Chi­nese elec­tion threats using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as an infor­ma­tion war­fare weapon are increas­ing just as Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard has elim­i­nat­ed the office respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing for­eign inter­fer­ence in U.S. elec­tions. On 5 Sep­tem­ber 2025, The New York Times report­ed that Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers warned severe staff cuts at the For­eign Malign Influ­ence Cen­ter would leave Amer­i­ca vul­ner­a­ble to Chi­nese manip­u­la­tion cam­paigns,. The arti­cle begins:

Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers warned on Fri­day that severe staff cuts at an intel­li­gence office that mon­i­tors for­eign threats to U.S. elec­tions would leave the coun­try vul­ner­a­ble to inter­fer­ence and sub­ver­sion from Bei­jing, as Chi­nese com­pa­nies use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as a new weapon in infor­ma­tion war­fare. In a let­ter to Tul­si Gab­bard, the direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Raja Krish­namoor­thi of Illi­nois and André Car­son of Indi­ana cit­ed a New York Times sto­ry about tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny GoLaxy that aims to use arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to make influ­ence and infor­ma­tion oper­a­tions far more effective.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/politics/us-elections-china-threats.html

Key Points

• GoLaxy doc­u­ments uncov­ered by Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty revealed the Chi­nese com­pa­ny had done work in Hong Kong and Tai­wan while col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion about Amer­i­can lawmakers
• The For­eign Malign Influ­ence Cen­ter pre­vi­ous­ly held brief­in­gs dur­ing the 2024 elec­tion warn­ing of Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion, includ­ing false claims about Kamala Har­ris and doc­tored videos about destroyed Penn­syl­va­nia ballots
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Krish­namoor­thi and Car­son accused Gab­bard’s office of “strip­ping away the guardrails that pro­tect our nation from for­eign influ­ence” through sys­tem­at­ic dis­man­tling of counter-influ­ence capabilities
•  The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has also elim­i­nat­ed the FBI’s For­eign Influ­ence Task Force, shut­tered the State Depart­men­t’s anti-pro­pa­gan­da office, and fired CISA offi­cials who worked on elec­tion interference

Chinese Influence on US Elections: Mobilizing Diaspora, Exploiting Digital Tools

China’s activ­i­ties in the U.S. elec­toral space, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mobi­liz­ing com­mu­ni­ty groups through con­sulates to pres­sure can­di­dates crit­i­cal of Bei­jing, show­case a coor­di­nat­ed strat­e­gy that merges dias­po­ra engage­ment with polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence. Bei­jing-linked oper­a­tives have been impli­cat­ed in efforts to lever­age eth­nic net­works and eco­nom­ic ties to influ­ence elec­toral out­comes, often tar­get­ing local races with sig­nif­i­cant Chi­nese-Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tions for max­i­mum effect.

This approach is ampli­fied by employ­ing AI-dri­ven influ­ence plat­forms to mon­i­tor U.S. pol­i­tics, shape nar­ra­tives, and manip­u­late pub­lic dis­course, mir­ror­ing tac­tics seen in oth­er demo­c­ra­t­ic juris­dic­tions but adapt­ed for the U.S. con­text. These oper­a­tions are not lim­it­ed to overt lob­by­ing; they increas­ing­ly rely on exploit­ing advanced dig­i­tal tools to sow dis­cord and lever­age soci­etal frac­tures, blur­ring the line between com­mu­ni­ty advo­ca­cy and for­eign interference.

The result is a mul­ti­fac­eted cam­paign that seeks to both mute crit­i­cism of Chi­na with­in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics and ampli­fy voic­es sym­pa­thet­ic to Beijing’s strate­gic objectives.

Exter­nal References:

1. Chi­na is push­ing divi­sive mes­sages using fake U.S. voters
2. Chi­nese inter­fer­ence in the 2024 Unit­ed States elections
3. Trends in Chi­na’s US elec­tion inter­fer­ence illus­trate its longer game

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.