Ancillary #9
The issue that I would like to discuss relates to China’s official promotion of conspiracy theories as part of its propaganda. Over the past months, two pieces of false information had topped the search ranking of Weibo, China’s counterpart for Twitter, in the middle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
- The United States was actively developing biochemical weapons in its labs in Ukraine before the war;
- Sources confirmed that COVID was manufactured by Moderna.
Even though it was claimed that Weibo’s trends and searches are ranked according to its independent algorithm, the notoriously intense monitoring of the government on the Chinese internet would suggest that the promotion of such topics was backed by the officials. At the same time, while China has not taken a direct diplomatic position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the spread of the disinformation seemed to be once again highlighting the narrative of the Western world being the original sin as well as distracting Chinese netizens from the mass atrocities committed by the Russian troops. China’s use of conspiracy theories is not unprecedented in the context of changing dynamics of international relationships: In August 2021, when Biden signed a bill requesting investigations on Wuhan, China’s ministry of diplomacy and state-owned media outlets made a series of posts suggesting that the virus was made in Fort Detrick, a military base located near Washington D.C.
The two sides of debates on this issue focus on whether it is necessary and proper for the government to strategize in this way to maintain the stability of the society. proponents of propagating through conspiracy theories have cited the threat of “cognitive warfare,” an effort made by the U.S. and NATO to spread information in a way that best destabilizes Chinese society. At the same time, China has offered as much as 500,000 RMB to encourage reporting potential behaviors of online espionage, which shows that the substantial risk has been recognized by the government. While the government was spreading disinformation, this strategy best counters the effort of the Western World to make the Chinese people distrust the government.
However, as of now, I am more inclined to argue for the wrongness of the government’s strategy in using conspiracy theories, as it increases the distrust of people both domestically and internationally and promotes “whataboutism,” which would most likely work against instead of in favor of the country. I am going to also research large media outlets outside of China and their use of disinformation, arguing for the lack of accurate and transparent information as a global problem and one of the roots of modern-day international conflicts. I would like to explore how international or organizational corporations would solve the issue if possible, and then analyze how an individual can best evaluate the information if a more universal and institutional solution is not possible.
