Introduction
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, we have observed a flurry of pro-Russia disinformation presented in Chinese language circulating among the online communities of Chinese-speaking Malaysians. This disinformation aims to shape the audience’s views towards the war and its various stakeholders.
Most of this disinformation was carefully crafted to fit the established cognitive frameworks of “US vs. China” prevalent among Chinese-speaking Malaysians. It often tapped into the popular pro-Beijing sentiment among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Consequently, the messages and narratives were unique and different from the pro-Russia disinformation spreading in Europe and other languages. This phenomenon warrants a more detailed and systematic investigation to better understand the nature and structure of such influence operations.
To investigate this influence operation, we went beyond disinformation. In our dataset, we included propaganda that might be factual but was presented in a biased and misleading way to promote a particular point of view. We are aware that pro-Ukraine/US/West narratives in the Chinese language were also promoted and spread simultaneously, but it was less pervasive compared to the opposite, hence we did not include them in this investigation.
This investigation aims to identify:
- The main narratives of pro-Russia propaganda in the Chinese language that were distributed on major social media platforms targeting Chinese-speaking audiences in Malaysia during the Russia-Ukraine war; and
- The networks that promoted and disseminated such propaganda, and their actors and distribution patterns.
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