China Using AI for Influence Campaigns and Tracking Congress Members and Influencers

Chi­nese AI infor­ma­tion war­fare oper­a­tions rep­re­sent a new fron­tier in espi­onage and influ­ence cam­paigns. On August 6, 2025, The New York Times report­ed that Chi­nese tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny GoLaxy has col­lect­ed data on Con­gress mem­bers and influ­en­tial Amer­i­cans while con­duct­ing AI-dri­ven cam­paigns in Hong Kong and Tai­wan. The arti­cle begins:

The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment is using com­pa­nies with exper­tise in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to mon­i­tor and manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion, giv­ing it a new weapon in infor­ma­tion war­fare, accord­ing to cur­rent and for­mer U.S. offi­cials and doc­u­ments unearthed by researchers. One company’s inter­nal doc­u­ments show how it has under­tak­en influ­ence cam­paigns in Hong Kong and Tai­wan, and col­lect­ed data on mem­bers of Con­gress and oth­er influ­en­tial Americans.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/us/politics/china-artificial-intelligence-information-warfare.html

Key Points

• GoLaxy’s “GoPro” sys­tem assem­bled vir­tu­al pro­files on 117 cur­rent and for­mer Con­gress mem­bers includ­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Byron Don­alds, Chip Roy, and Andy Big­gs, plus over 2,000 Amer­i­can polit­i­cal fig­ures and 4,000 right-wing influencers.
• The com­pa­ny process­es mil­lions of dai­ly data points from Wei­bo, WeChat, X, and Face­book to devel­op mes­sag­ing that coun­ters crit­i­cism of China’s COVID poli­cies, Hong Kong con­trol, and Tai­wan inde­pen­dence support.
• Dur­ing Hong Kong’s 2020 Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Law protests, GoLaxy iden­ti­fied 180,000 Twit­ter accounts and pushed nar­ra­tives min­i­miz­ing pub­lic dis­sent while track­ing pro-democ­ra­cy activists.
• The tech­nol­o­gy rep­re­sents China’s effort to over­come tra­di­tion­al infor­ma­tion war­fare weak­ness­es, using AI to auto­mat­i­cal­ly gen­er­ate tar­get­ed pro­pa­gan­da and con­duct real-time coun­ter­at­tacks against oppos­ing viewpoints.

Chinese AI Influence Operations: Reshaping Global Narratives and Digital Power

China’s orches­trat­ed use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for glob­al influ­ence oper­a­tions increas­ing­ly merges tar­get­ed dig­i­tal cam­paigns, eco­nom­ic state­craft, and elite cul­ti­va­tion to reshape inter­na­tion­al per­cep­tions and polit­i­cal envi­ron­ments far beyond its bor­ders. Bei­jing adopts open-source AI plat­forms and dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture to embed its nar­ra­tives in coun­tries like Peru, lever­ag­ing ports, tele­coms, and AI-pow­ered broad­cast­ing to advance both tech­no­log­i­cal depen­den­cy and ide­o­log­i­cal con­for­mi­ty, while sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly claim­ing geopo­lit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties such as Taiwan’s inte­gra­tion into China.

These export-led strate­gies are cou­pled with AI-dri­ven psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­fil­ing and algo­rith­mic cog­ni­tive war­fare, where the PLA and state-linked actors col­lect mass data to gen­er­ate per­son­al­ized pro­pa­gan­da, ampli­fy divi­sive debates, and manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion through plat­forms rang­ing from Tik­Tok to west­ern social net­works. The sophis­ti­ca­tion and scale of China’s approach is under­scored by coor­di­nat­ed take­downs of thou­sands of covert, AI-gen­er­at­ed influ­ence chan­nels on YouTube—removed by Google for deploy­ing syn­thet­ic media, fake accounts, and inter­na­tion­al influ­ence rings to pro­mote pro-Bei­jing nar­ra­tives and counter for­eign criticism.

In par­al­lel, Chi­na has expand­ed its tar­get­ing of demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and elite net­works through both overt and covert means, includ­ing elec­tion inter­fer­ence, elite net­work­ing, and attempts to influ­ence reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, as detailed in inves­ti­ga­tions span­ning Europe, North Amer­i­ca, and the Asia-Pacific.

The Chi­nese strat­e­gy is increas­ing­ly coor­di­nat­ed with oth­er author­i­tar­i­an regimes, par­tic­u­lar­ly Rus­sia, blur­ring the lines between com­mer­cial activ­i­ty, dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture, and state-dri­ven infor­ma­tion war­fare, and pre­sent­ing a per­sis­tent chal­lenge to glob­al infor­ma­tion integri­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience—a threat pro­file amply doc­u­ment­ed by recent analy­ses in West­ern intel­li­gence and media.

Exter­nal References

1. Chi­na Turns to A.I. in Infor­ma­tion Warfare
2. Researchers detail new ‘gray zone con­flict’ in AI-dri­ven Chi­nese propaganda
3. Ope­nAI takes down covert oper­a­tions tied to China

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.