China's disinformation activities may spread abroad

Subject

Chinese overseas disinformation activities.

Significance

Chinese disinformation campaigns in Hong Kong and hacking of Australia's parliament suggest that Beijing has begun using its digital capabilities to exert political influence beyond mainland China for the first time. This is a major tactical shift, adding a political dimension to Chinese cyberattacks and a covert element to traditional external propaganda efforts.

Impacts

• Shaping domestic public opinion in a defensive manner will remain the main focus of Chinese digital capabilities.
• China’s recent covert use of Facebook and Twitter may broaden to other overseas online service providers.
• Large tech firms and foreign governments will develop ways to attribute and penalise disinformation, initially by naming and shaming.
• Eventually governments will develop legal frameworks to deal with foreign disinformation.