Debunking the CCP’s False Narratives
Examination of party’s effort at ‘mind dominance’ offers insights
FORUM Staff
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) approach to cognitive warfare is probably the least studied component of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s strategy to dominate the international order, yet it may be the most critical.
The CCP aims “to achieve what the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] refers to as mind dominance, which the PLA defines as the use of information to influence public opinion to affect change in a nation’s social system, likely to create an environment favorable to China and reduce civilian and military resistance to PLA actions,” according to the 2023 “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC)” report by the United States Department of Defense (DOD).
The PLA likely intends to use cognitive operations, which combine psychological warfare with internet technologies and communication platforms to shape adversary behavior and decision-making, “as an asymmetric capability to deter U.S. or third-party entry into a future conflict, or as an offensive capability to shape perceptions or polarize a society,” the DOD reported.
Examining the CCP’s deceptive portrayal of the U.S.’s global biological safety and security efforts offers insights into the CCP’s next generation of psychological warfare. The CCP’s biolab narrative, without evidence, accuses the U.S. of operating biological laboratories for weapons creation instead of for developing defenses against infectious diseases. Such cognitive operations are designed to achieve strategic national security goals by affecting a target’s perceptions and changing the target’s decision-making and behavior, according to the report. Although absurd on the surface, the debunked biolab claims have served as a potent and complex tool in developing countries, which comprise the most critical arena of competition.
The U.S. was among the first signatories to the international Biological Weapons Campaign in 1972, agreeing to the global ban enacted six years after the U.S. ceased its offensive biological weapons program.“The United States is in full compliance with its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention [BWC] and does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere — nor do we support anyone else to do so,” a U.S. Department recently affirmed to the Singapore news agency CNA.
To counter continuing nefarious false narratives, the U.S and its Allies and Partners need to study how the CCP integrates physical and informational elements into cognitive strategy. Although researchers have extensively studied the predatory lending practices of the PRC’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) infrastructure scheme and the CCP’s manipulation of the Chinese diaspora to push a strategic agenda, Allies and Partners need to better understand how Beijing’s strategic operations, activities and investments achieve cognitive effects. How do the PRC’s soft power tactics shape perceptions in this era of strategic competition? And what role does information deterrence play in the PRC’s integrated strategy?
Manipulating the Cognitive Dimension
The cognitive operations are in essence CCP disinformation efforts designed to bolster its position. The CCP spends billions of dollars annually on foreign manipulation operations, using false or misleading information to portray itself positively and secure the global affirmation it craves. As the CCP suppresses or obfuscates information contrary to its national message, it mobilizes its information levers to shift global perceptions and undermine competitor credibility.
Beijing’s approach to biosecurity competition includes an OBOR subset designed to portray the PRC as a global health leader. The PRC also competes directly with the U.S. in the international health arena and seeks to sow doubt about the strength of U.S. partnerships and programs. Working to establish goodwill, the PRC seeks exclusive access to strategic locations, especially in developing countries. Creating a positive image is paramount for the PRC to compete in these areas. Capitalizing on fear and anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CCP routinely exploits emotion, distorts facts and introduces enough doubt in the information environment for the public to question truth. Then, exploiting the cognitive uncertainty that follows, the CCP targets the U.S. with its disinformation campaigns in hopes of strategic gains.
Allegations that the U.S. is developing biological weapons and outsourcing the work are not new. They date to the Korean War in the early 1950s when the Soviets and Chinese fraudulently accused U.S. forces of widely deploying biological weapons against communist forces. The Soviet Union also admitted its Operation Denver disinformation campaign in the 1980s spread false claims that the U.S. military developed and unleashed on Africa the virus that causes AIDS. The false accusations still resonate and set the cognitive baseline for other disease-centric narratives. They also form the basis of ongoing false PRC claims that COVID-19 originated in a DOD lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, which is internationally acclaimed for its biological defense research, biosafety capabilities and safety record.
Although U.S. forces developed biological warfare tactics, techniques and procedures during the Korean War, whether they were ever used, even to a limited extent, remains unproven and controversial. U.S. researchers learned such approaches from the Imperial Japanese military’s notorious Unit 731 lead scientist Dr. Shiro Ishii, who directed the Japanese biological warfare unit in China. The CCP has amplified such controversial aspects of history in its disinformation campaigns and sought to exploit lingering negative perceptions to partner with key emerging countries.
The CCP also cites the post-World War II amnesty for members of Unit 731, which conducted inhumane biological experiments on Chinese, Korean, Soviet and U.S. prisoners of war. In exchange for sharing research with scientists at Fort Detrick, unit members avoided standing trial at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. The CCP falsely alleges a link between Unit 731 and U.S. biological support programs and has repeatedly circulated the accusation over the decades.
Manipulating Historic Connections
The PRC often weaves a conspiratorial connection between naturally occurring disease outbreaks and U.S. global health programs, and Beijing uses its ties with Russia to bolster its media reach in regions such as Central Asia. Moscow’s own weaponization of such narratives was evident in September 2021, when it accused Ukraine and the U.S. of illicit biological cooperation, which Russia eventually portrayed as a purported catalyst for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine five months later.
Scientists inside and outside Russia said the claims were untrue and that Moscow had no proof to support the accusations. In 2022, more than 35 parties to the BWC joined the U.S. in rejecting Russia’s discredited assertions, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists media organization.
Almost immediately after Russia’s invasion, and in accordance with long-standing collaboration agreements, the PRC diligently amplified Moscow’s false claims and used them as cognitive weapons to support Beijing’s regional ambitions. While anxiety from the pandemic began to settle, the fraudulent claims began to grow as the CCP sought to tarnish the success of U.S. global health initiatives, despite their record of effective disease reduction and pandemic prevention.
Cooperative Threat Reduction
Russia and the PRC have targeted international biological and security cooperation efforts led by the DOD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) directorate, which works with foreign partners to reduce biological threats. Facilities are owned and operated by the host nation and any U.S. presence is by invitation.
The CTR traces its roots to partnerships with
post-Soviet Russia when relations between Moscow and Washington were at their peak in the 1990s. At the outset, most laboratories receiving U.S. support were part of the former Soviet offensive biological weapons program. Russia and the U.S. worked together to secure the labs and adapt facilities to peaceful purposes. As the program evolved, it trained hundreds of scientists and provided advanced equipment to detect disease outbreaks and facilitate cooperative research programs for global health. Most recipients of CTR assistance work directly with the World Health Organization and other international health organizations. U.S. support proved essential during the pandemic. A lab in Thailand was the first to identify COVID-19 outbreaks in Southeast Asia using equipment and training provided by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, of which the CTR is a part.
For Beijing, which views any U.S. success as a failure for the PRC, the achievements of such U.S.-sponsored biosecurity and public health programs challenge the party-state’s influence campaigns.
As a result, the CCP often raises the volume on its disinformation campaigns in response to potential U.S. advances. The CCP is particularly concerned about efforts to establish an Indonesia-U.S. comprehensive strategic partnership. As Indonesian and U.S. ties continue to strengthen, the CCP recently dredged up false claims from 2008 concerning the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2. Indonesia’s health minister requested that the Indonesian-U.S. mission be established in Jakarta in the 1970s to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Even though the false allegations that the lab was developing bioweapons were discredited, Indonesia, for unrelated reasons, did not renew the lab agreement, and the U.S. relocated the lab in 2009.
Similar false claims about U.S. research circulate in Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea, and the CCP continues investing considerable resources to spread its disinformation. The CCP’s goal is to introduce doubt into the information environment. Left unchecked, the CCP’s cognitive warfare will continue to challenge the U.S. and its Allies and Partners in the Indo-Pacific and the stability of the global community. Therefore, the DOD and its partners in the Indo-Pacific must enhance awareness of their public health efforts and reduce opportunities for speculation and conspiracy. The more that transparent information is shared with global audiences, the more the beneficiaries of such programs are armed with facts to defend against the perpetuation of falsehoods.