In 2019, in the middle of the trade war between the United States and China, former President Donald Trump made a decision that showcases the tensions that existed between the superpowers at that moment.
Trump, the virtual nominee of the Republican Party for the next elections, launched a covert CIA operation on Chinese social networks to try to mobilize public opinion against Xi Jinping’s regime, a maneuver reminiscent of the propaganda tactics used by Russia and the United States during the Cold War.
The discovery was revealed by the Reuters agency, which published an extensive report with some of the details of the operation.
Citing three former officials, Reuters detailed that the CIA created a small team of agents who used fake accounts on the Internet to spread negative narratives about the Chinese regime while leaking harmful and derogatory information to international media.
“The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world,” reads the report.
While more specific details of the covert operation were not revealed, sources told the outlet that the narratives pushed on Chinese networks were based on facts “despite being secretly released by intelligence operatives under false cover.”
One of the operation's objectives was to sow paranoia among Chinese leaders, forcing them to spend resources and efforts chasing “intruders” on their Internet, which is under strict state control.
“We wanted them chasing ghosts,” one of the former officials told Reuters.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson criticized the United States, saying the revelation about the secret CIA operation shows that Washington uses “public opinion space and media platforms as weapons to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion.”
The operation approved by Trump came at a time of great hostility between Beijing and Washington and amid China’s strong advance as a global power.
It is unclear whether the Biden administration maintained the CIA program in recent years.
However, two intelligence historians said that when the White House grants the CIA authority to conduct secret operations through an order known as a presidential find, it is common for the program to remain in place.
