China Wages Philippines Social Media Campaign With Fake Accounts

As Chi­nese ships fired water can­nons at Philip­pine ves­sels in the South Chi­na Sea in Novem­ber 2021, Bei­jing’s then-ambas­sador to Mani­la asked Fil­ipinos on Face­book to share their favorite things about Chi­na. Among the hun­dreds of gush­ing respons­es were three from a young man named “Vince Dimaano.” His com­ments — like many respond­ing to the Chi­nese embassy’s posts — weren’t gen­uine. They came from fake accounts paid for by the diplo­mat­ic mis­sion, accord­ing to inter­nal doc­u­ments from a Mani­la-based mar­ket­ing agency. The firm, Infini­tUs Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions, waged a cyber cam­paign paid for by Chi­na to weak­en sup­port for Philip­pine gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and to sow dis­cord over Mani­la’s secu­ri­ty alliance with the Unit­ed States, accord­ing to a review of the doc­u­ments and the fake Face­book accounts, as well as inter­views with two for­mer com­pa­ny employ­ees and two Philip­pine officials.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/how-china-waged-an-infowar-against-us-interests-philippines-2025–10-06/

Key Points

• Infini­tUs Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions cre­at­ed what it called an army of at least ten fake Face­book accounts that prop­a­gat­ed con­tent about the cons of US Typhon mis­siles being deployed in the Philip­pines, accord­ing to com­pa­ny work-progress reports.
• The Chi­nese-owned com­pa­ny also cre­at­ed Ni Hao Mani­la, a media out­let designed to appear Fil­ipino-run, which post­ed videos high­light­ing Bei­jing’s naval prowess and crit­i­ciz­ing Philip­pine secu­ri­ty coop­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States.
• The Chi­nese embassy dis­trib­uted cash awards rang­ing from approx­i­mate­ly $850 to $3,440 to dozens of promi­nent Fil­ipinos through the Asso­ci­a­tion of Philip­pine-Chi­na Under­stand­ing, an orga­ni­za­tion re-estab­lished by for­mer Philip­pine Pres­i­dent Glo­ria Arroyo and a Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty agency.
• Meta con­firmed the fake accounts vio­lat­ed plat­form pol­i­cy and removed them after being alert­ed by Reuters, while Tik­Tok inves­ti­gat­ed Ni Hao Mani­la’s account and removed fake fol­low­ers after being noti­fied by the news agency.

China’s Influence Operations in the Philippines: Disinformation, Election Interference, and Soft Power

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions in the Philip­pines have esca­lat­ed into a com­pre­hen­sive assault on demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions through espi­onage, elec­tion inter­fer­ence, eco­nom­ic coer­cion, and sophis­ti­cat­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns tar­get­ing Amer­i­ca’s old­est South­east Asian ally. Since Jan­u­ary 2025, Philip­pine author­i­ties arrest­ed more than a dozen Chi­nese nation­als on espi­onage charges after they infil­trat­ed local com­mu­ni­ties bear­ing gifts of cash for pover­ty relief and motor­cy­cles for police offi­cers while covert­ly map­ping mil­i­tary bases, pho­tograph­ing coast­guard ves­sels, and sur­vey­ing pow­er plants. Inter­nal doc­u­ments from Mani­la-based mar­ket­ing firm Infini­tUs Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions reveal that the Chi­nese embassy direct­ly financed fake Face­book and X accounts spread­ing anti-Amer­i­can and pro-Chi­na nar­ra­tives, deploy­ing “key­board war­riors” to pro­mote agen­das counter to Mani­la’s South Chi­na Sea claims and under­mine the U.S.-Philippine secu­ri­ty alliance.

Bei­jing has weaponized sis­ter city arrange­ments and eco­nom­ic depen­den­cies as strate­gic footholds for influ­ence. Chi­na trans­formed cul­tur­al exchanges in Palawan and Cagayan provinces into instru­ments of polit­i­cal lever­age, with the Cagayan Eco­nom­ic Zone Author­i­ty attract­ing $140 mil­lion in for­eign cap­i­tal since 2011, pri­mar­i­ly from Chi­na, cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic depen­den­cies that shape local pol­i­tics near Tai­wan. The Com­mu­nist Par­ty simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cul­ti­vates the Fil­ipino-Chi­nese dias­po­ra through Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment oper­a­tions, using ances­tral con­nec­tions as lever­age points while pres­sur­ing busi­ness­es like the Fil­ipino-Chi­nese con­glom­er­ate Pure­gold to can­cel screen­ings of doc­u­men­taries expos­ing Chi­nese obstruc­tion of Fil­ipino fish­er­men, demon­strat­ing Bei­jing’s abil­i­ty to con­strain free expres­sion through eco­nom­ic intimidation.

Dig­i­tal dis­in­for­ma­tion rep­re­sents the most insid­i­ous dimen­sion of Chi­nese oper­a­tions. Approx­i­mate­ly one-third of pro-Duterte accounts on X were fake, accord­ing to tech analy­sis firm Cyabra, with these inau­then­tic net­works ampli­fy­ing con­tent from pro­pa­gan­da sites and state media while attack­ing Pres­i­dent Fer­di­nand Mar­cos Jr. Philip­pine Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil offi­cials con­firmed indi­ca­tions of Chi­nese state-spon­sored infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions attempt­ing to prop up pre­ferred can­di­dates while under­min­ing oth­ers, with pro-Duterte can­di­dates win­ning five of twelve open Sen­ate seats in May 2025 elec­tions. Deep­fake con­tent specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed Mar­cos, includ­ing viral audio sup­pos­ed­ly autho­riz­ing mil­i­tary attacks against Chi­na and video show­ing alleged drug use—both flagged as fake by the gov­ern­ment but demon­strat­ing how AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent ampli­fies polit­i­cal divi­sions while advanc­ing Bei­jing’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al ambi­tions in con­test­ed waters.

The oper­a­tions deploy coor­di­nat­ed social media manip­u­la­tion through fake per­sonas and con­tent-shar­ing agree­ments with local out­lets that ampli­fy pro-Chi­na nar­ra­tives while mar­gin­al­iz­ing crit­i­cal voic­es. Research by Dou­ble­think Lab iden­ti­fied net­works post­ing pro-Duterte and anti-Mar­cos con­tent while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly boost­ing pro-Chi­na mate­r­i­al, illus­trat­ing how Bei­jing exploits domes­tic polit­i­cal feuds to advance strate­gic inter­ests. These cam­paigns mir­ror tac­tics used against Tai­wan, with the Philip­pines serv­ing as what ana­lysts describe as a “petri dish” for dis­in­for­ma­tion exper­i­ments that com­bine eco­nom­ic pres­sure, dias­po­ra cul­ti­va­tion, and dig­i­tal manip­u­la­tion to reshape polit­i­cal environments—a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy that threat­ens not only Philip­pine sov­er­eign­ty but demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es through­out the Indo-Pacif­ic region.

Exter­nal References:
— Chi­na Is Test­ing Out Dis­in­for­ma­tion in Philip­pine Elec­tions — For­eign Policy
— Philip­pine Author­i­ties Call Out Alleged Chi­nese Elec­tion Inter­fer­ence — The Diplomat
— How Chi­na waged an infowar against U.S. inter­ests in the Philip­pines — Reuters

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.