10 ms·

China increases spending 500% to influence America

126 points by throwkeep 5y ago

foolzcrow 5y ago
Trump starts "trade war" with China. Chinese virus matching weapons project funded by Fauci himself hits America. Only cure for said virus is destoy USA economy and all its freedoms. Hmmm
- anm89 5y ago
  No no no. Fauci is working with Gates, the Reptilians, and the child molesting secret society pizza eaters to implant micro chips in people to convince them that birds are real.
  - tmaly 5y ago
    Is that a new Netflix original series?
    - anm89 5y ago
      I think if done well, that could be awesome
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    > to convince them that birds are real Wait, what's that referring to, is this a conspiracy theory that I haven't encountered yet?!?
    - eivarv 5y ago
      It's a satirical movement ;) https://birdsarentreal.com https://birdsarentreal.com
      - rantwasp 5y ago
        also https://reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal https://reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal since you’re here, you should also learn about: https://reddit.com/r/dolphinconspiracy https://reddit.com/r/dolphinconspiracy https://reddit.com/r/GiraffesDontExist https://reddit.com/r/GiraffesDontExist
      - barbazoo 5y ago
        That made my day. Thank you!
    - hwbehrens 5y ago
      The parent is referring to this [0] (satirical) conspiracy theory. [0]: https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history
    - 1986 5y ago
      An arguably satirical (though, Poe's law) meme conspiracy theory: https://www.audubon.org/news/are-birds-actually-government-issued-drones-so-says-new-conspiracy-theory-making https://www.audubon.org/news/are-birds-actually-government-i...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    I wonder if the parent comment isn't a (paid) attempt to get the thread flagged.
  - blumomo 5y ago
    You find that funny? I bet Mrs. Melinda Gates and their children don’t.
anonymouse008 5y ago
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. – Sun Tzu, Art of War
- erulabs 5y ago
  > If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him
- fedreserved 5y ago
  Thinking in terms of coronavirus through the perspective of the Art of War (for all parties involved not directed at any country or person in particular) takes you down some interesting thought experiments
tboyd47 5y ago
> Between the lines: Like those of other nations, Chinese state-run media have resisted U.S. Justice Department demands to register under FARA, a law originally created to expose Nazi propaganda in the U.S. Prior to their disclosures, these Chinese media organs operated in the shadows, unencumbered by FARA requirements requiring disclosure about their structures and finances. So it's not that they've increased their spending. It's that their existing spending has now been correctly categorized.
bigpumpkin 5y ago
"from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year" Top sources: CCTV America $50,244,312 Huawei Technologies $3,495,775 China Daily of Beijing, China $3,004,114 China-US Exchange Foundation $928,209 Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co $526,925 [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/countries/223?cycle= https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/countries/223?cycle=
sriram_malhar 5y ago
It seems to me that all a foreign power has to do has to generate enough twitter/fake news saying "OMG we are running out of toilet paper/gas", and watch America crumble. It is like the covid virus is not the one doing the damage; it is the immune system's own response, the cytokine storm.
- enchiridion 5y ago
  Despite what Twitter might be saying, America is doing just fine. Seems like the image of America crumbling over toilet paper is the real propaganda.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Twitter has the ability to create sudden panics - we saw that a year ago with the toilet paper issue being referenced. I agree that a lot of what happens on Twitter never escapes the bubble of Twitter - but that toilet paper panic was swept up by mainstream news and echoed across the nation. Being able to incite a panic can be extremely tactically valuable if you can, for instance, leverage that panic to move a whole bunch of product at a mark up or weaken a critical system at a critical time.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    My first reaction was to agree with you. Then I considered the possibility that the reassuring notion of "America is doing just fine" may actually be the propaganda. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/screen-shot-2020-01-08-at-5-06-47-pm/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... At least I thought it was worth considering.
- adventured 5y ago
  Pretty amusing premise given the US economy has already recovered from the intense pandemic hit in terms of its output, and it's still just getting warmed up. US GDP per capita will cross $70,000 shortly and its overall GDP figure will hit a new high this year. Here are the countries that have higher per capita figures at present: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland. The US is soaring far beyond anything Europe or the EU broadly have managed in terms of economic recovery and the same goes for basically all major economies not named China (which largely sailed through the pandemic economically).
deleted 5y ago
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scarmig 5y ago
Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. Give me a couple million dollars and a couple interns and I'm pretty sure I could do better than any of its existing organs. This isn't a particularly high bar: you could probably do better just by doing nothing.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  Indian propaganda is similar (I'm more familiar with it, being Indian). You can see the parallels in how both talk about their hated minorities (Uyghurs and Kashmiris/Muslims) My favorite was a recent Twitter account with a teenage profile picture, she/they pronouns, BLM, proud feminist, and TRUMP2020 all in the bio, and all it did was claim that Uyghurs are really being educated and that the decline in birth rates among Uyghurs by ~50% in one year, according to Chinese gov't statistics is just because they are being liberated, and basically all sorts of other genocide denial.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    Do you happen to remember a Twitter handle? I bet one could use a single one of them to discover a whole network of these.
    - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
      I don't, but they're easy to spot because they look really leftist and they often post about the left-wing news of the moment while at the same time downplaying Uighur atrocities. They often mostly retweet and are poor in communication when they comment. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch (mostly retweets, tweets are usually quote tweets with one word like "Xinjiang?" attached) When this account actually comments, it barely makes sense: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 And this strange Palestinian liberation + Uyghur genocide denial is hallmark of China (who has to straddle both positions due to the geopolitics of opposing the US).
  - max_hammer 5y ago
hkarthik 5y ago
Not sure how anyone is surprised by this. It's been proven that Russian influence peddling is well funded and active, even if its effect is hotly debated since Republicans pretend its negligible, while Democrats act like it's the only reason Trump won 2016. It was just a matter of time before other foreign actors saw what's possible and decided it's a better use of their funds to influence American politics rather than expensive arms races or insurgencies. Why spend a few billion on nuclear programs and arming militias when you can instead spend a few million on troll farms and push your agenda forward more effectively?
- benjohnson 5y ago
  It's been going on for a long time however - 1996 is a good example of the CCP influencing American politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fi...
darepublic 5y ago
Well it would be nice to see examples of the kinda of propaganda originating from China
- bordercases 5y ago
  Not simple examples but a full inquiry: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Hand-Clive-Hamilton/dp/1786077833/ https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Hand-Clive-Hamilton/dp/1786077...
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Check out any thread on twitter from a respected medical researcher or scientist who provides any evidence that contradicts the prevailing "wet market" COVID origin theory.
  - mssundaram 5y ago
    I'm confused - are you saying it's propaganda to go against the wet market theory? Because the wet market theory is so childish - like saying the sun goes to sleep at night.
    - courtf 5y ago
      Propaganda doesn't necessarily always operate in the direction of the creators most obvious interests, there may be propaganda pushing multiple conflicting narratives all originating from the same source. Criticism of the wet market theory might be valid, but could very well be propaganda simply trying to muddy the waters.
      - estaseuropano 5y ago
        That's the RT/Sputnik tactic: throw out dozens of absurd theories and see which ones catch attention/stick and then double down.
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  E.g. https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/beijing-is-getting-better-at-disinformation-on-global-social-media/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/beijing-is-getting-better-at... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/eu-says-china-behind-huge-wave-covid-19-disinformation-campaign https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/eu-says-china-... https://www.bbc.com/news/56364952 https://www.bbc.com/news/56364952 https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epidemics-media-122b73e134b780919cc1808f3f6f16e8 https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epid...
mindslight 5y ago
Well it appears to be working, so they'd be foolish to not invest more. We've currently got a major political divide over whether a pandemic was something to take seriously, expressed as a rejection of a common sense mitigation for respiratory virii. The "stop the steal" big lie is continuing ("AZ voter database has been erased"), with the Republican leadership continuing to fall in line behind dear leader. FOX news was apparently not fake enough, so now we've got Newsmax and OAN. I even just got an unsolicited fake newspaper in the mail, which starts off with "Ninety percent of news outlets in the US are controlled by just six corporations", but then launches right into the bog standard red team myopic tropes. Take a look at the recent gasoline shortages caused by the media itself spreading fear that there won't be enough. It's an increasingly postmodern world, where the media itself is creating reality. Of course every foreign country wants to buy into that! Just for reference here, I'm a libertarian, not some Democratic partisan. I'm very concerned with mass media being pwnt by big business, but at least they represent the stabilizing interests of the US establishment rather than whomever is tearing us apart. The enemy of my enemy is not inherently my friend. I don't have any simple answer that squares with our society's recognition of the natural right of free speech, but we are indeed staring down a very serious problem.
- chad_strategic 5y ago
  As a fellow libertarian and free thinker, your concerns are extremely valid.
908B64B197 5y ago
Increasingly, this pressure is happening in college campuses as well (not just in America) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/australia/drew-pavlou-china-university-queensland.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/australia/drew-pavl... https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/china-on-campus-doj-battled-nontraditional-espionage https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/china-on-campus-doj-... https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/25/american-universities-are-now-the-front-line-of-the-china-u-s-cold-war/ https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/25/american-universities-a...
- deleted 5y ago
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mssundaram 5y ago
Interesting that potential calls of Russian influence are to distract or deflect from Chinese influence.
- adamcstephens 5y ago
  Or Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. Just use the data that the article does. https://www.opensecrets.org/fara https://www.opensecrets.org/fara
- WalterGR 5y ago
  Are you sure it's not the other way around?
Aperocky 5y ago
At the risk of being accused of whataboutism, I raise you the $300 million "Countering Chinese Influence Fund" https://www.axios.com/senate-china-bill-474f96f1-467b-4c02-ab6e-1084ca73b158.html https://www.axios.com/senate-china-bill-474f96f1-467b-4c02-a...
- pessimizer 5y ago
  That can't be propaganda, because it is from the US. Only the Chinese and Russians do propaganda, primarily through sneaky television stations that are openly owned by the state and think they have a right to broadcast opinions on US politics.
- jollybean 5y ago
  That's legit, not whataboutism. But if you look at how the money is spent, they are definitely not the same thing. It's the difference between China spending $1B to control the Spratley Islands while US spending $1B to make sure they are free and navigable by anyone.
briantakita 5y ago
Aside from their hard work & valuing education, how did China rise up in modern times to get all of this social, economic, & technological power? Recent history has some interesting twists & they have had many helping hands.
- Context_free 5y ago
  Marxism-Leninism
  - max_hammer 5y ago
    Never works. :) Read about "The Great Chinese Famine"
- max_hammer 5y ago
  Authroian regime and homogenous population(Han). It's same model as Singapore, just at bigger level.
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Is there actual evidence that a homogenous population results in better economic output? That sounds like literal fascist propaganda to me.
    - magicsmoke 5y ago
      China's population is not homogeneous, and neither is Singapore's. Singapore has large Indian and Malay ethnic populations, China's got dozens of ethnicities and the main Han ethnic group is really a mix of different cultural and ethnic groups where the best analogy is how "White" people in the US are treated as the same ethnic group despite originating from dozens of European countries. No population is truly homogeneous. The trick is putting together the right social and economic incentives so you can brush over the ethnic differences. To get to a point where people think of ethnic differences as less dividing them into tribes in a battle royale where only one can survive, and more as different opinions on the best flavor of ice cream.
baby 5y ago
I’ve noticed a huge amount of “I have an agenda” comments on youtube videos related to Chinese news. Check anything posted by smcp, especially anything on HK.
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Given the topic, some of you may be interested in the China Owns US [1] website. [1] https://www.chinaownsus.com/ https://www.chinaownsus.com/
SN76477 5y ago
Do the right thing, and you do not need propaganda.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I know what this slogan is getting at, but it seems trite and naïve to apply it against well funded and organized information campaigns.
dirtyid 5y ago
~50M of PRC "FARA" influence are likely legal media campaigns - full page ads, sponsored editorials etc. This likely doesn't include social media influence campaigns run out of PRC proper like building up twitter presence over last couple years. IMO Long over due and prudent asymmetric investment. PRC can't compete against US media/propaganda, but relatively easier to target divisive US polity as Russians pioneered. Reverse not so true, PRC GFW and crippling of western NGOs has dramatically limited western influence. Also keep in mind US just passed bill to spend 300M annually on Countering Chinese Influence Fund, with addition 100M annually on USAGM / Radio Free Asia. Layer on FLG Media / Bannon & Guo and PRC has a long way to go.
fakeslimshady5 5y ago
For context new the US budget for Sinophobic Propaganda is $300 million (https://i.redd.it/zfxq7nwhtny61.jpg https://i.redd.it/zfxq7nwhtny61.jpg) Compared to $10 million from China last year I'm sure no to relief for asian americans getting attacked by this scape goating
ska 5y ago
I wonder what the equivalent US spend (to influence China) is?
- Theodores 5y ago
  20 cents per Chinese person over five years.
- haecceity 5y ago
  We don't talk about that around here. Reported.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Does Hollywood count? (which is also receiving cash injections lately from foreign companies) It's probably asymmetric. A lot of US sources are simply blocked over there. Including major social networks.
  - ska 5y ago
    > Does Hollywood count? I don't see why it wouldn't at least to the degree that taxpayer money was used to fund particular efforts/messages. All (nearly?) nation states do some version of this, probably mostly in some sort of predictable relationship to their international impact.
EvRev 5y ago
Anyone else noticing the YouTube showing a lot more Chinese propaganda videos? I find it funny, because are so bad. https://www.youtube.com/c/ChinaViewTV https://www.youtube.com/c/ChinaViewTV https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn
- samspenc 5y ago
  I've noticed this as well. I suspect that my watching video news stories related to China (and international news) probably caused this, but I find it bizarre that Youtube correlated my interest in China (and international) news with any interest I would have in Chinese state-run media channels.
shalmanese 5y ago
The title is incredibly misleading. Previously, China State Run Media companies weren't required to register under FARA, new laws mean they have to. The amount of spending is the same, but the category is different. 50M of the 64M alone come purely from CCTV America.
randomopining 5y ago
They prob fund the race-baiting that separates American society by boundaries that pale in comparison to boundaries of economic status. Middle class people of all races have much more in common with each other in America, than compared to people of the same race but different economic statuses. CCP wants to tear us apart, make our youth stupid, create plausible deniability during quick conflicts (like a blitzkrieg of Taiwan).
deleted 5y ago
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1cvmask 5y ago
FARA registrations does not necessarily equate with trying to influence Americans per se. The mainly Chinese news agencies and all their US employees are registered under FARA. The consumption of their news is probably primarily consumers in China and China-watchers. My guess is their main desire is to influence the Chinese populace only. During the cold war all Kremlinolgists would read Pravda to figure out the truth (pun definitely intended for the multilinguals). I doubt any Americans that read it were ever swayed by their coverage of blacks and civil rights. When atrocities against say blacks were highlighted, or bombing countries like Laos or Vietnam, the ensuing inevitable recriminations would always be on charges of whataboutism or disinformation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes” - which ironically is misattributed to Mark Twain
cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
I wonder how many of the "...but Chinese propaganda doesn't work" are writing their posts on a Chinese-made phone or computer and adroitly not thinking of why every piece of electronics they make is made in China.

126 points by throwkeep 5y ago

Trump starts "trade war" with China. Chinese virus matching weapons project funded by Fauci himself hits America. Only cure for said virus is destoy USA economy and all its freedoms. Hmmm

anm89 5y ago
No no no. Fauci is working with Gates, the Reptilians, and the child molesting secret society pizza eaters to implant micro chips in people to convince them that birds are real.
- tmaly 5y ago
  Is that a new Netflix original series?
  - anm89 5y ago
    I think if done well, that could be awesome
- barbazoo 5y ago
  > to convince them that birds are real Wait, what's that referring to, is this a conspiracy theory that I haven't encountered yet?!?
  - eivarv 5y ago
    It's a satirical movement ;) https://birdsarentreal.com https://birdsarentreal.com
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      also https://reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal https://reddit.com/r/BirdsArentReal since you’re here, you should also learn about: https://reddit.com/r/dolphinconspiracy https://reddit.com/r/dolphinconspiracy https://reddit.com/r/GiraffesDontExist https://reddit.com/r/GiraffesDontExist
    - barbazoo 5y ago
      That made my day. Thank you!
  - hwbehrens 5y ago
    The parent is referring to this [0] (satirical) conspiracy theory. [0]: https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history
  - 1986 5y ago
    An arguably satirical (though, Poe's law) meme conspiracy theory: https://www.audubon.org/news/are-birds-actually-government-issued-drones-so-says-new-conspiracy-theory-making https://www.audubon.org/news/are-birds-actually-government-i...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  I wonder if the parent comment isn't a (paid) attempt to get the thread flagged.
- blumomo 5y ago
  You find that funny? I bet Mrs. Melinda Gates and their children don’t.

anonymouse008 5y ago

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. – Sun Tzu, Art of War

erulabs 5y ago
> If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him
fedreserved 5y ago
Thinking in terms of coronavirus through the perspective of the Art of War (for all parties involved not directed at any country or person in particular) takes you down some interesting thought experiments

tboyd47 5y ago

> Between the lines: Like those of other nations, Chinese state-run media have resisted U.S. Justice Department demands to register under FARA, a law originally created to expose Nazi propaganda in the U.S. Prior to their disclosures, these Chinese media organs operated in the shadows, unencumbered by FARA requirements requiring disclosure about their structures and finances. So it's not that they've increased their spending. It's that their existing spending has now been correctly categorized.

bigpumpkin 5y ago

"from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year" Top sources: CCTV America $50,244,312 Huawei Technologies $3,495,775 China Daily of Beijing, China $3,004,114 China-US Exchange Foundation $928,209 Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co $526,925 [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/countries/223?cycle= https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/countries/223?cycle=

sriram_malhar 5y ago

It seems to me that all a foreign power has to do has to generate enough twitter/fake news saying "OMG we are running out of toilet paper/gas", and watch America crumble. It is like the covid virus is not the one doing the damage; it is the immune system's own response, the cytokine storm.

enchiridion 5y ago
Despite what Twitter might be saying, America is doing just fine. Seems like the image of America crumbling over toilet paper is the real propaganda.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Twitter has the ability to create sudden panics - we saw that a year ago with the toilet paper issue being referenced. I agree that a lot of what happens on Twitter never escapes the bubble of Twitter - but that toilet paper panic was swept up by mainstream news and echoed across the nation. Being able to incite a panic can be extremely tactically valuable if you can, for instance, leverage that panic to move a whole bunch of product at a mark up or weaken a critical system at a critical time.
- tolbish 5y ago
  My first reaction was to agree with you. Then I considered the possibility that the reassuring notion of "America is doing just fine" may actually be the propaganda. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/screen-shot-2020-01-08-at-5-06-47-pm/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... At least I thought it was worth considering.
adventured 5y ago
Pretty amusing premise given the US economy has already recovered from the intense pandemic hit in terms of its output, and it's still just getting warmed up. US GDP per capita will cross $70,000 shortly and its overall GDP figure will hit a new high this year. Here are the countries that have higher per capita figures at present: Switzerland, Norway, Ireland. The US is soaring far beyond anything Europe or the EU broadly have managed in terms of economic recovery and the same goes for basically all major economies not named China (which largely sailed through the pandemic economically).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

scarmig 5y ago

Chinese propaganda is just so... Tone deaf. Give me a couple million dollars and a couple interns and I'm pretty sure I could do better than any of its existing organs. This isn't a particularly high bar: you could probably do better just by doing nothing.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Indian propaganda is similar (I'm more familiar with it, being Indian). You can see the parallels in how both talk about their hated minorities (Uyghurs and Kashmiris/Muslims) My favorite was a recent Twitter account with a teenage profile picture, she/they pronouns, BLM, proud feminist, and TRUMP2020 all in the bio, and all it did was claim that Uyghurs are really being educated and that the decline in birth rates among Uyghurs by ~50% in one year, according to Chinese gov't statistics is just because they are being liberated, and basically all sorts of other genocide denial.
- _Microft 5y ago
  Do you happen to remember a Twitter handle? I bet one could use a single one of them to discover a whole network of these.
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    I don't, but they're easy to spot because they look really leftist and they often post about the left-wing news of the moment while at the same time downplaying Uighur atrocities. They often mostly retweet and are poor in communication when they comment. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch (mostly retweets, tweets are usually quote tweets with one word like "Xinjiang?" attached) When this account actually comments, it barely makes sense: https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 https://twitter.com/Weed1_ch/status/1393091998589071360 And this strange Palestinian liberation + Uyghur genocide denial is hallmark of China (who has to straddle both positions due to the geopolitics of opposing the US).
- max_hammer 5y ago

hkarthik 5y ago

Not sure how anyone is surprised by this. It's been proven that Russian influence peddling is well funded and active, even if its effect is hotly debated since Republicans pretend its negligible, while Democrats act like it's the only reason Trump won 2016. It was just a matter of time before other foreign actors saw what's possible and decided it's a better use of their funds to influence American politics rather than expensive arms races or insurgencies. Why spend a few billion on nuclear programs and arming militias when you can instead spend a few million on troll farms and push your agenda forward more effectively?

benjohnson 5y ago
It's been going on for a long time however - 1996 is a good example of the CCP influencing American politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fi...

darepublic 5y ago

Well it would be nice to see examples of the kinda of propaganda originating from China

bordercases 5y ago
Not simple examples but a full inquiry: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Hand-Clive-Hamilton/dp/1786077833/ https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Hand-Clive-Hamilton/dp/1786077...
dimitrios1 5y ago
Check out any thread on twitter from a respected medical researcher or scientist who provides any evidence that contradicts the prevailing "wet market" COVID origin theory.
- mssundaram 5y ago
  I'm confused - are you saying it's propaganda to go against the wet market theory? Because the wet market theory is so childish - like saying the sun goes to sleep at night.
  - courtf 5y ago
    Propaganda doesn't necessarily always operate in the direction of the creators most obvious interests, there may be propaganda pushing multiple conflicting narratives all originating from the same source. Criticism of the wet market theory might be valid, but could very well be propaganda simply trying to muddy the waters.
    - estaseuropano 5y ago
      That's the RT/Sputnik tactic: throw out dozens of absurd theories and see which ones catch attention/stick and then double down.
estaseuropano 5y ago
E.g. https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/beijing-is-getting-better-at-disinformation-on-global-social-media/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/beijing-is-getting-better-at... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/eu-says-china-behind-huge-wave-covid-19-disinformation-campaign https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/10/eu-says-china-... https://www.bbc.com/news/56364952 https://www.bbc.com/news/56364952 https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epidemics-media-122b73e134b780919cc1808f3f6f16e8 https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-beijing-only-on-ap-epid...

mindslight 5y ago

Well it appears to be working, so they'd be foolish to not invest more. We've currently got a major political divide over whether a pandemic was something to take seriously, expressed as a rejection of a common sense mitigation for respiratory virii. The "stop the steal" big lie is continuing ("AZ voter database has been erased"), with the Republican leadership continuing to fall in line behind dear leader. FOX news was apparently not fake enough, so now we've got Newsmax and OAN. I even just got an unsolicited fake newspaper in the mail, which starts off with "Ninety percent of news outlets in the US are controlled by just six corporations", but then launches right into the bog standard red team myopic tropes. Take a look at the recent gasoline shortages caused by the media itself spreading fear that there won't be enough. It's an increasingly postmodern world, where the media itself is creating reality. Of course every foreign country wants to buy into that! Just for reference here, I'm a libertarian, not some Democratic partisan. I'm very concerned with mass media being pwnt by big business, but at least they represent the stabilizing interests of the US establishment rather than whomever is tearing us apart. The enemy of my enemy is not inherently my friend. I don't have any simple answer that squares with our society's recognition of the natural right of free speech, but we are indeed staring down a very serious problem.

chad_strategic 5y ago
As a fellow libertarian and free thinker, your concerns are extremely valid.

908B64B197 5y ago

Increasingly, this pressure is happening in college campuses as well (not just in America) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/australia/drew-pavlou-china-university-queensland.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/australia/drew-pavl... https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/china-on-campus-doj-battled-nontraditional-espionage https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/china-on-campus-doj-... https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/25/american-universities-are-now-the-front-line-of-the-china-u-s-cold-war/ https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/25/american-universities-a...

deleted 5y ago
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mssundaram 5y ago

Interesting that potential calls of Russian influence are to distract or deflect from Chinese influence.

adamcstephens 5y ago
Or Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. Just use the data that the article does. https://www.opensecrets.org/fara https://www.opensecrets.org/fara
WalterGR 5y ago
Are you sure it's not the other way around?

Aperocky 5y ago

At the risk of being accused of whataboutism, I raise you the $300 million "Countering Chinese Influence Fund" https://www.axios.com/senate-china-bill-474f96f1-467b-4c02-ab6e-1084ca73b158.html https://www.axios.com/senate-china-bill-474f96f1-467b-4c02-a...

pessimizer 5y ago
That can't be propaganda, because it is from the US. Only the Chinese and Russians do propaganda, primarily through sneaky television stations that are openly owned by the state and think they have a right to broadcast opinions on US politics.
jollybean 5y ago
That's legit, not whataboutism. But if you look at how the money is spent, they are definitely not the same thing. It's the difference between China spending $1B to control the Spratley Islands while US spending $1B to make sure they are free and navigable by anyone.

briantakita 5y ago

Aside from their hard work & valuing education, how did China rise up in modern times to get all of this social, economic, & technological power? Recent history has some interesting twists & they have had many helping hands.

Context_free 5y ago
Marxism-Leninism
- max_hammer 5y ago
  Never works. :) Read about "The Great Chinese Famine"
max_hammer 5y ago
Authroian regime and homogenous population(Han). It's same model as Singapore, just at bigger level.
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Is there actual evidence that a homogenous population results in better economic output? That sounds like literal fascist propaganda to me.
  - magicsmoke 5y ago
    China's population is not homogeneous, and neither is Singapore's. Singapore has large Indian and Malay ethnic populations, China's got dozens of ethnicities and the main Han ethnic group is really a mix of different cultural and ethnic groups where the best analogy is how "White" people in the US are treated as the same ethnic group despite originating from dozens of European countries. No population is truly homogeneous. The trick is putting together the right social and economic incentives so you can brush over the ethnic differences. To get to a point where people think of ethnic differences as less dividing them into tribes in a battle royale where only one can survive, and more as different opinions on the best flavor of ice cream.

baby 5y ago

I’ve noticed a huge amount of “I have an agenda” comments on youtube videos related to Chinese news. Check anything posted by smcp, especially anything on HK.

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

Given the topic, some of you may be interested in the China Owns US [1] website. [1] https://www.chinaownsus.com/ https://www.chinaownsus.com/

SN76477 5y ago

Do the right thing, and you do not need propaganda.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
I know what this slogan is getting at, but it seems trite and naïve to apply it against well funded and organized information campaigns.

dirtyid 5y ago

~50M of PRC "FARA" influence are likely legal media campaigns - full page ads, sponsored editorials etc. This likely doesn't include social media influence campaigns run out of PRC proper like building up twitter presence over last couple years. IMO Long over due and prudent asymmetric investment. PRC can't compete against US media/propaganda, but relatively easier to target divisive US polity as Russians pioneered. Reverse not so true, PRC GFW and crippling of western NGOs has dramatically limited western influence. Also keep in mind US just passed bill to spend 300M annually on Countering Chinese Influence Fund, with addition 100M annually on USAGM / Radio Free Asia. Layer on FLG Media / Bannon & Guo and PRC has a long way to go.

fakeslimshady5 5y ago

For context new the US budget for Sinophobic Propaganda is $300 million (https://i.redd.it/zfxq7nwhtny61.jpg https://i.redd.it/zfxq7nwhtny61.jpg) Compared to $10 million from China last year I'm sure no to relief for asian americans getting attacked by this scape goating

ska 5y ago

I wonder what the equivalent US spend (to influence China) is?

Theodores 5y ago
20 cents per Chinese person over five years.
haecceity 5y ago
We don't talk about that around here. Reported.
outworlder 5y ago
Does Hollywood count? (which is also receiving cash injections lately from foreign companies) It's probably asymmetric. A lot of US sources are simply blocked over there. Including major social networks.
- ska 5y ago
  > Does Hollywood count? I don't see why it wouldn't at least to the degree that taxpayer money was used to fund particular efforts/messages. All (nearly?) nation states do some version of this, probably mostly in some sort of predictable relationship to their international impact.

EvRev 5y ago

Anyone else noticing the YouTube showing a lot more Chinese propaganda videos? I find it funny, because are so bad. https://www.youtube.com/c/ChinaViewTV https://www.youtube.com/c/ChinaViewTV https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn

samspenc 5y ago
I've noticed this as well. I suspect that my watching video news stories related to China (and international news) probably caused this, but I find it bizarre that Youtube correlated my interest in China (and international) news with any interest I would have in Chinese state-run media channels.

shalmanese 5y ago

The title is incredibly misleading. Previously, China State Run Media companies weren't required to register under FARA, new laws mean they have to. The amount of spending is the same, but the category is different. 50M of the 64M alone come purely from CCTV America.

randomopining 5y ago

They prob fund the race-baiting that separates American society by boundaries that pale in comparison to boundaries of economic status. Middle class people of all races have much more in common with each other in America, than compared to people of the same race but different economic statuses. CCP wants to tear us apart, make our youth stupid, create plausible deniability during quick conflicts (like a blitzkrieg of Taiwan).

deleted 5y ago

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1cvmask 5y ago

FARA registrations does not necessarily equate with trying to influence Americans per se. The mainly Chinese news agencies and all their US employees are registered under FARA. The consumption of their news is probably primarily consumers in China and China-watchers. My guess is their main desire is to influence the Chinese populace only. During the cold war all Kremlinolgists would read Pravda to figure out the truth (pun definitely intended for the multilinguals). I doubt any Americans that read it were ever swayed by their coverage of blacks and civil rights. When atrocities against say blacks were highlighted, or bombing countries like Laos or Vietnam, the ensuing inevitable recriminations would always be on charges of whataboutism or disinformation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes” - which ironically is misattributed to Mark Twain

cheaprentalyeti 5y ago

I wonder how many of the "...but Chinese propaganda doesn't work" are writing their posts on a Chinese-made phone or computer and adroitly not thinking of why every piece of electronics they make is made in China.