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ABOUT THE SERIES

The Sharp Power and Democratic Resilience series aims to contextualize the nature of sharp power, inventory key authoritarian efforts and domains, and illuminate ideas for non-governmental action that are essential to strengthening democratic resilience.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Cook is research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House. She directs the China Media Bulletin, a monthly digest providing news and analysis on media freedom developments related to China. Cook is the author of several Asian country reports for Freedom House’s annual publications, as well as four special reports about China.

This report describes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) sharp power efforts to shape media content around the world. It also documents how nongovernmental actors contribute to a growing accumulation of activities aimed at countering Beijing’s media influence while protecting democratic institutions.

Leveraging propaganda, disinformation, censorship, and influence over key nodes in the information flow, Beijing’s expanding efforts to shape global narratives go beyond simply “telling China’s story.” Their sharper edge undermines democratic norms, erodes national sovereignty, weakens the financial sustainability of independent media, and violates local laws. An acknowledgment and understanding of the challenges that China’s party-state and related actors pose to media freedom globally—not only by China experts, but by the full array of nongovernmental actors engaged in the media, news, and technology sectors—must be central to a comprehensive response.

It is imperative that anyone engaged in the media space—be they journalists, regulators, technology firms, press freedom groups, or even news consumers—acknowledge the influence exerted by China’s authoritarian regime on the news and information circulating in their print publications, radio broadcasts, television programs, and social media feeds.

KEY IDEAS FOR NONGOVERNMENTAL RESPONSES:

• Investigation and research: Academic institutions, think tanks, research entities, and donors should continue existing work and ensure resources are available to monitor and expose CCP media influence activities in a credible, professional, and sustained way in the coming years.
• Action by media outlets: Local media should improve their awareness of the potential journalistic and political pitfalls of accepting Chinese state or proxy investment, paid supplements, or coproduction deals.
• Civil society advocacy: International and local press freedom groups should consider whether and how to incorporate a CCP media influence dimension into current or future projects, with support from donors. Such initiatives could support internal capacity building, journalism trainings and education, media literacy, policy advocacy, and information sharing and coordination.
• Technology sector collaboration: Technology firms should seek further opportunities to work with researchers and civil society in identifying emerging threats and problematic accounts tied to the Chinese party-state. They must also ensure that independent voices, activists, and content producers who are critical of the Chinese government have a clear avenue for appeal if they encounter problems on the companies’ platforms.

The report also highlights specific actions taken by media outlets and civil society to counter the CCP’s expanding global footprint. Categorized by sector, these responses illustrate ways for media, civil society, think tanks, and the technology sector to build resilience to sharp power across the information ecosystem.

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China’s Global Media Footprint: Democratic Responses to Expanding Authoritarian Influence [PDF]

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A China Strategy

Edward Lucas

December 7, 2020

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In an era of geopolitical competition, the West — the U.S.-led countries of the transatlantic alliance and their East Asian allies — lacks a strategy for dealing with its most formidable competitor: the People’s Republic of China (henceforth China). But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a strategy for dealing with the West. It involves a long-term goal of “national rejuvenation”¹ — making China the world’s most powerful country by 2050 — implemented with decisive leadership; a clear-eyed appreciation of Western diplomatic, economic, political, and social weaknesses; and effective means of exploiting them. These tactics, best characterized as “sharp power,”² include censorship and manipulation of the information system, cyber operations, divide-and-rule diplomacy, leverage of trade and investment, and propaganda, plus military bluff and intimidation.

January 4, 2021  Toshi Yoshihara, Jack Bianchi
Resources: Strategy & Policy

China’s military is going global. In the coming decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be well-positioned to influence events and conduct a wide range of missions, including limited warfighting, beyond the Western Pacific. The United States and its close allies, who have enjoyed largely unobstructed access to the world’s oceans for the last three decades, will need to adjust to new military realities as the PLA makes its presence felt in faraway theaters.

In this study, Senior Fellow Toshi Yoshihara and Research Fellow Jack Bianchi argue that a deep study of China’s weaknesses as they relate to its worldwide ambitions is required to formulate an effective allied response. These weaknesses offer insights into the costs that Beijing will have to pay to go global. Importantly, the United States and its close allies enjoy agency over certain Chinese weaknesses, furnishing them leverage that, if exercised, could yield strategic dividends. The report concludes with a range of allied options that exploit China’s weaknesses to constrain and complicate the PLA’s global expansion.  

AUTHORS Toshi Yoshihara Senior Fellow, Jack Blanchi, Research Fellow

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Download full “Seizing on Weakness: Allied Strategy for Competing With China’s Globalizing Military” report.

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How China Sees the World

And how we should see China

• Story by H. R. McMaster, The Atlantic
• MAY 2020 ISSUEGLOBAL

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I. The Forbidden City

On November 8, 2017, Air Force One touched down in Beijing, marking the start of a state visit hosted by China’s president and Communist Party chairman, Xi Jinping. From my first day on the job as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, China had been a top priority. The country figured prominently in what President Barack Obama had identified for his successor as the biggest immediate problem the new administration would face—what to do about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But many other questions about the nature and future of the relationship between China and the United States had also emerged, reflecting China’s fundamentally different perception of the world.

Atlantic Council

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This strategy was produced in collaboration with experts from ten leading democracies.

Foreword

Following World War II, the United States and its allies and partners established a rules-based international system. While never perfect, it contributed to decades without great-power war, extraordinary economic growth, and a reduction of world poverty. But this system today faces trials ranging from a global pandemic and climate change to economic disruptions and a revival of great-power competition.