By ERIKA KINETZ
Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) â Chinaâs ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Liu Xiaoming, who recently stepped down as Chinaâs ambassador to the United Kingdom, is one of the partyâs most successful foot soldiers on this evolving online battlefield. He joined Twitter in October 2019, as scores of Chinese diplomats surged onto Twitter and Facebook, which are both banned in China.
Since then, Liu has deftly elevated his public profile, gaining a following of more than 119,000 as he transformed himself into an exemplar of Chinaâs new sharp-edged âwolf warriorâ diplomacy, a term borrowed from the title of a top-grossing Chinese action movie.
By ERIKA KINETZ
Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) â Chinaâs ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Liu Xiaoming, who recently stepped down as Chinaâs ambassador to the United Kingdom, is one of the partyâs most successful foot soldiers on this evolving online battlefield. He joined Twitter in October 2019, as scores of Chinese diplomats surged onto Twitter and Facebook, which are both banned in China.
Since then, Liu has deftly elevated his public profile, gaining a following of more than 119,000 as he transformed himself into an exemplar of Chinaâs new sharp-edged âwolf warriorâ diplomacy, a term borrowed from the title of a top-grossing Chinese action movie.
By ERIKA KINETZ
Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) â Chinaâs ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Liu Xiaoming, who recently stepped down as Chinaâs ambassador to the United Kingdom, is one of the partyâs most successful foot soldiers on this evolving online battlefield. He joined Twitter in October 2019, as scores of Chinese diplomats surged onto Twitter and Facebook, which are both banned in China.
Since then, Liu has deftly elevated his public profile, gaining a following of more than 119,000 as he transformed himself into an exemplar of Chinaâs new sharp-edged âwolf warriorâ diplomacy, a term borrowed from the title of a top-grossing Chinese action movie.
Army of fake fans online boosts China s global messaging
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ERIKA KINETZ, Associated Press
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1of5FILE - In this April 20, 2021 file photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech via video for the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference, in Beijing. A seven-month investigation by the Associated Press and the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at Oxford University, found that the rise of Chinese diplomats on Twitter has been powered by an army of apparently fake accounts that have retweeted their posts tens of thousands of times. The move onto Western social media comes as China wages a war for influence – both at home and abroad on the internet, which President Xi Jinping has called “the main battlefield” for public opinion. (Ju Peng/Xinhua via AP, File )Ju Peng/APShow MoreShow Less
By ERIKA KINETZ
Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) â Chinaâs ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Liu Xiaoming, who recently stepped down as Chinaâs ambassador to the United Kingdom, is one of the partyâs most successful foot soldiers on this evolving online battlefield. He joined Twitter in October 2019, as scores of Chinese diplomats surged onto Twitter and Facebook, which are both banned in China.
Since then, Liu has deftly elevated his public profile, gaining a following of more than 119,000 as he transformed himself into an exemplar of Chinaâs new sharp-edged âwolf warriorâ diplomacy, a term borrowed from the title of a top-grossing Chinese action movie.