Meta Busts Massive Chinese Information Warfare Campaign

Is this only the tip of the iceberg?

Photo by Visual Karsa on Unsplash.

“Meta says Chinese, Russian influence operations are among the biggest it’s taken down,” reported Shannon Bond for NPR on August 29, 2023. “Facebook parent Meta says Chinese law enforcement is behind the largest covert online influence operation the company has ever disrupted.”

The massive bust provides a fascinating glimpse into a global propaganda campaign that heretofore has largely flown under the public radar. Most Americans have heard of Russian propaganda, Russian influence operations, Russian election tampering, Russian trolls, and hacking.

The Chinese Communist Party has an information warfare machine easily as advanced — and as detrimental to U.S. interests — as its Russian counterpart.

The “Three Warfares” is a strategic concept employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that encompasses three key forms of non-military warfare: psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal warfare.

This doctrine was officially adopted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the early 2000s and has since been integrated into China’s broader military and political strategy.

An example of China employing the “Three Warfares” can be seen in the South China Sea dispute, where China has used…