.

The 2024 research col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Pol­ish Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Affairs and Observ­er Research Foun­da­tion offers impor­tant com­par­a­tive insight. While the Euro­pean Union pri­or­i­tizes Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion threats, India focus­es almost exclu­sive­ly on Chi­nese infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions. This reflects diver­gent threat per­cep­tions between these demo­c­ra­t­ic part­ners and high­lights the need for enhanced EU-India coop­er­a­tion on coun­ter­ing Bei­jing’s influ­ence activities.

Exter­nal References:
— Bei­jing’s online influ­ence oper­a­tions along the India–China bor­der — Aus­tralian Strate­gic Pol­i­cy Institute
— Chi­na’s Qui­et Push in India — Chi­na Media Project
— Risks, Resilience, Response (3R): India-EU Coop­er­a­tion on Russ­ian and Chi­nese Dis­in­for­ma­tion and Pro­pa­gan­da — Observ­er Research Foundation

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.