Banner: Japan Digital Minister Taro Kono speaks during a debate in Tokyo, September 18, 2021. (Source: Eugene Hoshiko/Pool via Reuters)

China’s evolving digital strategy poses significant implications for Japan, reflecting Beijing’s broader ambitions to reshape the international order and strengthen its technological dominance in the Indo-Pacific region.  While Russia’s disinformation campaign in Ukraine has amplified international awareness of how narratives and information can be weaponized in times of crisis, the subtle encroachment of disinformation by China—especially in ostensibly peaceful contexts or in countries such as Taiwan, India, the European Union, Australia, and Japan where this influence might receive less attention—presents a challenge that is far more difficult to identify and mitigate.

Japan is a natural target of China’s digital influence operations due to its status as an economic competitor, similar writing systems, geographic proximity, territorial disputes, and pivotal alliance with the United States that China perceives as an attempt to contain its regional influence. While polls suggest that the Japanese public is acutely aware of the threat posed by foreign influence operations—89 percent of respondents in a May 2024 Yomiuri Shimbun survey called for increased government regulation to combat AI-generated disinformation, and 86 percent expressed concern about AI’s potential to manipulate public opinion—Japan’s bureaucracy is hampered by a lack of digital upgrading. Its relatively new Digital Agency, the “command center” established in 2021 for the “swift” and “human-friendly digitalization” of all ministries, remains unable to foster the domestic digital transformation necessary to withstand China’s anticipated disinformation campaigns. It serves as an important case study to illustrate an unappreciated aspect of fostering information resilience to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in democracies.

Coercive tactics and influence operations have long been a central part of China’s strategic toolkit and core to how it engages with the outside world. China’s approach to disinformation is coordinated and proactive, taking into account the mutually constitutive relationships between the economic, industrial, and geopolitical strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The aim of its efforts is to gain influence—or “discourse power”—with the ultimate goal of de-centering US power and leadership on the global stage.

The PRC’s investment in its capabilities for information operations are growing. China is spending billions of dollars annually on propaganda  and disinformation efforts, including on overt tactics like expanding content-sharing agreements with local news organizations throughout the Global South, as well as covert actions that include operating massive spam campaigns on social media platforms to stoke divisions within target countries and target and harass critical voices. In August 2023, the social media company Meta announced the takedown of a China-linked network spanning thousands of accounts across over fifty platforms and spanning 40 languages, an operation the company described as the “largest in history.” Increasingly, PRC state-linked actors are targeting countries including Taiwan, Canada, and the United States  with disinformation and influence operations designed to undermine citizens’ faith in democratic institutions. This trend also includes Japan.

China sees the US-led alliance system as a primary threat to its interests, with the US-Japan alliance of particular threat  in what it views as its sphere of influence in the Asia Pacific, and especially to its claims over Taiwan. As such, in its propaganda about Japan, China tends to portray Tokyo as a militaristic warmonger and the US-Japan alliance as a destabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region. Its goals are likely designed to convince Tokyo to stop militarization and pressure Tokyo to maintain distance from Washington.

China’s disinformation threat is exemplified by its coordinated campaign against Japan’s 2023 Fukushima wastewater release, as documented by Microsoft Threat Intelligence. This campaign likely contributed to anti-Japanese violence in China, including a fatal stabbing of a Japanese child in Shenzhen in September 2024, and prompted rampant nationalistic anti-Chinese falsehoods on Japanese social media. In May 2023, Meta identified Chinese influence operations on its platforms that also targeted Japan’s nuclear wastewater release. In August 2023, Meta also found a Chinese inauthentic network that posted in Japanese, including the following narratives: Pfizer manufacturing a variant of Coronavirus, China strengthening the enforcement of international law, and American “cyber information warfare.” In 2024, Google blocked over two hundred domains linked to Chinese information operations from appearing on its services, including those sharing content in Japanese. Judging from repost activity on X between May 2023 and July 2024, the DFRLab found cross-amplification of posts among Japanese-speaking Pro-China, Pro-Russia, and conspiracy theory communities.

In October 2024, Nikkei identified nearly 200 inauthentic pro-China accounts on X that amplified misleading videos advocating for Okinawa independence that received notable engagement, but the contents were primarily written and subtitled in Chinese. Beijing is keen to bolster longstanding anti-Japan and anti-US sentiment in Okinawa Prefecture stemming from the permanent US military presence on the islands, which some locals view as a violation of their sovereignty and as disrespectful to their history as an independent kingdom. The PRC has a strategic interest in the reduction or removal of that US military presence. Researcher Kazuki Ichida also observed that many posts about Okinawan independence on social media were made in Chinese by those outside the prefecture. Although the inorganic support for independence seems to have been mostly targeting the Chinese-speaking community, analyst Wataru Suyama warned that China is transitioning to target the Japanese community. For example, Asahi  journalists traced a dozen Japanese articles promoting Okinawa independence to a Chinese press release company, which one of the articles falsely attributing comments to a Japanese professor.

While Tokyo recognizes information manipulation as a dangerous new frontier in international conflict, this crisis mentality has not been consistently applied to the domestic sphere. In Japan, several measures to counter fake news have been implemented, such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ establishment of the Existing Practices against Disinformation (EPaD), the Digital Agency’s Priority Policy Program for Realizing Digital Society, and various organizations and nonprofits such as the Japan Fact-Check Center. Internationally, former Prime Minister Kishida has emphasized the crisis of Chinese disinformation in forums like NATO meetings, signaling Japan’s determination to be at the forefront of this battle. Domestically, some Japanese organizations, such as the Information-Technology Promotion Agency (IPA), have acknowledged the growing threat of disinformation in the cognitive domain, particularly in the context of elections and hybrid warfare, with some experts arguing that “Japan cannot remain uninvolved” (mukankei). Yet, this recognition has not been fully translated into a domestic strategy that treats disinformation as a pressing national security issue on par with its portrayal in Japan’s foreign policy.

Japan’s unexpected 2024 election, triggered by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s resignation, resulted in the ascension of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate Shigeru Ishiba, and highlights this digital paradox. Despite positioning the Digital Agency as a ministry-level agency reporting directly to the prime minister, Japan continues to struggle with innovation at home, relying on basic analog capabilities such as floppy disks and fax machines. This contradiction between actual and advocated technologies not only impedes Japan’s digital transformation but exposes a critical vulnerability: the nation’s susceptibility to sophisticated disinformation campaigns, particularly from China. This election and its effects in parliament—and by extension, the re-election of President Donald Trump on the US-Japan alliance—will test Japan’s cybersecurity preparedness and democratic resilience, challenging the Japanese government to satisfy the public’s concern over misinformation and bridge gaps between its analog practices and digital ambitions.

Despite public concern and corrective efforts—including the Digital Minister Taro Kono’s recent declaration of victory in Japan’s war on floppy disks—Japan’s ability to counter China’s destabilizing influence tactics is hindered by its own lagging digital infrastructure and reluctance to approach its digital transformation as a national security issue. These challenges, coupled with stagnating innovation, an aging population, and Japan’s risk-averse business culture, have left it with glaring cybersecurity vulnerabilities that malign actors can exploit. The depths of this digital stagnation are quantified in the Japan Digital Agenda 2030 White Paper from the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, which found that only 7.5 percent of administrative procedures were available online in 2020, with 95 percent of businesses still using fax machines, often for government paperwork. Concurrently, Japan plummeted from 23rd to 27th globally in the International Institute for Management Development’s Digital Competitiveness index from 2015–2020, ranking only seventh among Asian economies. One embarrassing incident occurred in March 2022, when Japan’s need to modernize its digital infrastructure and bridge the gap between its domestic capabilities and international security challenges was exposed. The Japanese parliament’s outdated technology proved incapable of facilitating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s virtual address, disrupting the session and highlighting the institution’s technological shortcomings.

Globally, Japan has taken significant steps to address disinformation and promote digital governance. The country has actively participated in the UN Global Digital Compact and hosted the 2023 Internet Governance Forum in Kyoto. Japan has also strengthened international cooperation through the Japan-US Digital Trade Agreement and the Japan-UK Digital Partnership. Furthermore, at the 2023 G7 meeting in Hiroshima, Japan continued to promote the 2019 Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) framework, emphasizing its commitment to secure international data transfers. Japan has further demonstrated its commitment to cybersecurity in joining the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence and by cooperating with Europol. Similar to Japan’s leadership promoting Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) and regional stability through the Quad—the strategic dialog between Japan, Australia, India, and the US—Japan’s leadership in international digital governance underscores its aspirations to shape regional norms and counter digital threats. However, Tokyo’s domestic digital vulnerabilities risk undermining these collaborative efforts, leaving Japan exposed to the very influence operations it seeks to curb on the international stage. As both the United States and Japan examine the implications of 2024’s elections, addressing this paradox is essential for safeguarding the resilience of its democratic processes and reinforcing its credibility as a leader in countering digital threats worldwide. While developments and initiatives like the Digital Agency and the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation have focused on improving domestic efficiency and addressing internal challenges, Japan’s digital vulnerabilities could severely impede its ability to respond effectively and coordinate with allies in potential contingency scenarios.

As escalating geopolitical tensions coincided with critical international elections in 2024, the case of Japan—a country fully aware of the threat of Chinese disinformation, yet hampered by outdated systems—highlights the importance of democratic countries developing a comprehensive digital strategy integrating domestic modernization, cybersecurity, and resilience against foreign influence operations. The below recommendations apply to the Japanese context, but also to other democracies:

First, likeminded countries should engage in joint efforts to monitor Chinese information operations and disinformation activities and to align their approaches to foreign influence frameworks. For example, the Public Diplomacy Strategy Division of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the office leading MOFA’s counter-disinformation response, should engage with relevant entities such as the European External Action Service’s Information Integrity and Countering FIMI division, offices within the British Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Global Affairs Canada and relevant offices among other likeminded countries, to exchange information and observations on Chinese disinformation activity in their respective countries. This coordination could help create shared understanding of PRC priorities, targets, and the scale and scope of its efforts across geographies.

Second, Japan, along with other like-minded nations, should collaborate to establish standards requiring social media and platform companies to produce publicly accessible quarterly threat reports. These reports should detail covert state actor activities on their platforms. In the United States, companies such as Meta and Microsoft consistently release such reports, while other social media platforms have done so in the past but without regularity. Similarly, platforms and communications companies should be mandated to report to relevant government entities when foreign actors target their platforms. Regular disclosure is crucial for government counterparts to gain a systemic and long-term understanding of how foreign threat actor activities targeting key communication platforms are evolving. This, in turn, enables more effective and tailored responses. At present, such disclosures are voluntary and depend on each company’s internal policies. To ensure consistency and accountability, these reports should be a required component of routine reporting.

Lastly, and perhaps most difficult, partner countries need to shore up the resilience of their own information ecosystems as the best way to defend against PRC disinformation. In the Japanese context, creating the Digital Agency was a significant step in the right direction in safeguarding elections against misinformation campaigns, but an accelerated and aggressive set of measurable whole-of-government actions needs to be committed if the gap between the current digital systems and digital security is to be closed. Japan and partner countries should work to 1) expand nationwide digital literacy initiatives, drawing inspiration from Taiwan’s efforts to counter Chinese disinformation tactics, and foster similar coordination for digital education with other like-minded Indo-Pacific partners and allies; 2) enhance cybersecurity interoperability through joint operations, shared protocols, and integrated response mechanisms; and 3) prioritize and accelerate government and societal digital transformation, developing cross-sector capabilities allowing rapid response to disinformation—capabilities that integrate state and societal resources for comprehensive threat mitigation.

China’s disinformation poses a serious threat that requires a coordinated and proactive approach. Japan’s efforts to date are a step in the right direction, but more must be done. Such measures are no longer a luxury but a necessity, and neither the risks of disinformation nor the preparedness of open societies should be taken for granted.

Dylan J. Plung is a Senior Project Manager at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and a Japan specialist. The views expressed are the authors and do not reflect that of NBR.

Dylan J. Plung and Kenton Thibaut, “Japan’s technology paradox: the challenge of Chinese disinformation,” Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), March 25, 2025, https://dfrlab.org/2025/03/25/japan-tech-chinese-disinformation/.