In 2023, Japan started releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (1).
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the discharge of the treated water would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment (2).
Despite this, China took issue with the wastewater release, resulting in sanctions against Japanese seafood (3) and, as this short report will show, a comprehensive influence operation trying to discredit Japan and spread fear.
This report was prepared to be presented in the first episode of the TVP World series The Anatomy of Disinformation, which can be seen here.
This case provides us with an insight into how the Chinese government can mobilise resources for an influence operation, giving us potential pointers to the tactics and techniques they can employ to target European interests.
Narrative
The influence operation reframed the treated nuclear wastewater as “contaminated”, claiming that it would reach the U.S. and Australia. It claimed that the wastewater would contaminate fish all around the Pacific, that Japan spent more on public relations around the wastewater treatment than the treatment itself, and discrediting the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Chinese system
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Central Propaganda Department and similar structures in the Chinese government have a strong control over the media apparatus of China, including the ability to give lines to take and stories to prioritise (4). This was very apparent in the wastewater campaign.
The operation had both overt and covert parts, engaging all aspects of the Chinese influence apparatus.
Overt operations
From July to September 2023, overt Chinese state-controlled media (e.g. 5, 6, 7, 8), journalists (e.g. 9, 10, 11, 12), and diplomats (e.g. 13, 14, 15, 16) published hundreds of posts mirroring some of the same narratives and using some of the same content to create fear around the wastewater release and to discredit Japan.
Posts showcasing the overt side of the influence operation. Left to right, top to bottom.
Image 1: X post by Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs account.
Image 2: X post by Chen Weihua, EU Bureau Chief/columnist for CCP-controlled China Daily (17).
Image 3: Article on state-controlled Guangming Daily (18)
These Chinese entities created articles (e.g. 19), social media posts (e.g. 20), cartoons (e.g. 21), infographics (e.g. 22), polls (e.g. 23), videos (e.g. 24) and a choreographed music video (25), trying to portray the treated wastewater release as a danger, using scientific-sounding terms and graphs to demonstrate this.
Image 4: Choreographed music video by state-controlled channel CGTN (26)
A common technique employed was the amplification of foreign critical voices towards the wastewater release, using them to give legitimacy to the Chinese narratives. This includes interviews with foreigners they labelled as experts (e.g. 27) and coverage of demonstrations against the treated wastewater release (e.g. 28).
Image5: TikTok post by state-controlled Asia Today (29) leveraging the authority of Japanese “expert” Hikaru Amano
Image 6: State-controlled media Frontline Focus (30) covering protests against the treated wastewater release in South Korea.
Other than these overt influence operations, China also mobilized some of their more covert assets.
Covert Operations
China mobilised three types of covert influence operation resources.
The first type was covert Chinese state-controlled media channels and programs that portray themselves as independent entities and that have their own social media presence.
The second type was covert Chinese state-controlled influencers who hid their connection to the Chinese state.
The third type was covert coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) networks.
Examples of the first type, covert channels and programs that were used in this campaign include:
- The Global Stringer’s Project, a covert China Global Television Network, CGTN, platform, that posted a bounty for content creators to submit critical statements towards the realse of the treated wastewater (31). Likely resulting in at least 4 videos in September (32, 33, 34, 35).
Image 7: The Global Stringer’s Project remunerated call for videos about “how Japan’s discharge of radioactive water makes a difference to your life”.
- The CGTN video series Facts Tell (36) is a social media entity that portrays itself as an independent journalism studio (37). They produced long and short-form video reports that engaged with the narratives previously mentioned and were published on Facts Tell’s channels, never revealing the content’s origin (38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50).
Image 8: CGTN (state-controlled media) video, part of the Facts Tell series.
Image 9: Facts Tell YouTube channel (not disclosing its affiliation to the Chinese state), posting the same video.
- The China Daily video series Media Unlocked, a series of social media channels that portrays themselves as investigative journalists, also produced a long-form report (51).
- The covert channels “Fact Check” and “Whistle”, which in reality are most likely state-controlled Nanfang Media Group (52)’s GD Today’s (53) “fact-checking” department, published a “Fact-check” tweet, video, and infographic (54, 55, 56), spreading disinformation about the wastewater release.
A few of these received additional resources or were re-created right before the launch of the Wastewater campaign.
Images 10 and 11: Whistle X account posting GD Today’s fact-checking department’s content about the wastewater.
The second type was covert Chinese state-controlled influencers who hid their connection to the Chinese state.
These actors commonly have their own video channels and produce either short or long-format content. Some of them produce political content while others usually focus on promoting China (soft power). Accounts that usually only promote Chinese culture, language, or tech also started engaging in a political influence operation, which is particularly notable. Due to Chinese national censorship laws, it is unlikely that these journalists are running their channels independently from the media they work for or from the Chinese state.
Three examples of covert Chinese state-controlled influencers who engaged in the campaign are:
- Bianca Ma, a CGTN journalist who runs a TikTok channel promoting Chinese culture and language. She posted a video mirroring some of the narratives mentioned above (57).
- Merna in China, a CGTN journalist who runs a YouTube channel that usually focuses on Chinese culture but at times delves into political topics, such as the Israel-Hamas war. She published a short-form video mirroring the aforementioned narratives but approached them from a legal perspective (58).
- Miss Wow Tech, a CGTN journalist who operates a tech-oriented YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages that also touch on political topics (59). She published a short-format AI-generated video, calling on Japan to be responsible and engage in international cooperation.
- Andy Boreham, a Shanghai Daily columnist and video producer who also runs his own YouTube channel. He produced a long-form reportage video, discrediting Western and Japanese media and mirroring the previously mentioned narratives (60).
Images 12, 13, 14, 15: Bianca Ma, Merna in China, Miss Wow Tech and Andy Boreham posting videos about the Fukushima’s treated wastewater
The third type is covert coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) networks. These are usually clusters of disposable accounts used to flood the information space with content promoting a specific narrative, hoping that said narrative reaches its target audience. Examples of how these were used in this campaign include:
- War of Somethings (WoS) network, likely a component of the Chinese influence operation targeting mostly U.S. and Chinese diaspora audiences through a large network of Facebook pages and accounts (61). The network promoted a South Korean demonstration against Japan’s Wastewater disposal.
- What likely is the Spamouflage network, a known Chinese CIB network, published the same text or excerpts of the text to different online forums and smaller social media platforms. The Tumblr posts which were part of this mass publication were amplified by anonymous Twitter pages that only posted this link before stopping their activities (e.g. 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72).
Images 16, 17: Spamouflage accounts posting the same texts.
- Un-named YouTube channel network
A series of anonymous unattributed YouTube channels posting videos mirroring the campaign’s narratives were also detected (e.g. 73, 74). These pages uploaded videos of demonstrations, critical voices against the release of treated wastewater, and alleged simulations of how the nuclear wastewater would spread.
Image 18: unattributed YouTube channel posting videos mirroring the campaign’s narratives.
It is crucial to recognize the inauthentic manipulative behaviour employed by the campaign. These tactics extend beyond the content of the message or the truthfulness of the statements made. When an entity presents itself as independent while being affiliated with a specific country, it is deliberately deceiving its audience. In this campaign, such manipulation was used to instil fear and discredit Japan.