My Take | One person’s think tank is another’s propaganda organ
Unlike China’s state-run think tanks and media groups, their Anglo-American counterparts have industry ties and interests whose influences are often far less obvious
You read it in the news all the time. What is denounced or dismissed as propaganda by one government may be considered a matter of fact or even the truth by another.
In this context, I don’t doubt that China wages propaganda campaigns or what is sometimes called cognitive warfare against the United States. But I don’t think it’s remotely as successful as the US and its English-speaking allies are in their own information warfare against China.
That has been the case in terms of the length of time dating back decades and also the wide spectrum of domains targeted – from mass and social media to academia, think tanks and the entertainment industry. Whether it’s covert or overt information campaigns by the US government, they have been far more insidious and widespread.
These observations, I think, are accepted, or even considered obvious, by many people outside the West, but will be readily dismissed by many others inside the West, especially those within the Anglo-American sphere.
But let’s consider a few recent examples. A bill is working its way through the US Congress to spend US$1.6 billion over five years to promote anti-China propaganda.
The “Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund Authorisation Act of 2023” was passed in the House of Representatives in September and will likely also gain passage in the Senate. It will earmark US$325 million each year until 2027 to support media and civil society sources to counter China’s “malign influence” around the world.
