China Power | Security
Generative AI is dismantling the language barriers that once kept smaller democracies safe.
China’s influence operations are expanding across the Indo-Pacific. In Japan, disinformation circulated on social media during the House of Representatives election in February 2026 in what appeared to be a coordinated Chinese influence operation. Posts on X systematically spread memes promoting narratives such as “Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae is a militarist” and “Japan cannot win in a Taiwan contingency.” The Japanese text bore traces of simplified Chinese, some meme images resembled those used in Chinese government affiliated media, and the narratives aligned with Chinese government talking points — all pointing to a coordinated Chinese operation.
Russian influence operations targeting elections have been documented in Western countries since around 2015; in the Indo-Pacific region, Chinese operations targeting elections have also been observed since the 2020s.
Chinese influence operations in the Indo-Pacific have long attracted attention in Taiwan and in English-speaking countries including the United States and Australia. In Taiwan, disinformation attributed to China was disseminated during the 2018 and 2022 local elections, and in the 2024 presidential election, disinformation targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members who were distancing themselves from China. In the United States, President Donald Trump cited Chinese influence operations targeting the 2020 presidential election at a press conference on July 16, 2026; U.S. intelligence documents released the same day concluded that China had conducted influence operations ahead of the 2020 election to damage public opinion of the Trump administration and undermine Washington’s international reputation. In Australia, China has been conducting influence operations on politics since the mid-2010s, and in the 2025 general election these extended into disinformation in digital spaces.
More recently, Chinese influence operations have spread to new targets. In the Philippines, which is at odds with China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, security authorities reported that China-supported groups conducted influence operations during the 2025 midterm and local elections, prompting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to order a detailed investigation. There is growing concern that China may intensify these efforts ahead of the 2028 presidential election to secure a victory for a pro-China candidate. Chinese influence operations have also become increasingly prominent across South Pacific island countries. During the Solomon Islands’ 2024 general election, disinformation circulated claiming the United States was interfering in the vote; since around 2023, allegations that Washington wants to assassinate the pro-China prime minister have been spread repeatedly, suggesting a sustained campaign to foment anti-American sentiment.
Until recently, the digital spaces of smaller languages were protected by language barriers that made it difficult for non-native speakers to post convincingly on social media. Recent advances in generative AI have dismantled that protection, enabling natural-sounding manipulation without proficiency in the local language. Social media posting and sharing, which previously required manual effort, can now be conducted at scale using AI-driven bot accounts. As a result, the threat of foreign influence operations is rising not only in the Indo-Pacific but across all digital spaces that operate in languages beyond the major ones like English and French.
Countering foreign influence operations in digital spaces has become a critical task for any government seeking to protect its democracy. Basic measures — monitoring the state of one’s own digital linguistic environment, building fact-checking systems, and improving media literacy — are necessary but not sufficient. Freezing accounts used by attackers generally requires cooperation from American social media platforms, but American Big Tech, whose revenues can exceed the GDP of smaller countries, tends to ignore requests from those countries. Governments targeted by influence operations must therefore coordinate, amplify one another’s voices, and build the international public opinion needed to press Big Tech into action. In the age of generative AI, that cooperation is no longer optional.
