Banners display messages celebrating the centenary of the Chinese Community Party are seen in Hong Kong. A Chinese influence network began as a way to target protests in Hong Kong, but has evolved. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON: US cybersecurity outfit Mandiant Threat Intelligence has revealed new research it claims shows an extensive, global Chinese influence operation that seeks to spark protests inside the US over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mandiant says the operation includes hundreds of inauthentic accounts working in seven languages across 30 social media platforms and over 40 additional websites. “The scope of activity, in terms of languages and platforms used, is far broader than previously understood,” Mandiant researchers wrote in a blog post published today.

The company first reported on the activities in 2019, when the campaign was then trying to shape perceptions around that year’s Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. But the network has since expanded and appears to have made “multiple shifts in its tactics,” according to the new research.

“These accounts have posted similar, and in many cases identical messaging and engaged in the coordinated sharing, commenting on, and liking of text, image, and video content,” per the company.

Perhaps most notable is the network’s attempts to incite protests inside the US, an echo of similar purported Russian efforts in 2016. “While previous public reporting has highlighted limited instances of organic engagement with the network on Twitter and we have continued to track similar instances of organic engagement on both social media and niche online forums,” Mandiant noted, “this direct call for physical mobilization is a significant development compared to prior activity, potentially indicative of an emerging intent to motivate real-world activity outside of China’s territories.”

Mandiant presents evidence that “thousands of posts in languages including English, Japanese, and Korean, images, and videos were posted across multiple platforms by accounts we assess to be part of this broader activity set that called on Asian Americans to protest racial injustices in the U.S.”

The perceived “racial injustices” center around the fact that some have accused China of being responsible for the pandemic, Mandiant found, and the posts urged Asian Americans to protest in New York City on April 24. It doesn’t appear to have worked; while there was a protest that occurred that day, it was late at night in Brooklyn and was not focused on Asian American issues.

In fact, Mandiant notes that it has “seen no indication” the network’s calls for protests have translated into “real-world activity” yet. But the fact it is trying will likely concern US officials.

Such protests — should Chinese influencers succeed in starting them — could then be portrayed by the Chinese Communist Party as evidence of US weakness. (The CCP, of course, does not believe in freedom of speech or the right to peacefully protest.) Such narratives would play into the wider ongoing influence battle between democracies and authoritarian regimes, each group vying to prove to the other that its form of government, economy, and society is superior.

Mandiant’s findings are just the latest evolution in the network’s activities that, since mid-2019, have “includ[ed] the use of artificially generated photos for account profile pictures and the promotion of a wide variety of narrative themes related to current events, including multiple narratives related to the COVID-19 pandemic, narratives critical of Chinese dissident Guo Wengui and his associates, and narratives related to domestic U.S. political issues.”

Mandiant said its research is intended to provide an “early warning” on a potential emerging trend, which could someday cross from the information domain to real-world impacts.

Threats from information warfare are an issue that US officials are increasingly open about being a challenge. In August, Gen. Glen VanHerck, the head of US Northern Command, said “candidly, we’re getting our rear end handed to us today” on information operations targeting the public.

Congress is also working on the issue; the House Armed Services Committee last week included an amendment in the fiscal 2022 defense policy bill to require a posture review, strategy, and plan for US information operations, specifically the “ability to influence and disrupt adversary information flow and decision-making, as well as defend and bolster our own.”

The Chinese government and state media, in particular, have been amplifying their anti-US narratives over the past month, as the US withdrew its final troops from Afghanistan after two decades.