The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly adapting its domestic coercive tactics to influence and interfere in foreign democratic countries. Find ASD’s work on the tools China uses—ranging from the weaponization of its economy to Beijing’s attempts to control global and domestic narratives—to interfere in democracies on this page.
Hamilton Monthly Report: May 2022
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
China and the Digital Information Stack in the Global South
Introduction The 21st Century started with the promise of how technologies can be used to bolster, not undermine, democracies, activism, and human rights. However, the maddening pace at which digital technologies have evolved in recent years means [...]
Hamilton Toplines: June 6–12, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state-funded media last week continued their efforts to shift blame for a global food shortage caused by Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine. Russian propagandists argued that the crisis was sparked by Western sanctions [...]
Bryce Barros Analyzes the State of U.S.-Taiwan Relations on Radio Taiwan International
Under the Russian-Ukrainian war and the U.S. proposal of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), what challenges does the U.S. face from China in the Indo-Pacific region? In addition, Taiwan and the United States have launched the 21st Century T [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 30–June 5, 2022
Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday threatened that Russia would hit targets in Ukraine “that we have not yet attacked” if Kyiv receives long-range missiles from the United States. The warning capped a week of propaganda meant to deter [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 23–29, 2022
Russia Kremlin-linked accounts continued to argue that Western sanctions weren’t impacting Russia’s economy but were driving inflation in the West and prompting a global food shortage. President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian economy was “resi [...]
Neither Gone Nor Forgotten: China Still Interferes in Democracies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has galvanized the Euro-Atlantic community’s motivation to assess and counter Moscow’s interference in their democracies. The Kremlin’s financing of French far-right politician Marine Le Pen was a central issue in France [...]
Wall Street Journal Exclusive: China Excels in Google Rankings on Xinjiang and Covid-19 Searches
On issues critical to Beijing, including human rights and the origins of Covid-19, Chinese sources dominate top search results on Western search engines and platforms, including Google, Bing, and YouTube. By securing first-page search results on pop [...]
Elen Aghekyan Explains How China Spreads Disinformation on Search Engines on Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson
While the US and social media companies have banned Russian state media and propaganda in light of the war in Ukraine, China is quietly spreading its own disinformation through search engines. And they've been surprisingly effective at it. Elen Ag [...]
Winning the Web: How Beijing Exploits Search Results to Shape Views of Xinjiang and COVID-19
Executive Summary As the war in Ukraine unfolds, Russian propaganda about the conflict has gotten a boost from a friendly source: government officials and state media out of Beijing. In multiple languages and regions around the world, China’s “wol [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 16–22, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week posted more than 800 tweets about Finland and Sweden’s applications for NATO membership, making “NATO” the most frequently used keyword by Kremlin-linked accounts. On May 16, President Vladimir Puti [...]
5 Takeaways from the 2022 French Presidential Election
On April 24, French voters re-elected Emmanuel Macron for a second term as president of France. With the presidential election firmly in the rear-view mirror and with the French parliamentary elections still several weeks away, this piece assesses t [...]