Chinese Influence on India Media: Academic Infiltration and Digital Tactics

Chi­nese influ­ence on Indi­an media oper­a­tions has adapt­ed sophis­ti­cat­ed strate­gies to pen­e­trate the coun­try’s diverse infor­ma­tion ecosys­tem. On June 9, 2025, the Chi­na Media Project pub­lished an inter­view with Dr. Sri­par­na Pathak, reveal­ing how Chi­na deploys aca­d­e­m­ic infil­tra­tion, AI trans­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy, and Eng­lish-lan­guage con­tent farms to reach Indi­an audi­ences, despite the absence of Chi­nese-lan­guage media and a min­i­mal dias­po­ra pres­ence in the coun­try. The arti­cle begins:

Chi­na has emerged as a sophis­ti­cat­ed actor in this space, deploy­ing influ­ence cam­paigns that exploit Indi­a’s open media envi­ron­ment despite dete­ri­o­rat­ing bilat­er­al rela­tions fol­low­ing the 2020 Gal­wan Val­ley clash. Unlike coun­tries with sig­nif­i­cant Chi­nese dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties, Indi­a’s min­i­mal Chi­nese-speak­ing pop­u­la­tion has forced Bei­jing to adapt its strate­gies, uti­liz­ing AI trans­la­tion, Eng­lish-lan­guage con­tent farms, and aca­d­e­m­ic infil­tra­tion to reach Indi­an audiences.

Read more: https://chinamediaproject.org/2025/06/09/chinas-quiet-push-in-india/

Key Points

• Chi­nese con­tent farms use AI trans­la­tion to auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­vert posts from Chi­nese to Eng­lish or Ben­gali, while oper­at­ing Eng­lish-lan­guage accounts like Shang­hai Panda.
• Aca­d­e­m­ic infil­tra­tion includes Chi­nese embassy-fund­ed uni­ver­si­ty cen­ters and host­ing events where Chi­nese aca­d­e­mics pro­mote nar­ra­tives blam­ing the US for India-Chi­na divisions.
• Chi­nese diplo­mats reg­u­lar­ly cul­ti­vate sym­pa­thet­ic Indi­an media fig­ures who advo­cate friend­ship “even at the cost of Indi­a’s sov­er­eign­ty” through pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties and exclu­sive access.
• Jour­nal­ists vis­it­ing Tibet on Chi­nese-spon­sored trips return using Bei­jing’s ter­mi­nol­o­gy, call­ing Tibet “Xizang” and prais­ing CCP rule, which threat­ens Indi­a’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al claims.

Chinese Influence Operations and Media: AI, Social Platforms, and Global Reach

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions have inten­si­fied glob­al­ly, using a mix of dig­i­tal media manip­u­la­tion, AI-dri­ven con­tent, and tra­di­tion­al pro­pa­gan­da to shape pub­lic opin­ion and advance Beijing’s strate­gic inter­ests. Google’s removal of over 15,000 YouTube chan­nels demon­strates the scale at which Chi­nese actors dis­sem­i­nate state-aligned nar­ra­tives, often blend­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion with seem­ing­ly authen­tic news to reach West­ern audi­ences. Meta’s dis­rup­tion of fake Chi­nese per­sonas high­lights the use of fab­ri­cat­ed iden­ti­ties to ampli­fy pro-CCP mes­sag­ing and attack crit­ics on social platforms.

OpenAI’s expo­sure of pro­pa­gan­da cam­paigns using Chat­G­PT shows how gen­er­a­tive AI is now deployed to auto­mate and scale influ­ence efforts, mak­ing detec­tion and coun­ter­ac­tion more chal­leng­ing. The 2021 IRSEM report details how these tac­tics are part of a broad­er, coor­di­nat­ed strat­e­gy, includ­ing elite cap­ture, dias­po­ra mobi­liza­tion, and covert infor­ma­tion war­fare, with Bei­jing draw­ing on Russ­ian-style tech­niques since 2017 to expand its reach and effectiveness.

Peer-reviewed research sum­ma­rized by Phys.org reveals that state-script­ed pro­pa­gan­da is now a dai­ly occur­rence in Chi­nese news­pa­pers, crowd­ing out inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and ensur­ing that gov­ern­ment nar­ra­tives dom­i­nate both domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al per­cep­tions. Record­ed Future’s analy­sis of cam­paigns tar­get­ing Tai­wan and Hong Kong fur­ther demon­strates the sophis­ti­ca­tion and adapt­abil­i­ty of Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions, which now inte­grate cyber, media, and psy­cho­log­i­cal tac­tics to inter­fere in elec­tions, sup­press dis­sent, and shape glob­al discourse.

Exter­nal References:

1. IRSEM – “Chi­nese Influ­ence Oper­a­tions” (2021)

2. Phys.org – “New research shows that pro­pa­gan­da is on the rise in Chi­na” (2025)

3. Record­ed Future – “Chi­nese Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Evolve in Cam­paigns Tar­get­ing Tai­wanese Elec­tions, Hong Kong Protests” (2024)

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.