VIII. The Manipulation of Information
A. The fake letters from the Prime Minister and the Minister of
Immigration
On April 20, 2019, the Tibetan Association of Canada (TAC) was inaugurated in Toronto,
the latest member of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations
(CTCCO), an umbrella platform of more than 90 organizations with ties to the Chinese
consulate. It quickly became evident that the TAC was a façade allowing Beijing to circulate
its narrative on Tibet. Tibetan people were in the minority at the inauguration, and all were
known for their prior ties to the local United Front department and/or to the Chinese con-
191. “Introduction,” Shandong Friendship Publishing House (https://archive.vn/eYGzH); “Shandong Opens
Another Nishan House in Germany,” Shandong China Daily (26 Jul. 2018), https://archive.vn/URDWz.
192. “孔子尼山书屋在澳大利亚标准中文学校揭牌” (“Opening of a Nishan Book House in an Australian
School of Chinese Language”), 人民网 (People’s Newspaper) (28 Nov. 2014), https://archive.vn/ZBnE6.
193. “山东友谊出版社有限公司” (“Shandong Friendship Publishing House”), 企查查 (Qichacha) (updated 1
Feb. 2021), https://archive.vn/mAinj.
194. “山东出版集团简介” (“Introduction to Shandong Publication Group Co., Ltd.”), 山东出版集团 (Shandong
Publication Group Co., Ltd.) (no date), https://archive.vn/OiWN3.
195. “山东出版集团有限公司” (“Shandong Publication Group Co., Ltd”), 企查查 (Qichacha) (updated 3 Feb.
2021), https://archive.vn/rNBqM.
196. “Introduction,” Shandong Friendship Publishing House.
197. “Opening of a Nishan Bookstore in an Australian School of Chinese Language.”
198. “尼山书屋: 简介” (“Nishan Bookstores: Introduction”), 山东友谊出版社 (Shandong Friendship Publishing
House) (no date), https://archive.vn/NW2lm.
199. “Shandong Opens Nishan Book House in Canada.”
200. “Shandong Opens Second Nishan Book House in Hungary,” Shandong China Daily (2 Nov. 2018), https://
archive.vn/IMUGe.
201. “Shandong Opens Another Nishan House in Germany.”
202. “中国尼山书屋落户阿联酋迪拜” (“Opening of a New Nishan Bookstore in Dubai”), Xinhuanet (25 Apr.
2018), https://archive.vn/ZtuRk.
203. “中国尼山书屋在乌干达麦克雷雷大学孔院落户” (“Creation of a Nishan Bookstore in the Confucius
Institute at Makerere University, in Uganda”), Xinhuanet (12 Nov. 2019), https://archive.vn/kDr9y.
575
sulate. The Chinese national anthem was played, and the director of the new association
thanked Beijing for the economic development of Tibet. The creation of this group was
immediately denounced by other Tibetan associations in Canada which highlighted that
the TAC wasn’t representative and that its creation was certainly motivated by a desire “to
divide the Tibetan community in Canada.”204
At that precise moment, two letters of endorsement apparently written by Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, and his minister of Immigration Ahmed Hussen – both
rough counterfeits with grammar mistakes – circulated on Facebook and Twitter.
Several days later, a spokesman for the Prime Minister Office confirmed that the letters had
been fabricated. In response, the TAC declared that it had nothing to do with the opera-
tion. But, for Jonathan Manthorpe, “this [was] clearly a United Front operation.”205 Other
sources suggested that it might not have been China but another country, to “add fuel to
the fire” of bilateral tensions.
B. WeChat’s role
The Chinese phone messaging app WeChat (→ p. 196) is increasingly used in Canada,
and not solely by the Chinese community: politicians, for instance, are growing more accus-
tomed to using it in Canada, as in the United States, to reach Chinese-speaking voters.
As noted earlier, WeChat seems systematically used when organizing pro-Beijing
counter-demonstrations in reaction to events linked to the “five poisons.” Another prob-
lem arises from this: Beijing is permanently censoring content on the app: discus-
sions are monitored and, sometimes, doctored. A professor at a Canadian university shared
204. “Tibetans in Canada Dismayed by New Chinese-backed Group,” Canada Tibet Committee (23 Apr. 2019).
205. Jonathan Manthorpe quoted in Limin Zhou, “Fake Letter Sent in Trudeau’s name Not Isolated Case in China’s
Disinformation Campaign,” The Epoch Times (7 May 2019).
576
with us that he had noticed, in a closed discussion group of Chinese-speaking students,
researchers and teachers at the university, that messages, and sometimes entire discussions,
often disappeared. This was also noted by Freedom House: “in Canada, WeChat censors
deleted a Member of Parliament’s message to constituents praising Hong Kong’s Umbrella
Movement protesters, manipulated dissemination of news reports related to Huawei exec-
utive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest, and blocked broader media coverage of Chinese government
corruption and leading Chinese officials.”206 Beyond intervening on the content, Chinese
intelligence uses overseas WeChat groups to detect dissidents and gather personal
data.
Finally, a scandal forced the prime minister to intervene: the
WeChat account of a Liberal minister was used, without
her knowledge, to raise funds to finance the legal pro-
ceedings against a journalist critical of Beijing. On April
30, 2020, the journalist Sam Cooper published on globalnews.
ca an article showing that in mid-January, while China was
concealing the extent of the coronavirus epidemic that hit it,
it mobilized its relays around the world to acquire and stock-
pile a gigantic number of personal protective equipment (2.5
billion in six weeks) such as masks, that consulates in Canada
relayed these calls and that groups linked to the United Front
bought and sent to China a large number of these items –
which a few weeks and months later would be sold at a high
price by China to the whole world.207 Several members of the
Chinese Canadian community considered the possibility of a
class action lawsuit against the journalist and the newspaper.208
To that end, a person called Maria Xu, a member of Joyce
Murray’s WeChat group – Vancouver’s Liberal MP, president of the Treasury Board and
Minister of Digital Government in the Trudeau Cabinet – published a message in the
group with a link to a website collecting donations to fund this lawsuit. Once it was detected,
the message was deleted and Maria Xu excluded from the WeChat group. At that point, the
prime minister intervened to denounce the attacks against the journalist as “absolutely
unacceptable” and Murray’s office explained that WeChat was “used to engage members of
the Chinese Canadian community” and that “this particular post was unacceptable and in
no way reflects the Minister’s views. Participation in this group is guided by posted guide-
lines and a disclaimer. In this case, guidelines were not followed and the individual who
posted is no longer in this group.” In turn, Global News explained that it was “increasingly
concerned by what appears to be an organized effort to discredit our journalist, our report-
ing and our news division as we investigate the serious issue of foreign influence in Canadian
affairs.”209
206. Sarah Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone: The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence since 2017,
Freedom House report (Jan. 2020), 18.
207. Sam Cooper, “United Front Groups in Canada Helped Beijing Stockpile Coronavirus Safety Supplies,” Global
News (30 Apr. 2020).
208. Bob Mackin, “Analysis: Facts or Fearmongering? Richmond Politician Links Racist Graffiti, Assaults to Second
World War Injustice,” The Breaker (24 May 2020).
209. Brian Platt, “Trudeau Condemns Use of Minister’s WeChat Group to Promote Fundraiser to Sue Journalist,”
National Post (26 May 2020).
577
VIII. A Myriad of Local Organizations as Relays
In Canada, and particularly in Vancouver and Toronto, there are many Chinese asso-
ciations, organizations and groups. Some are old, such as the Chinese Benevolent
Association of Vancouver (1896), the Canada-China Friendship Society in Ottawa (1976)
and the Federation of Canada-China Friendship Associations (1980). And all of them are
more or less linked to the UFWD, hence to the CCP. The groups “promoting the
pacific reunification of China,” directly affiliated to the UFWD, are the easiest to uncover.
For instance, three Vancouver groups belong to that category: the China Unification
Promotion Council (CANADA) (加拿大中国统一促进会), created in 1999; the Canada
Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association (加拿大中国和平统一促 进会), cre-
ated in 2003 to help newly arrived migrants, and the president of which, Wang Dianqi (王
典奇), made a name for himself after he convinced a city councilor to raise the Chinese
flag in front of the Vancouver city hall while wearing a red scarf (which is largely
interpreted in the Chinese Canadian community as a symbol of loyalty to the Communist
regime) on the occasion of the 67th anniversary of the PRC210; last but not least, the North
America China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (北美
温 哥华中国和平统一促进会), created in 2016.
On the left, Wang has the Chinese flag raised in front of the Vancouver city hall in 2016.211 On the right, this advertisement was
printed by the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver in the newspapers Sing Tao and Ming Pao on June 21, 2019.
The 2019 Hong Kong crisis made it easier to clarify, where it was still necessary, how
a large number of Chinese associations in Canada position themselves toward Beijing. A
statement released by the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver in June
2019, and signed by 208 associations, adopted the CCP’s rhetoric almost to the
word212:
210. Mike Laanela, “Chinese Flags and Red Scarves Spark Debate at Vancouver City Hall,” CBC News (3 Oct. 2016).
211. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1183465553085644802/photo/1.
212. Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver (21 Jun. 2019), https://archive.vn/6WMWg.
578
As ethnic Chinese and overseas Chinese people residing in Canada, we are all the children of Emperor
Yan and Emperor Huang [two of China’s mythic founders], we belong to the same Chinese nation,
based on the idea of blood being thicker than water, patriotism and love of our homeland, we
are paying a close attention to the development of the current Hong Kong situation, we are obliged
to unite with the Hong Kong residents and not to be taken advantage of by the separatist forces.213
The list, which was very usefully translated in English,214 gives an overview (probably
non-exhaustive) of the reach of Chinese influence in the non-profit sector tied to
Chinese Canadian communities. Among the 208 groups, at least 80 had apparently
recently been created, “reflecting the huge surge in mainland Chinese migration since about
2000.”215 If many of the signatories have established ties to the Chinese government,
a few elements made some observers believe that the letter was guided by Chinese author-
ities, including sentences presenting Hong Kong as “an internal affair of China,” oppos-
ing “the interference of any foreign forces,” and an endorsement of ethnic nationalism
(Chinese Canadians are “all the children of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang [two of
China’s mythic founders],” their “blood being thicker than water”)216 that we mentioned in
the section dedicated to the diasporas (→ p. 165).
This proliferation of groups made of a multitude of subgroups is a “kind of United
Front tactic,” according to Fenella Sung of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong: “it’s
very easy to form a community group. You do not even have to register. If you’re not
incorporated, you can just get together [even] two or three people … and form a group.”
In other words, “it’s really bluffing more than anything. They want to show they are
stronger and have more people than they really have.”217 Cheuk Kwan, of the Toronto
Association for Democracy in China added that “these are basically fake organizations.”
“They are what I call the mouthpieces of the Chinese consulate. This is a very clearly
United Front effort by the Chinese government.”218
A similar operation was organized globally in August 2019: a statement signed by 583
Chinese organizations worldwide was circulated by the Chinese embassy in Ottawa,219
which advertised the involvement of 204 Chinese organizations from Canada.220 Another
example took place in October 2019 with an ad in the Chinese Canadian Times bought by
the Council of Newcomer Organizations, a self-described apolitical association subsidized
by the Canadian government – a detail that caused a public uproar (the spokesperson of
Canadian Friends of Hong Kong condemned “our government” for “using taxpayers’
money to enable CCP influence and infiltration into our society and politics”).221
213. Ian Young, “Canadian Ads Blasted Hong Kong ‘Radicals’, Invoking Blood Loyalty to China. Was Beijing’s
United Front Involved?” South China Morning Post (7 Jul. 2019).
214. UFWD YVR, “Pro-CCP Groups of Canada in 2019,” medium.com, (5 Jul. 2019).
215. Young, “Canadian Ads Blasted Hong Kong ‘Radicals.’”
216. Canadian Coalition, Harassment & Intimidation, 21-22.
217. Young, “Canadian Ads Blasted Hong Kong ‘Radicals.’”
218. Tom Blackwell, “Open Letter from Chinese-Canadian Groups Boosts Hong Kong government, Blasts
Protesters,” National Post, (9 Jul. 2019).
219. “全球近六百家社团发表全球华侨华人严正声明，强烈谴责香港暴乱和颜色革命” (“Nearly 600
Organizations from All Over the World Condemned the Demonstrations in Honk Kong and the Color Revolutions
in the Name of Overseas Chinese”), 环球华语融媒体平台 (Global Chinese Convergence Media) (10 Aug. 2019), https://
archive.vn/tyqUI.
220. “加拿大众多华人团体谴责暴力乱港行径 拥护» 一国两制” (“Many Chinese Organizations in Canada
Condemn the Violence That Creates Chaos in Hong Kong and Endorse the ‘One Country, Two Systems’”), Website
of the Embassy of China in Canada (6 Aug. 2019), https://archive.vn/GkDzx.
221. Tom Blackwell, “Hong Kong Democracy Advocates Angry After Ottawa-funded Group Buys Ad Backing
China’s Side,” National Post (4 Oct. 2019).
579
The Transformation of S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
The United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society (S.U.C.C.E.S.S.) is an organi-
zation based in Vancouver that provides social services to Chinese immigrants. Created in
1973, it is one of the largest social services agencies in the country, helping more than 60,000
persons on a budget of CA$50 million (€32.5 million) granted by the government. For years,
S.U.C.C.E.S.S. used to denounce the Tian’anmen massacre by signing a joint statement with
other organizations on the day of the commemoration of the bloody repression. In 2019,
however, on the 30th anniversary of the event, the organization kept silent – which did not go
unnoticed.222 But the demographics had changed: more than 40% of its “clients” now come
from mainland China, and no longer from Hong Kong.
In recent years, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. apparently turned its back: in 2015, the Overseas Chinese
Affairs Office (→ p. 69) labeled it an “Overseas Chinese Service Centre” (OCSC). As Matt
Schrader showed with one Toronto-based OCSC, there are proven ties between the centers
and the CCP (the Toronto center sent a New Year’s card “on behalf of the Consul General
of the PRC” that included praise for the 19th CCP Congress and, the year before, hosted
a welcome banquet for the new consul general during which Lin Xingyong, the president
of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, declared that “[We
will] give Consul He our strongest support and cooperation”).223 The decision to label
S.U.C.C.E.S.S. an OCSC wasn’t anodyne. In fact, the agency also opened an office in Beijing
and its members are increasingly parading with diplomats from the Chinese consulate and
other pro-Beijing communitarian groups. As such, many of those who had known and
respected the work of this agency in previous decades are now surprised and disappointed
by this evolution.
The Australian precedent is interesting here: the equivalent of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Australia, the
Chinese Australian Services Society, based in Sidney, was also labeled an OCSC.224 As a con-
sequence perhaps, it started to get involved in foreign policy matters in 2017, with a paper
suggesting that Australia should reconsider its “strategic alignment with the United States” and
develop its relations with China instead.
Meeting between Sing Lim Yeo, then-president of the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Foundation, and Qin Yuanping (裘援平),
president of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office,
at Vancouver’s Shangri-La (Feb. 2014).225
222. Douglas Quan, “Silence on Tian’anmen Anniversary Could be Sign of China’s Influence on Canadian
Community Groups: Critics,” National Post (17 Jun. 2019). All the quotes in this section are taken from this document.
223. Matt Schrader, “‘Chinese Assistance Centers’ Grow United Front Work Department Global Presence,” China
Brief, 19:1 (4 Jan. 2019).
224. “海外华助中心: 有它就有家 华侨华人什么都不怕” (“The Overseas Chinese Service Centers is Like
Family, Overseas Chinese Have Nothing to Fear Anymore”), 国务院侨务办公室 (Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the
State Council) (6 Apr. 2014), https://archive.vn/o8jXG.
225. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1140782943943577600.
580
In March 2019, three Canadian representatives of local organizations were in
Beijing as delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC): Chen Yongtao (陈永涛), president of the Vancouver-based Canadian Alliance
of Chinese Associations, Wang Linan (王立楠), president of the Canada Shandong
General Chamber of Commerce, also in Vancouver, and Lin Xingyong (林性勇), pres-
ident of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations.226 Ling Yin,
the publisher of Sept Days, a weekly Chinese-language newspaper based in Montreal,
also attended. In an interview for the website Chinaqw.com, he explained that the role
of overseas Chinese (like him) was to “tell the history of China” to foreign readers and
governments.227 When, later that same month, Zhang Yunbo, president of the Toronto-
based Greater Northwest China Federation of Entrepreneurial Businesses in Canada,
was also in China for an event in the Shaanxi province, he granted an interview to a
government website in which he said that “to expand abroad, we need to be able to tell
a good story about China.”228
The three Canadian delegates among others at the CPPCC.229
Each year, new organizations are created. Between October and December 2018,
for instance, the Federation of Transoceanic Chinese Canadian Association (FTCCA),
in Toronto, was created to “strengthen economic relations between Canada and China”;
its members “will have the opportunity to participate and experience exclusive visits
and tours to China.”230 The logo of the FTCCA actually resembles that of the All-China
Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), a major United Front organiza-
tions.
226. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1103128291433537536.
227. “全国政协报告中的这些话 受到侨胞广泛关注” (“These Words in the CCPPC Report Have Drawn Quite
Some Attention from Overseas Chinese”), 中国侨网 (4 March 2019), https://archive.vn/U5p9u.
228. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1114971300198359041.
229. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1103128291433537536/photo/2.
230. Federation of Transoceanic Chinese Canadian Association (FTCCA), “Mission” (https://archive.vn/nHEA2).
581
The organization’s inaugural event, in October 2018, gave an opportunity to United
Front agents from the consulate (Yang Baohua (杨葆华) and Li Sining (李斯宁)) to be in
the same room as Canadian politicians.231
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Wang Dianqi (王典奇), who was already “simultaneously head
of three CCP United Front groups”232 in the city, formally created a fourth, the Chinese
Cultural Harmony and Unity Society of Canada, ostensibly to “study and spread a specific
facet of Xi Jinping thought (和合文化).” In reality, Hu Qiquan (胡启全), the consular
attaché in charge of political warfare, took part to the initial activities of the new organiza-
tion and, soon after, Wang Dianqi travelled to China with the local politician Al Richmond
(→ p. 561), where he met with United Front agents.233
Wang Dianqi and Al Richmond in Ningbo, in November 2018.234
In December 2018, the Canada-China New Era Cultural and Economic Development
Association (加拿大中国新时代文化经贸促进会) and the Canada Fujian Industry &
Commerce Association (CFICA) were similarly created in Vancouver.
231. UFWD YVR, “Reds vs. Reds,”
232. The Canada Chinese Peaceful and Unification Association, the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations,
and the Canada China City Friendship Association.
233. UFWD YVR, “Reds vs. Reds.”
234. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1072978867717951489/photo/2.
582
A public holiday to commemorate the Nanjing massacre
In October 2017, the legislative assembly of Ontario adopted a motion introduced by MP Soo
Wong (she was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada at eight) that designated December
13 as a day of commemoration for the Nanjing massacre. In 2018, several organizations235
took part to a campaign to convince the federal government to create a public holiday to com-
memorate it. It was relayed by Jenny Kwan, a New Democratic Party MP who represents East
Vancouver in the Canadian parliament. Her speech, in July 2018, stirred a controversy; and
Japanese and Japanese Canadians, among others, protested. She has not been met with success
for now. Nonetheless, several months later, in October 2018, Kwan inaugurated a monument
dedicated to the victims of the Nanjing massacre, in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of
Toronto – the first outside of China – with two organizations (Confederation of Toronto
Chinese Canadian Organizations and Chinese Freemasons of Canada (Toronto)).
Jenny Kwan and CACA members, including its president Chen Yongtao, demonstrated for the creation of a com-
memorative public holiday in front of the Parliament of Canada, in late November 2018.236
In August 2018, the creation of an association of PLA veterans residing in Canada,
the Canada Chinese Veteran’s Society, led to protests. Sherman Lai, himself a PLA veteran
(lieutenant-colonel) teaching at the royal military college in Kingston, Ontario, held that
“they took advantage of democracy, of the Canadian system … But communism, the PLA
is not compatible with democracy and the rule of law. Before their nostalgia, there is a very
bloody history,” including the intervention of Canadian troops during the Korean War.237
Others called out the PLA for its role in state repression, from Tian’anmen to Hong Kong
demonstrations, without forgetting Tibet and Xinjiang for instance. The association, which
organized events, created a choir called “Companions in arms,” for instance, which
performed in military uniforms and sang military patriotic songs during a festival
in Richmond (British Columbia) in October 2019 (see image below). The association had
apparently disbanded in June 2020.238
235. Including the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations, the Canadian Sichuanese Friendship Association
and the Canada Chinese Peaceful Reunification Association.
236. https://twitter.com/Plan200_ca/status/1070540018861584384.
237. Tom Blackwell, “Canadian Veterans of People’s Liberation Army Form Association, Sing of China’s Martial
Glory,” National Post (30 Oct. 2019).
238. Government of Canada, Federal Corporation Information 1093250-7 (https://bit.ly/2YDu1dC).
583
Canadian Veterans of the PLA Association (https://archive.vn/TPrTE).
IX. Seducing First Nations
Chinese authorities in Canada are engaged in a strategy of seduction of First Nations
that could be used to divide the Canadian society. They play on the proximity between
Chinese immigrants and First Nations, which both assert they are victims of discrimina-
tions in Canada.
This can be done in subtle ways, as with the Musqueam, an Aboriginal population
in the Vancouver area. Some of them have Chinese ancestry because, from the early 20th
century to the 1970s, Chinese migrants from Guangdong lived and worked on farms on
the reserve and had children with Musqueam women. Two documentaries – Peeking into the
Pink Houses at Musqueam: A Migration Story (a short movie by Sarah Ling, 2015) and All Our
Father’s Relations (a feature film by Alejandro Yoshizawa, 2016) – tell the story of one of
these mixed families, the Grants, brothers and sisters who shared a Chinese father and a
Musqueam mother.
The synopsis of the second film announced to the viewers that, “as far back as the 19th
century, relations between Chinese and First Nations in Canada were often respectful and
mutually beneficial; both peoples supported one another in the face of marginalization
and racism.”239 This bilingual production, in English and Chinese, recorded the family when
they travelled to China in 2013 and first visited the village in the Guangdong province that
239. All our Father’s Relations, “Film Synopsis” (http://allourfathersrelations.com/synopsis).
584
their father had left almost a century before. The trip was financed by the Chinese consulate
in Vancouver, which also provided translators for two days. In February 2015, Consul General
Liu Fei also “presented a cheque to Howard Grant [one of the Musqueam brothers of Chinese
origin] in support of the Musqueam-Chinese history project at the UBC Longhouse.”240
The consul general Liu Fei “presenting a check” to Howard Grant in February 2015.241
Larry Grant, one of the sons, explained that “the family was considered Chinese (liv-
ing) abroad” by the consulate.242 The movie also received a CA$20,000 (€13,000) grant
from the province of British Columbia through the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of
BC.243 At the ceremony where the grant was announced, Consul General Liu Fei declared
that “this event formally recognizes the Chinese migrants’ relations with the First Nations
people, who buried some of the Chinese on their own land and set up families with the
Chinese who faced hard labor and lack of rights in this land.”244
On the left, the consul general Liu Fei with the Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and members of the Grant family,
during the projection of the movie All Our Father’s Relations at the Musqueam Community Center, in Vancouver, on March
14, 2017.245 On the right, a delegation of 44 Chinese students of the joined MBA program between the University of British
Columbia and Jiao-tong University in Shanghai visited the Musqueam reserve near Vancouver, in 2019.246
240. Pacific Canada Heritage Centre – Museum of Migration, “CG Liu Fei of YVR Chinese Consulate presents
cheque to Howard Grant in support of Musqueam-Chinese history project” (24 Feb. 2015), https://archive.vn/y9afz.
241. Ibid.
242. Florence Hwang, “Film Explores Historical Relations Between Musqueam First Nation and Chinese,” The
Source (24 Jan. – 7 Feb. 2017).
243. “New Film to Tell Shared History of B.C. First Nations and Chinese Canadians,” KelownaNow (12 Aug. 2015).
244. Hatty Liu, “Chinese-1st Nations History Explored,” China Daily USA (20 Aug. 2015).
245. PRC Consulate General in Vancouver, “Consul General LIU Fei Attends Screening of ‘All Our Fathers’s
Relations,’” (17 Mar. 2017), https://archive.vn/iikNK.
246. Ibid.
The history of the Grant family is endearing, and there is no doubting the sincerity of
anyone, including at the Chinese consulate. But this example pertains to a larger strategy of
seducing First Nations. The Musqueam case is specific because some are consid-
ered “almost Chinese.” In August 2016, the consul general organized a meeting between
Musqueam individuals and Sino-Canadian entrepreneurs.247 In 2019, the joint international
MBA program of the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Jiao-tong University, in
Shanghai, sent some Chinese students spend two weeks in Vancouver. In fact, since 2019,
an “introduction to the heritage of the Musqueam autochthone nation” was added to their
curriculum, during which Larry Grand tells them his personal history.248
The consulate has not forgotten the other commu-
nities. In December 2015, the consul general Liu Fei
met Grand Chief Edward John249 of the Tl’azt’en
Nation. He is one of Canada’s main autochthonous
political leaders and married to a former Musqueam
chief. The Secwepemc are also wooed, especially Mike
Archie, the former Secwepemc chief in Canim Lake
(BC). In late January 2019, he was invited to China by
the CPAFFC (Chinese People’s Association for
Friendship with Foreign Countries), first to Hefei, to danse at “The Belt and Road World
Dance Conference,” and then to Beijing. The objective was to show a particular proximity
between Canadian First Nations and China, as made evident by the media coverage of Mike
Archie’s trip, which stated that “we established a friendship with Chinese people from
China who participated in mining gold panning and building railways more than
160 years ago” (which implied that they were both exploited by English Canadians), and
that “the visit showed how the BRI brings together world cultures,” with many pictures to
support that idea.250
The Canadian sanctions against the PRC adopted in March 2021, in response to
serious and systematic human rights abuses in Xinjiang, provided Beijing with an
opportunity to capitalize on the parallelism between the Chinese and First Nations.
247. PRC Consulate general in Vancouver, “Consul General LIU Fei Met with Musqueam Indian Band and Local
Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurs” (8 Aug.2016), https://archive.vn/dweCg).
248. “IMBA students From China Visit Musqueam Traditional Territory to Explore Vancouver’s Indigenous
Roots,” University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business (16 May 2019).
249. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “Consul General LIU Fei Met with Friends
from BC First Nations (from Chinese consulate General in Vancouver)” (16 Dec. 2015), https://archive.vn/6bP4j.
250. “促进中加两国人文交流，加拿大原住民酋长访华收获颇丰” (“To Promote Humanist Exchanges
Between China and Canada, Canadian Autochthonous Chiefs Have Led a Fructuous Visit to China”), 中华新闻社
(China News) (1 Feb. 2019), https://archive.vn/JKCPu.
586
In a long list of crimes committed by the very people who are giving lessons today (in
this case European, British and Canadian people, who announced sanctions in a coordi-
nated fashion on March 22, 2021), the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs recalled that, in the 1870s, the Canadian government had implemented a policy of
“assimilation of indigenous people” and of “cultural genocide.”251 This way of turning
the accusation around, a Tu quoque (you too) fallacy, is not new: a month earlier, on
Twitter, she already stated that the allegations of genocide in Xinjiang were a lie, but that
“genocide did take place in Canada.”
Moreover, since one of the human rights abuses Beijing is accused of in Xinjiang is
the forced sterilization of Uyghur women, the adoption by the Canadian Parliament
of a motion condemning the PRC on February 22 also sparked controversy in Canada.
Indigenous advocacy groups accused the federal government of having imple-
mented similar measures against them in the past. Of course, these groups did not
need Beijing to draw the parallel and express public outrage, but one can assume that their
mobilization was seen at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa not only as an opportunity to fan
the flames of this anger, but also as another reason to maintain close relations with
indigenous communities.
X. The Canadian case illustrates the russification of Chinese
influence operations
The preceding pages show that, as Charles Burton said, “there are strong circumstan-
tial indications that Chinese influence operations have been notably successful in
Canada,”252 but also that, not unlike what happened in Sweden, we can see the early
stages of a Russification of these influence operations. Indeed, in Canada, Beijing
251. “Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s remarks on Xinjiang-related issues,” ambassade de
la RPC au Canada, 24 mars 2021 (https://archive.vn/wIqQW).
252. Burton, “Recent PRC Influence Operations,” 10.
587
does not stop at modeling the national debate on China, censoring the “five poison”
through pressure on media, and interfering with schools and universities for instance.
It also targets the Canadian society and its government in an attempt to divide the pop-
ulation. For now, like in Sweden, it remains at an intermediate stage where the
negative discourse is still linked to China (i.e. it mirrors a positive narrative that
is about China).
Some attacks are anecdotic. For example, they have instrumentalized the legalization
of marijuana: Chinese media alerted Chinese Canadians to the dangers of marijuana-filled
candies on their children.253 There are several possible explanations: to try to draw Chinese
communities in Canada away from Ottawa (by creating mistrust) and closer to Beijing (by
playing the values card); to show that Beijing cares about the well-being of its “flock” all
around the world, regardless of citizenship, and that there is therefore a form of ethnic sol-
idarity; but also, according to some, because Beijing does not rule out developing a cannabis
industry one day: it is therefore in its interest to limit the success of Canadian cannabis in
order to export some.
Cannabis is one of the potentially divisive issues that may put the Chinese com-
munity at odds with its host country Canada. But there are additional buttons in
Beijing’s arsenal, including same-sex marriage, real estate investments, shark fins (a picture
of Vancouver’s Richmond MP Alice Wong eating a shark fin soup caused a controversy in
2012) and, obviously, the purported Sinophobia of Canadians and their government.
Rightly or wrongly, many Chinese Canadians (like their Australian counterparts)
feel discriminated. Then, Chinese authorities and their proxies (associations, entrepre-
neurs, and students) have an easy time coming to their rescue with a twofold message. First,
racial unity. The language used in the June 2019 statement about Hong Kong, which was
signed by more than 200 pro-Beijing associations (→ p. 577) wasn’t anodyne: it explicitly
called for racial unity, invoking the Chinese “blood” tying foreigners of Chinese
descent, including Canadians, to the population of mainland China. Bill Chu, of
the Canadians for Reconciliation Society, was right to point out that “it’s divisive to say the
least. It’s trying to shift our allegiance from one country [Canada] to another [China].”254
This is precisely their objective: to convince Chinese Canadians that they are closer to
Beijing than to Ottawa. The same logic was rolled out for First Nations which share, if
not the same blood (as is the case of some Musqueam people), at least the same position
as victims.
Second, this narrative highlights the CCP’s importance: “you are being discriminated and
the solution to that is to have a powerful motherland – China. But without the CCP, your
motherland will be weak. In other words, your ability to stand tall as a Canadian depends
on the CCP, not your own ability or the values of Canadian society.”255 Sometimes, the
message is subtle, internalizing the liberal thought: “you do not need to be with us, and we
can keep our political, ideological, cultural differences. You do not need to embrace the
CCP but, as we share the same blood, belong to the same group, we will help you.” This
powerful message can bear fruits. Hence, Sinophobia is dangerous as it provides China
with opportunities for influence operations.
253. Interview between one of the authors and a Canadian journalist of Chinese descent, in Vancouver (Apr. 2019).
254. Young, “Canadian Ads Blasted Hong Kong ‘Radicals.’”
255. “Infiltration,” Ask Politicians about CCP (Canadian Friends of Hong Kong), https://www.askpoliticiansccp.
org/infiltration.
588
Other attacks occurred during the Huawei affair, for instance to turn the stigma
around: has Canada really respected the rule of law that it claims to champion when it
arrested Meng? Was this arrest really compatible with the democratic and liberal values that
Ottawa is supposed to uphold?
As with Russian operations,256 divisions are envisioned as both internal (here, divid-
ing the Canadian society, particularly the Chinese community from the rest) and external
(amplifying potential tensions between a country and its neighbors). The Huawei case
certainly allowed Beijing to maintain and deepen existing tensions between Canada
and the United States by spreading the narrative that, contrary to appearances, this was
not a problem between Canada and China but between Canada and the United States,
with Ottawa unwillingly finding itself in the crossfire of a Chinese-American cold war
after it bowed to pressure from Washington to stop Meng. Beijing exploited the growing
anti-American sentiment in Canada by circulating the idea that Washington “threw Canada
under the bus.” Furthermore, it played on moral equivalences: China is tough, but so is
the United States, and Canada is the victim. This strategy began at the start of the scandal,
and received somewhat encouraging news in late October 2020 when the Supreme Court
of British Columbia authorized Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers to plead that Canada had been
dupped by the United States in obtaining her arrest.257
For now, Chinese operations in Canada remain tied to the Chinese community.
But their progressive Russification implies their future “desinization” – the oper-
ations will probably grow beyond issues of interest to the community to target societal
issues that concern all Canadians. This is already apparent in the use of English-language
media to try to reach, on the one hand, Chinese Canadians who do not speak Chinese,
such as second or third generation immigrants and, on the other hand, all Canadians. It is
then important to underline, as Jonathan Manthorpe did, that Chinese Canadians are not
the only ones targeted: “Non-Chinese Canadians are just as likely to be recruited as
agents of influence by the United Front and Beijing’s other intelligence services.
Indeed, because of naïveté, ignorance, or sheer venality, non-Chinese Canadians are often
easy recruits for Beijing. Chinese immigrants are more experienced with the regime most
of them have come to Canada to escape.”258
256. Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, Alexandre Escorcia, Marine Guillaume, and Janaina Herrera, Information
Manipulation: A Challenge for Our Democracies, report from the Center for analysis, prevision and strategy (CAPS) of the
Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Institute for Strategic Research of the Ministry for the Armed Forces
(IRSEM), Paris (Aug. 2018), 69-70.
257. Timothé Matte-Bergeron, “La Cour permet à Meng Wanzhou de presenter une autre defense” (“The Court
Allowed Meng Wanzhou to Submit another Defense”), Radio Canada (29 Oct. 2020).
258. Manthorpe, Claws of the Panda, 166.
589
Chapter 6
THE INFEKTION 2.0 OPERATION
DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC (2020)
The exact origin of the pandemic remains unknown at the time of writing, and for good
reason, as Beijing still refuses an independent investigation.1 But it appears that the SARS-
CoV-2 virus was found in the Hubei province (central China) as early as October 2019.2 The
magnitude and prevalence of the contaminations rapidly unsettled healthcare systems and
the societies hit by the virus. And, in the political sphere, the pandemic has already taught us
a lot. For observers of China, it revealed obvious elements that had long been forgotten and
it undermined the prevalent common sense. For instance, the weight of local institutions in
the Chinese political model, a legacy of a singular state trajectory, came to the fore; the local
state appeared for what it has always been: a political level resistant to the ambitions of the
center, quick to scupper the policies decided by the Party.3 This could be seen in the clashes
between the Hubei and Jiangxi police forces after the lockdown was lifted for the inhabitants
of Wuhan.4 The crisis provoked by the virus has also prompted us to qualify the analyses of
those presenting Xi Jinping as a new hegemonic Mao, perhaps forgetting too hastily that Xi’s
accumulation of power has not entirely eliminated the internal rivalries, the deleterious effect
of the suspension of the rules of devolution of power and the gradual induration of a state
apparatus distraught by the campaign against corruption.5
As it was probed by its population and the international community, the CCP quickly
reacted by conducting several informational operations simultaneously, some carry-
ing a positive message (championing its management of the crisis and, as such, its polit-
ical model) and others with a negative narrative (attacks against other states, especially
Western states, for their inability to manage the virus, or even for an alleged responsibility in
its apparition). On this latter point, Beijing circulated a rumor stating that the virus had
originated in the United States, and not in China. The present case study investigates
this singular operation. Without any hint to its “true” code name, if one was ever assigned,
and because it appears as a sort of replica of the KGB-led Infektion Operation in the
1980s with which the Soviets tried to make people believe that AIDS was US-made, we
named this operation “Infektion 2.0.”6 The present study focuses on the first phase of the
1. “‘Nous souhaitons une enquête sur les origines de la pandémie de Covid-19 approfondie et crédible’” (“We Want
an In-Depth and Credible Investigation into the Origins of the Covid-19 Pandemic”), Le Monde (4 Mar. 2021).
2. Jonathan Pekar et al., “Timing the SARS-CoV-2 Index Case in Hubei province,” Science (18 Mar. 2021).
3. Yves Chevrier discusses “the weakness of strong state” instead of “the crisis of a weak state.” See: Yves Chevrier,
L’Empire terrestre [The Land Empire], (TBP).
4. Lea Li, “Police, Public Clash Over Border Reopening in China,” Inkstone (30 Mar. 2020).
5. On that note, the decision by the very official Qiushi (Seeking Truth) journal to publish a speech delivered by Xi
Jinping on January 7 was puzzling, as it implicitly highlighted the absence of measures taken by the Party’s Secretary
General between January 7 and January 20, even though he was then in charge of the coronavirus (https://archive.
vn/afirR).
6. This chapter was adapted from Paul Charon, L’opération “Covid-19”: un approfondissement de la russianisation des
campagnes de désinformation chinoises, IRSEM research paper, April 7, 2020, not published. This paper was diffused
590
operation, which occurred over a month, between February 22 and March 23, 2020. The
CCP-led disinformation went on afterward, but this first sequence adequately illustrates the
similarities between the KGB-led Infektion Operation in 1983 and Infektion 2.0.
I. The Chinese informational war on the coronavirus
We delineated three components in the CCP’s informational war on the coronavi-
rus, which were deployed simultaneously and are identified here without hierarchy between
them.
A. Controlling the hemorrhage
The Party’s first informational objective was to control narratives internally. At the
very start of the crisis, local and, later, central authorities tried to silence the pandemic by
jailing whistleblowers like doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮),7 and by imposing a tight control
over traditional media outlets and social networks.8 Faced with the evident failure of this
strategy, which probably turned the epidemic into a pandemic, and with the growing dis-
belief of the population – Chinese citizens compared the coronavirus to Chernobyl9 – the
Party focused on highlighting its efficiency in managing the crisis, thus building a
more positive narrative on what was happening. Hence, sustaining the regime was the pri-
ority: the CCP-led operation opted to flood Chinese citizens with multiple (and some-
times contradictory) counter-narratives in order to make them doubt its responsibility:
the Party was presented as a simple victim.
B. “Turning the stigma over”
The second act in this informational strategy relied on the tools of the Chinese public
diplomacy. They tried to demonetize critical voices in Western media that highlighted
the Chinese government’s incompetence during the first weeks of the pandemic. At that
point, the narrative endorsed by Beijing stressed that, through the adoption of radical mea-
sures, China had given time for the rest of the world to get ready for the crisis. China also
branded itself as a global savior that provided many countries with medical equipment. The
use of icons was fundamental to accompany the construction of a narrative presenting
China at the bedside of the world, as illustrated by the Italian examples below. Hence, the
Chinese campaign was a solid case of “turning the stigma over,” an expression coined by
Erving Goffman,10 to construct the image of a benevolent China (ethos).
internally (to several ministries) but leaked (not by IRSEM) to Pierre Alonso, who reviewed it in “La Chine à l’école
russe de la désinformation” (“China at the Russian School of Disinformation”), Libération (9 Mar. 2021).
7. Alice Su, “A doctor Was Arrested for Warning China About the Coronavirus. Then he Died of It,” Los Angeles
Times (6 Feb. 2020).
8. Sarah Cook, “ANALYSIS: In a Public Health Crisis, Beijing Sees a Political Threat,” China Media Bulletin, 142
(Mar. 2020).
9. Jane Li, “Chinese People are Using ‘Chernobyl’ to Channel Their Anger About the Coronavirus Outbreak,”
Quartz (27 Jan. 2020).
10. Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity) (Paris: Minuit, 1975).
591
A similar campaign was observed in several European countries such as Spain11 or Serbia
(→ p. 383).12 In France, the Chinese embassy circulated the same message of solidar-
ity: China helps European countries. The embassy and the Chinese government commu-
nicated intensively on the masks provided by China to France. And the Twitter accounts
of the embassy and consulates relayed ceaselessly the messages of the Party.13 This PR
campaign targeted the entire French population but the Chinese diaspora more specifically,
as shown by the articles that circulated on WeChat.14
11. Pablo M. Diez, “China Lanza la ‘Diplomacia de Las Mascarillas’ Para Mejorar su Imagen” (“China Launches
the ‘Face Mask Diplomacy’ to Improve its Image”), ABC (1 Apr. 2020).
12. “Serbia Sets the Stage for Beijing’s Mask Diplomacy,” AFP (2 Apr. 2020).
13. François Bougon and Mathieu Suc, “En pleine pandémie, une ambiance de guerre froide” (“A Cold War
Atmosphere Amidst the Pandemic”), Mediapart (30 Mar. 2020).
14. “血库告急! 为救重症患者，法国连军机也用上了! 外长: 中国百万口罩援助来了” (“Blood Banks in
despair! To Save the Sickest Patients, Military Planes are Mobilized in France! The Minister of Foreign Affairs: China
is Sending Millions of Masks to Help You”), 欧洲时报 (News from Europe) (19 Mar. 2020), https://archive.vn/58Ukn.
592
Yet, the Chinese government did not stop at this “mask diplomacy” nourished with a
particular iconography and repeated propaganda messages. On March 15, a spokesperson
for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video on Twitter showing Romans
thanking China for its help and playing the Chinese national anthem (see images
below). But an Italian factchecking website showed that it was a montage.15 The Romans
seen on the video had come together to thank healthcare workers, not China. In fact, the
video circulated by the Chinese government was a fake made from two videos posted by
the Corriere della Sera the previous day, and none of them advertised the Chinese anthem or
any “thank you” to China. The sound was actually added on the original videos.16 With that,
the Chinese authorities tried to manipulate European public opinions.
C. Discrediting adversaries
This aspect of the informational strategy consisted in accusing other countries,
beginning with the United States, of being responsible for the sanitary crisis linked
to the coronavirus.17 China took advantage of an ideal timing: as the first country hit by
the virus, it was logically the first country to (presumably) control it. Then, it used a flurry
of tools to propagate a narrative meant to weaken its adversaries. At that point, Europe
and North America were busy managing the urgency of the sanitary crisis and could not
dedicate resources to counter this narrative with the strength it would have required.
15. David Puente, “Coronavirus. La Propaganda Cinese e il Montaggio Fake Del Video ‘Grazie Cina’” (“
Coronavirus. Chinese Propaganda and Fake Editing of the ‘Thank You China’ video”), Open, (20 Mar. 2020).
16. “Il Video che Mostra la Propaganda Cinese Sull’italia e il Covid-19” (“Video Showing Chinese Propaganda
About Italy and Covid-19”), Pagella Politica (20 Mar. 2020).
17. David Gilbert, “Beijing is Pushing a Conspiracy Theory That the US Army Brought the Coronavirus to China,”
Vice (13 Mar. 2020).
593
The CCP did not limit itself to vague insinuations. It put together a robust disinfor-
mation campaign that could resist initial fact-checking, to make people believe in an
American origin to the coronavirus. This Chinese operation reminded us of the Infektion
Operation set up by Service A of the KGB18 during the 1980s to propagate the idea that
the HIV virus had been conceived by the U.S. government to target African Americans
and homosexuals.
II. The Soviet “Infektion” Operation: a Model for China?
Cold War specialists often point to a major difference between Western and Eastern
intelligence services: while the former were primarily tasked with collecting intelligence,
the latter dedicated a colossal part of their resources to disinformation, what the Soviets
called dezinformatsiya, an element of the larger “active measures” (aktivnyye meropriata).19 Each
KGB “residency” abroad had officers tasked with those missions. In fact, their internal
notation was almost exclusively based on their ability to suggest disinformation operations
taking advantage of the fault lines in their assigned countries. Moreover, unlike the U.S. sys-
tem, and more broadly Western countries, where “covert actions” were designed as excep-
tional, Soviet “active measures” were largely integrated into the foreign policy of the
USSR.20 All Party organs had to ensure that the operations were successful.
The “Infektion” Operation (which was apparently named “Denver” by East Germany’s
intelligence)21 was likely motivated by degrading East-West relations in the late 1970s and
early 1980s.22 Faced with Reagan’s efforts to exhaust the Soviet regime, Andropov, the
former head of the KGB, responded with swollen aggressivity and more “active measures”
operations.
Beginning in the 1950s, the Soviets launched large-scale disinformation operations that
exploited the fear of chemical and bacteriological weapons that had taken hold of Western
public opinions.23 During the 1970s, the field was even more favorable in the United States,
where the media had revealed biological warfare programs of the U.S. army, including at
Fort Detrick, in Maryland. When the HIV virus emerged, in the early 1980s, the Soviets
immediately took the opportunity to launch a disinformation operation to make peo-
ple believe that the U.S. Army was responsible for AIDS, presented as a biological weapon
conceived to target African Americans and homosexuals.
The actual operation began on July 17, 1983, with a letter published in the Indian
newspaper The Patriot, created in 1962 by the KGB to propagate fake information use-
ful to the USSR’s interests.24 The document was signed by an anonymous U.S. scientist but
18. Service A was tasked with disinformation and subversion operations.
19. Richard H. Shultz, Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia, The Strategy of Soviet Disinformation (New York: Berkley Books,
1986); Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (New York: Farrar,
Straus et Giroux, 2020).
20. Thomas Boghardt, “Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign,” Studies in Intelligence, 53:4
(Dec. 2009).
21. Douglas Selvage, “Operation ‘Denver:’ The East German Ministry of State Security and the KGB’s AIDS
Disinformation Campaign, 1985–1986 (Part 1),” Journal of Cold War Studies, 21:4 (2019), 71-123.
22. Boghardt, “Soviet Bloc Intelligence.”
23. Ibid.
24. “Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986 – 87,” United States Department
of State (Aug. 1987).
594
actually manufactured by the KGB, and it affirmed that AIDS resulted from experimenta-
tions in biological warfare conducted by the U.S. Army.
For two years, there was no particular development in this operation, until September
1985 when the KGB instructed Eastern European services to propagate the fake
information published in The Patriot.25 In October 1985, the KGB organized the reproduc-
tion of the article from The Patriot in a Moscow newspaper it controlled, the Literaturnaya
Gazeta.
In August 1986, the operation took another turn with the Stasi’s involvement, including
its Division X, in charge of disinformation. During the Summit of Non-Aligned Countries,
German intelligence services circulated an article written by two biologists, Jakob and Lili
Segal, untitled “AIDS: Its Nature and Origin.” This article offered a scientific basis to
allegations initially published in The Patriot. For months, these arguments were relayed
ceaselessly by Soviet and foreign media (newspapers, magazines, radios, TV channels) and
the couple of biologists was introduced as French scientists. This was how the operation
got traction: hundreds of newspapers, many of them without any tie to the Soviet
Union, covered the narrative fabricated by the KGB, sometimes including information
that was not in the original document. For instance, several articles insisted that AIDS was
the result of a plot whereas others described it as an accident in U.S. research on biological
weapons. The “theory” continued to spread and found additional relays in the U.S.
radical Left. The Covert Action Information Bulletin, which investigated U.S. covert operations,
covered the Soviet story and contributed to its prevalence among the U.S. Left.26 On March
30, 1987, the narrative fabricated by the KGB reached the primetime show hosted
by Dan Rather on CBS News, which gave another considerable breath of fresh air to the
operation.
The Soviet campaign had an immense impact, especially in Africa and in certain
segments of the U.S. population where the theory continues to circulate today. In
2005, for instance, the rapper Kanye West mentionned it in his song “Heard ‘EM Say.”
Nowadays, this is a textbook case which probably inspired the Russians in their dis-
information campaign targeting vaccines and which now seems to feed the Chinese
approach on disinformation.
In a series of investigative reports published in The New York Times in 2018, Adam B.
Ellick, Adam Westbrook and Jonah M. Kessel tried to reconstruct the Soviet methodol-
ogy of disinformation.27 They identified a seven-step process:
• Primo, identify weaknesses in the target country, dissents or fault lines that could be
accentuated and exploited by the Soviet Union.
• Secundo, create a lie so big that no one could figure out that it was fabricated.
• Tertio, add a portion of truth to the lie to make the entire message more believable.
Ladislav Bittman, deputy-head of the Disinformation Department in the Czechoslovakian
25. “KGB, Information Nr. 2955 (to Bulgarian State Security)” (7 Sep. 1985), History and Public Policy Program Digital
Archive, Committee for Disclosing the Documents and Announcing the Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens to the State
Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army (CDDAABCSSISBNA-R), f. 9, op. 4, a.e. 663,
pp. 208-9. Obtained by Christopher Nehring and translated by Douglas Selvage (http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.
org/document/208946).
26. It was founded in 1978 by Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who turned into an indefatigable critic of the
intelligence service.
27. The tryptic “Meet the KGB Spies Who Invented Fake News,” “The Seven Commandments of Fake News,”
“The Worldwide War on Truth,” was published in The New York Times (12 Nov. 2018).
595
intelligence services between 1964 and 1966 stressed that, to succeed, “every disinforma-
tion message must at least partially correspond to reality or generally accepted views.”28
• Quarto, conceal the origin of the fabrication. The information needed to appear as
coming from somewhere not tied to the Soviet Union.
• Quinto, identify “useful idiots” capable of relaying the message coined by Moscow.
• Sexto, make sure the USSR was never mentionned. There was only one rule to avoid
that: always deny any involvement.
• Septimo, bet on the long run. All operations were not meant to bear immediate results,
and it could seemingly require years before the effects were known.
Arguably, this model now needs to be adapted to account for the changes that followed
the introduction of the Internet, which the authors described as “anonymity, ubiquity,
immediacy.” And yet, it is a particularly efficient blueprint for a nation in search of
informational power.29
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