Sino-Russian Cooperation in Spreading Disinformation: Implications for Europe
Sino-Russian Cooperation in Spreading Disinformation: Implications for Europe
Sino-Russian Cooperation in Spreading Disinformation: Implications for Europe – chinaobservers
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China’s FIMI [foreign information manipulation and interference] in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) tends to be aimed locally – at municipalities rather than capitals – suggesting a deliberate strategy of working below the threshold of national political attention. In some regions, Chinese actors target minority communities through placing content in minority-language newspapers and organizing official diplomatic visits to schools of these communities. This strategy reflects an evolution of Chinese FIMI caused by official channels of communication, such as ambassador op-eds in mainstream media or embassy correspondence, largely failing to resonate with wider national and European audiences.
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Participants from the EU also discussed China’s notable progress in reaching EU audiences and leveraging social media platforms – particularly TikTok and Instagram. As a result, younger generations, who used to be critical of Beijing due to human rights issues, now tend to see China in a more positive light. Social media accounts portraying China’s technological rise and the recent decision to grant visa-free access for many European countries, which led to a surge in visits and generated organic positive perceptions. Effectively, these phenomena constitute effective and not-so-costly soft power tools for Beijing.
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On the other hand ... in Serbia, close political ties with both Russia and China have created a media environment in which most outlets are amplifying narratives favorable to Moscow and Beijing. While Chinese infrastructure investment in the country has generated confirmed instances of corruption, these have received seemingly minimal media coverage.
In North Macedonia, despite limited direct exposure to Chinese or Russian disinformation, domestic political elites have built on their toolkits and instrumentalized the two-decade-long EU accession process to deflect scrutiny from internal failures – contributing to the erosion of the EU’s image in the country.
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Investments in “China literacy” as a practical competency are needed across government, media, and civil society, alongside an expanded strategic communication capacity at both EU and national levels. While China remains on the radar of security services and is featured regularly in cybersecurity reports, its information activities have not yet prompted the same level of coordinated political response as Russian interference.
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Europe’s effective responses should shift from only reactive debunking toward creating proactive forward-looking European narratives. Failure to do so risks ceding the information space to narratives that frame Chinese engagement as inevitable or benign – with deindustrialization and unemployment as the tangible consequences of prolonged inaction.
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Practical proposals included direct engagement with municipalities on acceptable parameters for Chinese investment; support for independent journalists; reaching out to active citizens and civil society organizations, who could serve as monitors and reporters of FIMI; scaling cybersecurity literacy; and simplifying frameworks such as DISARM, whose current taxonomy of over 200 individual tactics exceeds the capacity of smaller states with limited monitoring resources.
The workshop closed with a shared sense of urgency. The immediate challenge is to elevate Chinese FIMI from a specialist preoccupation to a matter of live political debate – in EU member states and neighborhood countries alike – so that it achieves the salience it has not yet attained. How to convert that urgency into action, and how to summon the political will to use the tools already at Europe’s disposal, remain the defining questions ahead.
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