NASK warns: Chinese propaganda is attacking Poland. The narrative of “another path” instead of NATO
We must be careful that propaganda about a “different path”, i.e. an alliance with China that would supposedly ensure security from Russia, does not penetrate Poland – Patrycja Krzyśpiak from NASK told PAP. According to her, Chinese content may be reproduced by pro-Russian accounts.
After American special forces captured and deported from Venezuela on January 3, Nicolas Maduro, the country's president, who is not recognized by many countries and is responsible for, among others, for rigging elections and persecuting the opposition, Beijing accused Washington of “breaking” international law and “brazen use of force.”
China, like Russia, has been investing in the Venezuelan mining industry for years, as well as, among others, in telecommunications.
According to Patrycja Krzyśpiak from NASK (Scientific and Academic Computer Network – National Research Institute), Beijing reacted to the American show of force in Venezuela by strengthening the anti-Western, and especially anti-NATO, narrative.
– There will certainly now be even more materials in the Chinese infosphere attacking the validity of NATO's existence and its military capabilities – Krzyśpiak told PAP and pointed out that Chinese accounts that were previously critical of Poland, for example, now circulate messages about Venezuela.
In her opinion, “these are not bots” or anonymous users. Research on Chinese influence operations shows that such propaganda accounts are run by real people who produce a “synchronized” message.
As Krzyśpiak emphasized, Chinese propaganda against NATO, the integrity of the West and transatlantic relations is consistent with the narratives spread by Russia.
According to Krzyśpiak, Kremlin narratives, including anti-Polish and anti-Ukrainian content, penetrate the Chinese infosphere through the main Chinese social media platforms, such as Weibo, Toutiao or Douyin (the equivalent of TikTok – PAP, which operates only in China), where Russian media, including Russia Today, Sputnik or Ruptly.
In the opinion of PAP's interlocutor, propaganda messages intended to weaken NATO and relations with the US, which appear in China in connection with the American operation in Venezuela, will also be used in the Polish infosphere, for example to question the validity of Poland's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.
– We must be very careful whether we are not being permeated by propaganda about a “different way”, about an alliance with China, which (allegedly) would ensure our security in Poland from Russia. Such stories have appeared before, and now they may become more intense – emphasized the NASK analyst and added that in the long run, “embedding” such narratives in the debate may be beneficial for Russia and China.
As Krzyśpiak noted, Chinese disinformation messages can be duplicated, among others, by pro-Russian accounts, which are still more active in Poland than pro-Chinese ones and have been known for anti-Ukrainian propaganda since 2022.
Some of them, including: on platform
As reported by CNN, as of Monday evening, over 650 million views on the Weibo platform concerned the capture of Maduro and, among others, whether China can't do “the same thing” as the US did in Venezuela and “take over Taiwan.”
According to Krzyśpiak, this thread appeared in the sinosphere even before the official statement of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemning the US and could have been, at least at the beginning, spontaneous, “taking into account the degree of anti-Western sentiment in China.” On the other hand, the analyst admitted that content undesirable by the authorities is always moderated in accordance with the decisions of the Propaganda Department and the Communist Party of China, and entries about Taiwan were not restricted by the authorities, so they could have had “top-down” approval.
Anna Gwozdowska (PAP)
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