China’s propaganda playbook for targeting rivals

When Beijing wants to intimidate its rivals, it has an extensive—and often menacing—playbook to draw from.

- Joyu Wang & Peter Saidel

Beijing is browbeating Japan with methods it refined for Taiwan.

(AP)

This menu for browbeating countries that cross it has been on display in the weeks since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi riled Beijing by saying that Japan could get drawn into conflict if China tried to seize Taiwan by force. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory and considers its efforts to take control of the island to be an internal matter.

What began with Chinese diplomatic censure over Takaichi’s comment on Nov. 7 quickly escalated into the well-practiced arenas of information warfare, economic pressure, legal assaults and military menace.

Here are some pages from China’s playbook, refined through years of squeezing Taiwan and redeployed against Tokyo.

China's state propaganda machine has a toolbox for undermining leaders that includes AI-generated deepfakes, fake opinion polls and general character assassination.

China has hurled colorful insults at Taiwan President Lai Ching-te in its effort to tarnish his government and get the people to warm up to Beijing. A similar style of drawing surfaced in November, with Takaichi as the target.

China has used artificial intelligence to turbocharge its information warfare campaigns. In the weeks leading up to Taiwan's 2024 presidential election, a series of Al-generated videos maligned the departing leader, Tsai Ing-wen. Taiwan accused the Chinese military’s “Information Support Force” of orchestrating the campaign.

More recently, as China assailed Japan, text messages and photos that Taiwan officials said came from the Chinese military spread the claim that Takaichi had been bribed by Taiwanese diplomats. One photo showed jewelry that the messages alleged the Japanese leader received, Japan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.