Chinese State Media Is Pushing Pro-Russian Misinformation Worldwide

Beijing has spoken of its neutrality and desire for peace in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine—but Chinese state-affiliated media outlets have kept on spreading Kremlin propaganda, even as European Union countries and social media platforms have moved to ban Russian state media due to misinformation.

According to analysis conducted by CNN, almost half of the most shared posts on Weibo from 14 Chinese state media outlets are strongly pro-Russia. Research by Maria Repnikova and Wendy Zhou shows that social media opinion on Chinese sites leans the same way. But thats not enough for Beijing. Chinese state media is actively working—and paying—to spread pro-Russia misinformation on Western social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

The current line China is trying to push onto Western social media platforms is a well-developed lie about U.S. bioweapon experiments in Ukraine. This is a propaganda line well developed in Russian media—but Beijing isn‘t promoting it to help Moscow as much as it is to just smear the West. Since early 2020, China has promoted claims that COVID-19 really originated outside of China and created a fantasy story of U.S. military experimentation at Fort Detrick that created the virus. This claim, heavily normalized in China, is a convenient distraction from China’s own failings in allowing the virus to spread in Wuhan. As omicron challenges China‘s containment system, blaming the West is a useful distraction—but it’s also become a routine exercise for Chinese media.

One of the most notable outlets involved in foreign propaganda is CGTN, an English-language cable TV news service owned by Chinese state media China Central Television (CCTV), under the control of the Chinese Communist Partys Publicity Department. Although some recent reports have discussed Russian bombings, CGTN has generally backed Russian propaganda by calling the invasion “special military action” and directly publishing quotes from Sputnik and other Russian sites, such as “Putin says Russia has no ill intentions towards its neighbours.”