• Resident Fellow, China

Kenton Thibaut

Kenton Thibaut is a resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), where her research focuses on Chinese influence operations and its role in the global technology ecosystem.

Prior to joining DFRLab, she served for five years in the private sector working on Chinese government relations. Before this, she worked at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, where her research focused on Chinese elite politics.

Thibaut is a PhD candidate at Georgetown University, where she focuses on China’s role in the global information environment. She has received various research fellowships, including a Fulbright Fellowship, Blakemore Freeman Fellowship, and Boren National Security Fellowship. She was also named as a 2021 security fellow at the Truman National Security Project. She holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and completed a graduate certificate in Chinese studies at the Hopkins Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China. Thibaut also currently serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, where she co-teaches a graduate-level course on global information operations.

March 2023

How pro-Russia and pro-China influencers cross-promote state narratives

by Kenton Thibaut

Influencers critical of the West have formed a mutually beneficial community on Twitter, amplifying Russian and Chinese state narratives on a range of issues
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November 2022

China spearheads social media campaign to attack civil society in Zimbabwe

by Kenton Thibaut

Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party targets opposition figures with Chinese government assistance.
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October 2022

Chinese state media, content farms spread anti-UK narratives to halt Hong Kong emigration

by Kenton Thibaut

Narratives amplified UK’s COVID challenges and presented its Hong Kong visa program as a scam.
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