Paris [France], September 21 : China is using all existing media to shape and impose a narrative serving its interests and to dissuade or even terrorise enemy forces, said Olivier Poujade, founder of East Africa Gate, a consulting firm.
Poujade referred to a report by the sinologist Paul Charon and Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer, the director of IRSEM (Strategic Research Institute of the Military School). The 650-page report delineates the gigantic means implemented by Beijing to impose its propaganda.
"This 650-page report published by IRSEM, a semi-public organization, is entirely based on open-source information. It describes the gigantic, protean and aggressive action articulated by Beijing in recent years to impose its vision of the world, to convince or constrain the populations of the merits and benevolence of Chinese policy," Poujade said.
"Piece by piece, the two co-authors reconstruct the mosaic intended to project the new doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This survey comes out at the very moment when the submarine crisis with Australia raises the question of French positioning vis-a-vis China and the United States," he added.
"No other power than China today has so many senior positions at the UN and 2 million Chinese citizens are said to be paid full-time to relay Beijing's propaganda," he said.
Poujade explained that this aggressive policy of influence is based on a wide spectrum of tools, ranging from traditional public diplomacy to clandestine activities, and has its own operational command centre.
"Several hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens or foreign sympathisers would be mobilised, permanently, on these three types of confrontation fixed by Beijing with the aim, as explained in detail in this report, to shape and impose a narrative serving the interests of the country (war of public opinion), to dissuade or even terrorize enemy forces (psychological warfare), and finally to use justice as a "weapon of war", the war of law to attack against attack or sanction individuals or states considered hostile," Poujade said.
He noted that the exercise consists of occupying the networks and flooding them with pro-Beijing messages while giving the illusion of spontaneous support or genuine popular denunciation to denounce speeches hostile to the regime.
"Outsourced in particular in Malaysia, the People Liberation Army (PLA) has at its disposal an army of freelancers ready to disseminate this disinformation and ensure the publicity of China, with a remuneration ranging from 12.6 euros to 126 euros depending on the length of the message. Among these web showcases, the KanWatch content farm encourages its members to share its content in exchange for remuneration," he added.