The Chinese Communist Party has come to embrace social media as a way to influence domestic and foreign public opinion, actively seeking to use social media platforms for both overt propaganda and covert influence operations. The authors use extensive original Chinese-language open-source primary materials to examine how the Chinese military has conceptualized and operationalized its approach to cyber-enabled influence operations.

Dr. Li Bicheng, or How China Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media Manipulation

Insights Into Chinese Use of Generative AI and Social Bots from the Career of a PLA Researcher

Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Kieran Green, William Marcellino, Sale Lilly, Jackson Smith

ResearchPublished Oct 1, 2024

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was initially concerned about the rise of social media, considering it a threat to the regime. The CCP has since come to embrace social media as a way to influence domestic and foreign public opinion in the CCP's favor. Even as Beijing blocks foreign social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter (now X), from operating in China, it actively seeks to leverage these and other platforms for both overt propaganda and covert cyber-enabled influence operations abroad. While the results have been limited so far, the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) could dramatically improve China's capabilities moving forward, posing a greater threat to global democracies.

Most research into Chinese social media manipulation focuses on its outputs to understand what Chinese actors are saying and doing on foreign social media. However, this research can analyze only what has already occurred and has been attributed to Beijing. This report contributes to public understanding of the CCP's foreign social media manipulation by exploring the inputs of Chinese strategy, operational planning, and capability development and looking forward to the potential implications of generative AI for Chinese social media manipulation.

The authors leverage extensive original Chinese-language open-source primary materials to examine how the Chinese military approaches social media manipulation. Specifically, they focus on a Chinese military-affiliated researcher, Li Bicheng, to understand how the Chinese military has conceptualized and operationalized its approach to cyber-enabled influence operations.

Key Findings

  • The Chinese military likely began developing its social media manipulation capabilities by the mid-2010s and almost certainly began employing them by 2018.
  • The Chinese military is clearly interested in leveraging AI for social media manipulation, and at least some Chinese military researchers conduct cutting-edge work.
  • The Chinese military and broader Party-state are likely well-placed to adopt generative AI for social media manipulation, including to run social bots for large-scale efforts.
  • The Chinese military justifies its social media manipulation efforts based in part on a threat perception that the United States is seeking to undermine the CCP regime.

Recommendations

  • The United States and other global democracies should prepare for AI-driven social media manipulation by adopting risk-reduction measures, including promoting media literacy and government trustworthiness, increasing public reporting, and increasing diplomatic coordination.
  • The U.S. government should conduct an independent, comprehensive evaluation of its information efforts and ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs.
  • The U.S. government should consider engaging with Beijing on restricting AI-driven influence operations.
  • The U.S. policy community would benefit from additional research on better understanding the People's Republic of China's whole-of-government cooperation on social media manipulation, the United Front Work Department as a social media manipulation actor, the technical approach of other Party-state actors, and Party-state cooperation with Chinese companies for social media manipulation.

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Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Nathan, Kieran Green, William Marcellino, Sale Lilly, and Jackson Smith, Dr. Li Bicheng, or How China Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media Manipulation: Insights Into Chinese Use of Generative AI and Social Bots from the Career of a PLA Researcher, RAND Corporation, RR-A2679-1, 2024. As of October 10, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2679-1.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Nathan, Kieran Green, William Marcellino, Sale Lilly, and Jackson Smith, Dr. Li Bicheng, or How China Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media Manipulation: Insights Into Chinese Use of Generative AI and Social Bots from the Career of a PLA Researcher. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2679-1.html.
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