Breaking the CCP’s interference in the U.S. elections, experts have clever strategies, the key is to understand the reports of the CCP’s official propaganda organs and learn to apply them to identify false propaganda.
Concerned about being accused of election interference, Beijing has always avoided openly supporting any U.S. presidential candidate. However, more and more evidence suggests that it is attempting to influence and even intervene in the 2024 U.S. election. Its unchanging anti-American propaganda has been so persistent that it cannot hide its intentions.
Beijing has previously attempted to interfere in elections in countries such as Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Joshua Kurlantzick, a researcher at the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States, stated that the clumsy intervention efforts of the CCP often backfire, leading to increased anti-Communist sentiment among voters in the target countries.
Max Boot, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote on Monday that some Chinese observers he interviewed were dismissive of the warnings of CCP intervention in the U.S. election, partly because they found it difficult to choose between Biden and Trump.
Undoubtedly, the CCP’s misinformation machinery poses an increasingly growing threat to the United States overall. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently stated that there is evidence that Beijing is “attempting to influence, or even intervene” in the 2024 U.S. election.
In 2023, the U.S. State Department warned that “Beijing has invested billions of dollars in building an information ecosystem,” with propaganda and false information dissemination being a major focus.
The U.S. intelligence community has also sounded the alarm on Beijing’s information operations, particularly concerning the behavior of the Chinese social media application TikTok in the U.S.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the “2024 Annual Threat Assessment Report” in March, stating that “China (CCP) may seek to influence the 2024 U.S. election to some extent in order to suppress criticism of Beijing and widen social divisions in the United States.”
The intelligence agencies said, “Beijing has demonstrated a higher level of complexity in its influence activities, including testing generative artificial intelligence.”
China experts have noted that some Chinese accounts are currently amplifying “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) messages, not necessarily because they want the Republican candidate Trump to win, but because they seek to sow discord in America.
Both China and Russia have been spreading false information, attempting to undermine American democracy and efforts to counter the erosion by the CCP. It is reported that both countries spend billions of dollars annually on these efforts.
Reports from U.S. intelligence agencies indicate that “a CCP propaganda department operated TikTok accounts targeting both party candidates during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.”
Recently, Congress passed legislation that could force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the application in the U.S., but the law is being challenged in court and will not take effect until next year. Even if TikTok is sold or banned in the U.S., it can still be used in many other countries/regions.
How to guard against CCP’s anti-American propaganda on TikTok? Boot points out Beijing’s Achilles’ heel.
“To see the information Beijing is attempting to spread, all you need to do is click on the websites of the China Daily or Xinhua News Agency, the CCP’s two main propaganda organs,” he wrote.
Given that the media is the party’s mouthpiece, their reports are usually rigid and biased, with anti-American sentiments being the established stance of the CCP’s state media.
Recent propaganda from CCP media has been attempting to discredit American efforts in promoting human rights, such as portraying U.S. police enforcing laws on student protesters during campus protests. Additionally, Beijing seeks to sow discord between the United States and its allies, while amplifying political polarization in American society.
CCP’s anti-American propaganda on TikTok is consistent with its overall stance, making it relatively easy to identify based on its viewpoints.
Boot warns that it is more challenging to discern when the CCP often uses seemingly unrelated social media accounts to clandestinely spread similar themes – in reality, these accounts often pose as Americans or other foreigners expressing personal views.
Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark R. Warner warned that due to the lack of close cooperation between the government and social media companies, the U.S. is more vulnerable than ever to foreign election interference, as AI tools now have the capability to create “deepfakes.”
Boot mentioned that while Russia was an early leader in the realm of false information, Beijing is now following suit. It is imperative for the U.S. to strengthen defenses, or more elections will be subject to foreign interference.
American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum in her new book “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism” stated that the initial hope that the internet would be the downfall of authoritarian regimes now seems hopelessly naive.
She pointed out that CCP, in particular, is extremely strict in censoring the internet, whereas in the U.S. and other bastions of free speech, social media platforms are rife with conspiracy theories and falsehoods that undermine liberal democracy.
A notable feature of the 2024 U.S. election is that against the backdrop of bipartisan resistance to the CCP, Biden and Trump vie to show who is more anti-Communist.
Privately, mainland Chinese foreign affairs scholars widely believe that regardless of a Biden or Trump administration, significant improvement in U.S.-China relations is unlikely.
From their perspective, there is little difference between Biden and Trump under Beijing’s scrutiny.
Ryan Hass, Director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution, told Boot that, “I don’t believe Beijing favors either Trump or Biden. I think they dislike both.”
The Washington Post previously reported that nearly all domestic Chinese foreign policy experts agree that neither U.S. candidate is a good choice for Beijing, as neither is seen as helpful in resolving the difficult relationship between China and the U.S.
Zhao Minghao, a professor at the Fudan University Center for American Studies, described Biden and Trump as “two poison pills.”
“No matter who comes to power, the pressure on Beijing will continue to exist,” he told The Washington Post, emphasizing that Sino-U.S. relations are in a “period of structural and long-term depression.”
Jiachen Shi, a Ph.D. student in American Politics and Political Economy at Durham University, wrote in Foreign Policy that Biden continues to emphasize U.S.-China competition, but his long political experience makes him more predictable than Trump, who has tighter control over the Republican Party than ever before.
“Under Biden’s leadership, competition with China has evolved into a philosophical and political issue, while Trump primarily approached this issue from an economic perspective,” Shi summarized.