This series is a part of a three-year research project examining China’s role in information ecosystem. The first two reports in the series explored China’s strategy and the impacts of its operations abroad. They found that the United States will not be successful in addressing the challenges of Chinese influence if it sees that influence as separate from the interconnected economic, political, and technical domains in which its strategy is embedded. The third and final report in the series provides recommendations on how the US government can best respond to those challenges, including the architecture, tools, and strategies that exist for addressing PRC influence and information manipulation, as well as any potential gaps in the government tool kit.
The first two reports find that China’s approach to the information domain 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”(话语权) —with the ultimate goal of decentering US power and leadership on the global stage. One of the main mechanisms through which the CCP seeks to achieve this objective is by focusing on the dominance of information ecosystems. This ecosystem encompasses not only narratives and content that appear in traditional and social media but also the digital infrastructure on which communication systems rely, the policies that govern those systems at the international level, and the diplomatic strategy deployed by Beijing’s operatives abroad to gain buy-in for the CCP’s vision of the global order.
Lastly, as report three outlines, responding effectively to these challenges requires understanding that the CCP (1) integrates its tech industrial strategy, governance policy, and engagement strategy and (2) connects its approach at home to how it engages abroad, and requires that the United States do the same, commensurate with its values. It should not respond tit-for-tat but rather have a collective strategy for a global competition for information that connects its tech strategy to its governance approach to its engagement around the world.
CHINESE DISCOURSE POWER: AMBITIONS AND REALITY IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN
The report traces the evolution of China’s conception of discourse power and how it came to occupy a central role in China’s national strategy. It provides a map of how the party-state has been restructured, in part, to help operationalize China’s goals to gain discourse power globally. The third section focuses on China’s strategy for gaining discourse power by centering itself in the ecosystem of global connectivity. Lastly, this report provides a brief assessment of both the successes and limitations of China’s discourse-power operations.
CHINESE DISCOURSE POWER: CAPABILITIES AND IMPACT
Whereas the first report introduced China’s discourse power strategy, this second report examines its efforts to date. This report assesses this through a frame of “media convergence” (融媒体), a Chinese term that refers to the integration of internal and external Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, the online and offline channels for its dissemination, and the mechanisms of oversight on which communications systems rely. It looks China’s efforts to diversify channels of dissemination for its narratives, to better tailor content to particular audiences, and to enhance control over global governance of technological infrastructure and digital connectivity.
EFFECTIVE US GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS CHINA’S INFORMATION INFLUENCE
The focus of this report is on how the US government can best respond to China’s weaponization of the information domain, including the architecture, tools, and strategies that exist for addressing PRC influence and information manipulation, as well as any potential gaps in the government tool kit. This report finds that, to mount the most effective response to Chinese influence and the threat it poses to democratic interests at home and on the international stage, the United States should develop a global information strategy, one that reflects the interconnected nature of regulatory, industrial, and diplomatic policies with regard to the information domain.
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