For China to realise its millennium goal, it needs to radiate its influence globally and simultaneously engage internally with the local population to ensure social stability. COVID-19 has disrupted China's dream of showcasing to the world a model state with Chinese characteristics. Influence operations thus form the basis of curating and presenting a credible image of the Communist Party of China (CPC) besides altering the behaviour of its adversaries. China has tried to firewall the western influence besides making inroads into other countries' economic, political, and societal institutions. At the time of the COVID-19 crisis, it is employing leverages to correct the narrative while gaining situational awareness through revamped structures and employment of technologies. It is thus imperative to appraise China's influence operations capabilities

Verma, Vivek

English

For China to realise its millennium goal, it needs to radiate its influence globally and simultaneously engage internally with the local population to ensure social stability. COVID-19 has disrupted China\u27s dream of showcasing to the world a model state with Chinese characteristics. Influence operations thus form the basis of curating and presenting a credible image of the Communist Party of China (CPC) besides altering the behaviour of its adversaries. China has tried to firewall the western influence besides making inroads into other countries\u27 economic, political, and societal institutions. At the time of the COVID-19 crisis, it is employing leverages to correct the narrative while gaining situational awareness through revamped structures and employment of technologies. It is thus imperative to appraise China\u27s influence operations capabilities

CLAWS Journal

Countering the Contagion Effect of COVID-19: An Appraisal of China\u27s Influence Operations

IndraStra Global: E-Journals

January 28, 2019Black Swans Haunt Eurasia’s Great Gameindrastra.com/2019/01/Black-Swans-Haunt-Eurasia-s-Great-Game-005-01-2019-0056.htmlBy Dr. James M. DorseyThe battle lines in the 21st century’s Great Game aimed at shaping the creation of a newEurasia-centred world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what formerPortuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent,” are all but cast incement.For now, the Great Game pits China together with Russia, Turkey, and Iran against the UnitedStates, India, Japan, and Australia. The two camps compete for influence, if not dominance, ina swath of land that stretches from the China Sea to the Atlantic coast of Europe.The flashpoints are multiple. They range from the China Sea to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria,Turkey, Iran, and Central European nations and, most recently, far beyond with Russia,China and Turkey supporting embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.1/4The rivalry resembles Risk, a popular game  of diplomacy, conflict, and conquest played on aboard depicting a political map of the earth, divided into forty-two territories, which aregrouped into six continents. Multiple players commanding armies that seek to captureterritories engage in a complex dance as they strive for advantage and seek to compensatefor weaknesses. Players form opportunistic alliances that could change at any moment.Potential black swans threaten to disrupt.The black swans in the Great Game are multiple and far more numerous than thosedeveloped in a just-published report by the Paris-based European Union Institute forSecurity Studies (EUISS). Nonetheless, the scenarios conceptualized in the report, "What If?Scanning the horizon: 12 scenarios for 2021," are grounded in recent trends and could proveto be game changers that radically rejigger the Great Game’s current line-up.The scenarios or grey swans in the report’s terminology, if they unfold in reality, suggest thatalliances in Eurasia are opportunistic and transactional and like with Risk can turn players ontheir erstwhile allies as interests diverge and re-converge. Analysis of five of the scenariossuggests that fragility is greatest in the efforts of China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran to rebalanceglobal power in their favor.They suggest that strains in the United States’ relations with Russia and Turkey are notimmutable. Similarly, Russia’s effort to lock in former Soviet republics with its EurasianEconomic Union (EEU) that groups Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Belarus, and Armeniacould prove to be on shaky ground. Russia’s alliance with Turkey and China as well as Iraneven if the report has not developed the latter possibility may be on thinner ice than meetsthe eye.The same can be said for grey swans in the United States’ ties to its long-standing allies as isplayed out in the report’s scenario for a withdrawal of US troops from Europe as a result ofPresident Donald J. Trump’s accentuation of diverging trans-Atlantic interests.With a multi-polar world the likely outcome of the battle for Eurasia, the scenarios suggestthat the perceived decline of the United States, despite Mr. Trump’s unilateralism, is notirreversible. Similarly, depending on how it plays its cards, Iran could emerge either as awinner or a loser.The four scenarios involve a renewed round of popular protest in the Arab world followingthe reversal of successful revolts in 2011 in Egypt, Libya and Yemen and the embrace ofbrutal repression; political violence in the Caucasus that pits Turkey against Russia and could2/4threaten key nodes along China’s Belt and Road; the dissolution of the Eurasian EconomicUnion in an approaching post-Vladimir Putin era; a rejiggering of the political map of south-eastern Europe and  a strengthening of European cohesion with the US troop withdrawaland resolution of tension between Serbia and Kosovo.The notion of renewed popular Arab protests, including resistance to the influence of militiasin Syria and Libya, that could rewrite the political map of the Middle East  is hardly far-fetched with mass anti-government demonstrations  in Sudan persisting for more than amonth; riots in Tunisia, the one relatively successful 2011 revolt; protests on the West Bankagainst a new social security law; and anti-government marches in Iraq.If anything, the revolts highlight the risks that all players in the Great Game run bysupporting autocratic regimes that have largely failed to sustainably deliver public goods andservices and/or offer good governance and cater to the social, economic and politicalaspirations of young populations.“Pressure for change across the Arab world is likely to continue to grow, keeping pace with thegrowth in populations, inequality, and social injustice,” concluded journalist Simon Tisdall onthe eighth anniversary of the uprising in Egypt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak butwas ultimately defeated by a military coup two years later.The European Union Institute’s report imagines a massive attack on the Baku Kars rail line, avital node in the Belt and Road’s linking of China to Europe that rekindles dormant localanimosities as well as competing for Russian and Turkish economic and geostrategicinterests, prompting both Moscow and Ankara to lobby Washington for US support.Similarly, a scenario envisaging Kazakhstan and Belarus withdrawing from the Eurasianunion because of its inability to live up to its ambition of furthering regional integrationsparks fears in Moscow that the demise of the regional consortium could spark the collapseof the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military alliance that groups the fiveEurasian union members as well as Tajikistan and hosts Afghanistan and Serbia asobservers. The dissolution of the two organizations would significantly undermine Russia’sregional standing.Likewise, a swap of land between Serbia and Kosovo that purifies two countries whose inter-communal relations have been poisoned by historic prejudices and recent wars opens aPandora’s Box across south-eastern Europe but eases their accession to the European Unionwhile a US troop withdrawal would force EU members to focus on collective security.3/4It would only take one of these scenarios to unfold and potentially spark a revisiting of thecurrent line-up in the Great Game. Anyone of the scenarios is a realistic possibility.Said European Union Institute deputy director Florence Gaub in her introduction to thereport: "Grey Swans share with Black Swans a high level of strategic impact, but there is moreevidence to support the idea that they are actually possible… The analogy with the 1985 film ‘Backto the Future’ is pure coincidence, of course – but just as in the film, we sometimes need to take atrip to the future to inform our decision-making today."A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, and .About the Author:Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of InternationalStudies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host ofthe New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The TurbulentWorld of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as ComparativePolitical Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politicsin the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East:Venturing into the Maelstrom.DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this insight piece are those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the official policy or position of the IndraStra Global. 4/4

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Countering the Contagion Effect of COVID-19: An Appraisal of China's Influence Operations

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