China Power | Society | East Asia

Beijing’s Foreign Influence Tactics, Hidden in Plain Sight 

New reports document the scope and sophistication of the CCP’s influence operations.

Over the past month, several reports offered new details on the scale and tactics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s foreign influence operations. In late February, OpenAI published findings on how ChatGPT was being misused, including by an account linked to Chinese law enforcement, to plan and document what that user termed “cyber special operations.” Meta’s first report of 2026 on adversarial threats detailed the takedown of a China-linked network targeting Taiwan. The European Council on Foreign Relations published an analysis of China’s influence playbook in Europe, drawing on a decade of documented activity in Poland and the Czech Republic. And the International Campaign for Tibet exposed a Chinese state-backed AI model designed to shape how Tibetan speakers view the region.

The OpenAI report, in particular, offers a rare window into the internal workings of what it termed a “well-resourced, meticulously-orchestrated strategy for covert influence operations against domestic and foreign adversaries.” The resource-intensive effort involves at least hundreds of staff and thousands of fake accounts operating across dozens of platforms worldwide. One status report that the user, who appeared to be linked to Chinese law enforcement, tried to draft with ChatGPT’s help referenced 300 operators in a single Chinese province, with equivalent teams described in other provinces. The operations also used locally-deployed AI tools, including Chinese models like DeepSeek and Qwen, for tasks ranging from content generation to monitoring and profiling targets. 

According to the OpenAI report, the PRC user referenced “over 100 tactics” that had been developed to manipulate narratives and to silence, discredit, or intimidate CCP critics. Across these reports, six tactics in particular illustrate how CCP foreign influence operations are evolving.

Customized AI Model for Narrative Control

In March 2026, Chinese state media announced the launch of DeepZang, billed as “the world’s first Tibetan large language model,” ostensibly designed for “global users seeking to learn about Tibetan culture, history, and politics.” In practice, the app delivers CCP talking points: it tells users Tibet has always been part of China, describes the Dalai Lama in line with official party positions, and when users ask about Tibetan independence, self-immolation protests inside Tibet, or the Tibetan national anthem, it instructs them to ask only “legally compliant” queries. 

The name of the app itself serves the regime’s Sinicization campaign by incorporating a reference to the Chinese name for the region: Xizang. Within China, the government has simultaneously banned access to Monlam.ai, a Tibetan-language AI tool built by exile communities in India, which is in fact the world’s first Tibetan LLM. 

Fabricating Evidence to Silence Dissidents

The OpenAI report documents several tactics used to target specific individuals. In one case, operators created a fake obituary — including AI-generated photos of a gravestone — for a living dissident and mass-posted them online. When seeking to get dissident accounts removed from social media platforms, operators filed abusive reports accompanied by AI-generated fake screenshots as fabricated “evidence” of policy violations, intended to trigger automated enforcement systems. In separate incidents, operators also forged documents purporting to be from a U.S. county court and submitted them to a social media platform in an attempt to force a takedown; an effort that reportedly failed but was deemed to show potential. In another example, Chinese agents reportedly disguised themselves as U.S. immigration officials and tried to intimidate a U.S.-based dissident by warning that their public statements had broken the law. 

Fake Business Targeting Western Officials

Accounts likely linked to China also reportedly used ChatGPT to draft English-language emails presenting a fictitious consulting firm called “Nimbus Hub” as a legitimate geopolitical advisory company — complete with a professional website and fake LinkedIn profiles for supposed team members. The emails targeted U.S. state-level officials and policy analysts working in business and finance, inviting them to paid consultations to “interpret policy and provide strategic advice,” while requesting information about American citizens and federal buildings. According to OpenAI, the messages were crafted with “subtle psychological cues” and designed to move recipients off-platform quickly. 

Screenshot of a fake LinkedIn profile affiliated with the fictitious company Nimbus Hub Consulting. Credit: OpenAI

Coordinated Fake Personas and Platform Manipulation

Meta’s first quarter 2026 threat report documented the takedown of a China-linked network of 154 Facebook accounts, 23 Pages, and 1 Instagram account that had accumulated around 93,000 followers targeting audiences in Taiwan. Pages with names like “Taiwan Gossip Net” and “New Generation Rebellion” claimed to be run by Taiwanese volunteers, used Taiwan-based proxy IPs, and wrote in traditional Chinese script to make the operation appear........

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