China’s Kremlin-style disinformation playbook

Опубликовано: Thursday, 11 January 2024 12:38

POLITICO’s weekly transatlantic tech newsletter for global technology elites and political influencers.

By MARK SCOTT

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THIS IS DIGITAL BRIDGE. Is everyone enjoying 2024, yet? I’m Mark Scott, POLITICO’s chief technology correspondent, and as I waded through my more than 2,000 emails last week, this meme kept me going amid a sea of messages asking if I had received someone’s email from late last year.

We’re going global today. Buckle up:

— Ahead of Taiwan’s general election on Saturday, Beijing is copying Moscow’s tactics of going negative to undermine its neighbor’s upcoming vote.

— Date for the diary: The next EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council summit is almost certainly on January 30. What will be discussed is still unclear.

— There’s a lot of soul-searching in Washington over accusations the United States is giving up its long-held belief in the free flow of data.

DIGITAL DEMOCRACY: BEIJING TARGETS TAIPEI WITH DIRTY TRICKS

POISONED PORK IMPORTS FROM THE U.S. and a countrywide shortage of eggs aren’t the most likely targets for foreign election interference. But ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and legislation elections on Saturday, January 13 — Lai Ching-te from the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is currently leading the polls — these mundane agricultural issues have become ground zero in China’s longstanding disinformation campaign. Both (quickly debunked) topics were grasped onto by Beijing-backed online trolls and Chinese state media as clear examples of how Taipei was too close to Washington, and how the Asian country’s economy was heading toward recession.

That’s miles away from what we traditionally view as foreign interference, where voters are bombarded with often overtly political messages from foreign governments. Yet in a sign Beijing is learning lessons from Moscow on digital disinformation, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ditched its positive messaging about how great the Mainland is. Instead, a decentralized network of social media accounts, state-backed media, local Taiwanese supporters and bogus news outlets has gone hard on sowing negative messages about Taiwan’s government. The goal: fomenting dissent among voters and getting them to think whoever takes over in Taipei will not do a good job.

“They very much focus on the negative side,” said Angela Köckritz, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin-based think tank. “They want to give the people the feeling that the current government is very good and that the security situation in Taiwan is horrible, which it is not.” The move coincides with growing apathy toward unification in Taiwan where now less than 6 percent of those polled support such a move, according to National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center. China’s faltering economy, flawed response to Covid-19 and brutal suppression of Hong Kong make it more difficult to promote a positive view of the CCP.

So, in response, Beijing has evolved. China’s disinformation playbook — one based on so-called diplomatic wolf warriors; fawning praise via state media; and clumsy social media bots — is not as sophisticated as that of Russia. The Kremlin has decades of experience and knows how to go hard on criticizing its opponents versus promoting itself. That’s an easier sell, especially when most people’s view of Russia isn’t exactly one of milk and honey. With China’s economy not what it once was — and calling for unification as a means to salvage Taiwan’s future less convincing — Beijing has made a concerted effort to mimic Moscow’s negative strategy.

“It’s a classic Russian tactic,” said Bret Schafer, head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based think tank. “If you’ve got nothing to sell at home, then go hard on what’s going wrong overseas.” Expect China to use similar tactics during 2024. The world’s second-largest economy has become increasingly bold in its disinformation, including backing a massive cross-platform interference campaign last year that included thousands of Facebook posts, YouTube videos and even Pinterest pins. In 2023, Beijing also dabbled in direct covert political messaging to U.S. voters, although with little success.

In Taiwan, the negative focus hasn’t just been on mundane issues like fake reports about poisoned pork or egg shortages. Above all, Beijing wants to stop Lai Ching-te from winning the presidency. In recent weeks, China-linked trolls have spread lies about the illegal construction of his family home, re-upped false accusations his DPP political party is working with the U.S. to create a Covid-style bioweapon, and flooded the Facebook page of current president Tsai Ing-wen with anti-DPP comments. Almost twenty percent of those comments in December, for instance, came from Beijing-linked trolls calling her ‘shameless’ or a ‘scoundrel,’ based on analysis from AI Labs, a Taiwan-based tech firm.

With the polls still close, the main question is whether such disinformation tactics will be enough to stop Lai Ching-te from winning. So far, there hasn’t been a major issue related to artificial intelligence outside of fringe faked videos on YouTube. Yet Taiwan’s upcoming general election is a clear example of why we need to rethink our definition of success when it comes to foreign interference campaigns. The goal is never, really, to push the election in favor of a preferred candidate — although, if that happens, so be it. The real outcome is to slowly chip away at people’s beliefs in political institutions, economic prosperity and social cohesion. On all those fronts, Beijing’s recent negative pivot shows they are beginning to wake up to that conclusion, too.

HABEMUS TTC? ALMOST. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

WHISPER IT VERY QUIETLY: WE HAVE A TENTATIVE DATE for the next EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council meeting. Expect the likes of European Commission trade czar Valdis Dombrovskis and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to rock up to a Washington convention center early in the week of January 29, according to three officials briefed on those ongoing discussions. One of those individuals said the transatlantic summit would take place on January 30, although all three cautioned the final date may still move, mostly because of Blinken’s jam-packed diary.

The timing is pretty awkward. For one, long-simmering trade issues, mostly around steel, have been punted until after the U.S. election in November, though the fact regular meetings between European and American trade officials couldn’t make headway on the issue is embarrassing. For another, Belgium is slated to hold the European Union-based next Trade and Tech Council meeting by April, meaning we’ll likely get two high-level gatherings on tech and trade within mere months of each other. “This is not how we originally had planned for this to go,” quipped a U.S. official involved in the upcoming arrangements.

Beyond an actual date of the transatlantic pow-pow, a lot still needs to be decided ahead of the last week of January. Given the tight turn around between both upcoming summits, this month’s edition may be pared back more junior officials with the main players making shortened appearances. Still, the likes of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and European digital chief Margrethe Vestager are expected to speak at a separate, but connected, meeting on transatlantic sustainable trade on January 30-31, so some level of participation by the big hitters is still on the cards.

But what will they discuss? That, I’m told, is still a work in progress. But given the next meeting will be the last held in the U.S. ahead of the November election — and no one is really sure what will happen if Donald Trump regains the presidency in the Fall — you can expect a focus on finishing up work that’s almost over the line. That includes clear definitions for artificial intelligence; coordination of electric vehicle charging stations (yawn); and ongoing cooperation on financing telecommunications and cybersecurity projects in the Global South. The cynic in me also envisages smiling photo-ops between policymakers who have genuinely come to trust each other — there’s an Instagram account worth setting up of the now regular meetings between Dombrovskis and Katherine Tai, the U.S. Trade Representative.

Long-standing readers of Digital Bridge will have followed the Trade and Tech Council machinations from the beginning. Now that we’re coming to the end of this first iteration — the new European Commission, which will take over also in November, may also want to revamp or potentially end these meetings — what have they actually achieved? It’s fair to say the bi-annual EU-U.S. gatherings have mostly been taken over by events. First, Ukraine. Then, AUKUS. Most recently, trade disputes. As Mike Tyson once quipped, ‘everyone has a planned ’till they get punched in the mouth.’ The Trade and Tech Council often has felt like that.

I also don’t think transatlantic officials should get credit for renewing ties after they were significantly strained during Trump’s presidency. “Don’t underestimate how far we have come,” one EU official told me. Given the combined economic, diplomatic and political might of the EU-U.S. relationship, the fact officials now regularly talk to each other should be taken as a given (I say, potentially, naively.) The fact fancy gatherings were required to make that happen again is a sign of the dysfunction of EU-U.S. relations. Personally, no one should be getting a medal for showing up to a Zoom call or in-person discussion to coordinate with international counterparts.

Yet on many substantive issues, the Trade and Technology Council should be viewed as a success. The rapid export bans imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine — made possible via close ties between U.S. and EU officials — alone proves the structure’s worth. Throw in renewed coordination of green technologies, increased cooperation around so-called quantum computing and, at some point, closer ties on platform governance, and you’ve got yourself the start of something worthwhile. Whether such bonhomie will survive potential major changes in Washington and Brussels in November, however, is still unclear.

BY THE NUMBERS

DID WASHINGTON JUST CAVE ON DATA FLOWS?

AS SOON AS THE US TRADE REPRESENTATIVE removed Washington’s backing on the free flow of data in upcoming global digital trade talks in October, one question has been dogging the data geeks within the Beltway: What the hell is going on? The U.S. had been a steadfast opponent of anything that curtailed such data flows, including data localization, a spate of domestic rules popping up worldwide that force digital information to remain within a country’s borders. By pulling its support from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Joint Initiative on e-commerce, rules expected to be completed by February 24, the USTR overhauled decades of accepted digital policy.

For those in favor of what the USTR did, the move gives Washington greater space to push for further checks on Big Tech domestically. “Big Tech lobbyists are trying to use trade deals to undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to promote competition,” said U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Those in favor of the status quo, including U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, accuse the USTR of forgoing its leadership on digital trade and allowing Beijing to step into that void.

The answer, inevitably, is somewhere in between. Notably, the U.S. backed a G7 communiqué — mere days after the USTR announcement in October — that supported the free flow of data. Washington now has six weeks to figure out where it truly stands before the WTO agreement must be finalized.

WONK OF THE WEEK

HYPE AROUND THE LATEST AI MODELS is slowly on the wane. But that doesn’t mean Chris Meserole, the inaugural executive director of the Frontier Model Forum — an industry-led group comprising Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI focused on the most advanced AI models — isn’t worth keeping tabs on.

Most recently, the Harvard and Yale graduate was deputy director of the Brookings Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative, where he focused mostly on national security issues after joining the Washington-based think tank in 2015. He also has worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

“The most powerful AI models hold enormous promise for society, but to realize their potential we need to better understand how to safely develop and evaluate them,” Meserole said.

THEY SAID WHAT, NOW?

“It has become clear in the past that digital markets can be fast moving and innovative, but they may also present certain characteristics, which can result in entrenched market positions and potential harmful competition behaviour,” according to a consultation by the European Commission‘s competition unit asking for feedback on antitrust issues linked to generative AI.

WHAT I’M READING

— Misinformation and disinformation represented the most immediate global risks over the next two years, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report.

— A lot can be learned from the oversight of life sciences when it comes to regulating the complexities related to AI foundation models, argue Merlin Stein and Connor Dunlop for the Ada Lovelace Institute.

— Meta announced wide-ranging new safeguards for how minors could access content on its platforms, including automatically placing these underage users under the most restrictive settings. More here.

— The U.S., Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom joined forces to coordinate cybersecurity support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. Read the “Tallinn Mechanism” here.

— Want to know what China is doing on AI regulation? Oliver Patel from AstraZeneca has pulled together English translations of the country’s key rules here.

— Apparent Russian and Belarusian actors tried to influence Polish voters ahead of that country’s election in October via amplifying disinformation, fomenting instability and spreading false content, according to a report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.