“Selling China’s Story Well:” The Chinese Government’s Pivot to “Privatized Propaganda” on Western Social Media

Abstract

Chinese influence operations have been systematically understudied and underestimated because they use different tactics, and pursue different goals, than their Russian and Iranian counterparts. China’s strategic interests in international relations center on building stability and credibility on a global stage. To that end, the Chinese government formulates its overseas social media operations to promote a positive picture of China, and stifle questions of human rights abuses, dissent, and territorial aggression. However, scholarship on China’s influence operations lacks comprehensive data on how, and by whom, these campaigns are planned and executed. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature and builds a new model of China’s overseas influence operations based on a novel data source: public procurement contracts.

By collecting hundreds of Chinese government procurement contracts related to “overseas social media operations,” I demonstrate that China’s approach to propaganda has evolved beyond the “50-cent army” model that has dominated the literature for the last decade. I use quantitative methods to prove that China is increasingly outsourcing its social media operations to private sector firms, coopting the expertise and best practices these companies developed in commercial spaces. I construct a detailed model of the government entities who solicit these services, the suppliers who fulfill social media influence contracts, and the types of campaigns that dominate the market.

I demonstrate that government users from all administrative and geographic levels are frequently and increasingly outsourcing overseas social media campaigns. These campaigns are largely comprised of “nation branding” and “positive messaging” efforts aimed at dominating the conversation surrounding China and crafting a “benign” international image. They are implemented by a growing marketplace of companies with diverse business scopes and backgrounds, all with experience in media and marketing.

As a secondary, methodological contribution, I demonstrate that examining government procurement data facilitates a proactive approach to countering social media-based propaganda. Through reversing the process policymakers use to identify influence operations on Western social media, starting with the actors, and learning what kinds of behavior they are engaged in, (rather than identifying the action and then attempting to attribute it), we can predict, rather than merely respond to, attempts to manipulate social media users.