Discovering news on China in the mainstream and on social media can be challenging. The primary reason for this is the restriction on the freedom of expression and press freedom, which can be seen as an assault on the values of an independent press. Consequently, China ranks 179th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index for 2023, with North Korea taking the last position. Nevertheless, Chinese propaganda holds massive dominance on social media. There are numerous users who persistently engage in propagandizing in support of China. Propaganda is defined as the dissemination and promotion of certain ideas and viewpoints, particularly for political purposes. In other words, when a piece of information is disseminated as part of a conspiracy or is widely disseminated, it can be considered as  propaganda.. However, propaganda does not necessarily adhere to the foundation of truth. Rather, it  involves the use of half-truths, relentless repetition of particular information, and  presentation of biased and misleading content.

China’s Twitter army has effectively utilized social media as the most powerful tool for positive propaganda. This Twitter army distorts facts in support of China on the challenging issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Uyghurs, and their human rights violations. Some users in this Twitter army may appear to be from other countries, but their objective is to exhibit positivity towards China. This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Chinese Twitter army and their propaganda which the army have disseminated over Taiwan.

Twitter army supporting China:

China’s Twitter army comprises highly skilled players for generating large-scale propaganda. The first name on this list is LiJian Zhao, who has served as a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Following him are Zhao Dashuai, Andy Boreham, Shanghai Panda, Jojo, Jerry China, Carl Ja, Xu Pan, Kei Wang, Jerry, Carlos, and S.L. Kanthan.

Lijian Zhao:

Lijian Zhao, the Deputy Director of China’s Border and Ocean Affairs Department, is quite active on Twitter. He was once referred as the “Wolf Warrior” due to his aggressive, confrontational, combative approach and provocative statements. He has worked as China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson for several years and has been involved in several controversies during this time. Zhao has 1.9 million followers on Twitter, or rather,19 lakh 38 thousand followers. Since 2010, he has tweeted approximately 71,800 times.

Lijian Zhao’s Ultimate Relationship with Controversies:

Lijian Zhao has remained in controversy for several times. Zhao was the first deputy chief of mission of China to Pakistan from 2015 to 2019. During his stay in Pakistan, Zhao remained very positive about Pakistan and changed his name to Mohammad Lijian Zhao. However, later he adopted a different name.

 Allegation of Spreading Fake News

Lijian Zhao has been accused of spreading fake news. Zhao had tweeted a photo showing an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child. In the photo, it could be seen that the child had a lamb in his hands and  a knife was placed against his neck. This tweet had sparked massive controversy on the Internet.The Australian government demanded an apology  from the Chinese government. The then Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison had condemned Zhao’s tweet and called for an apology from the Chinese government. Morrison had stated: “The Chinese government should be completely ashamed of this post. It diminishes them in the world’s eyes.”

According to a Reuters report, cyber security firm ‘Cybra’ discovered the evidence of a well-planned campaign to promote Zhao’s controversial tweets. Cybra reported that 57.5% of the accounts associated with Zhao’s tweet were fake and there was evidence of a “massively orchestrated disinformation campaign” to amplify the tweet.

During the outbreak of corona 2020, Zhao had triggered the controversy by stating that the virus was created by the US military and had spread to China.

Zhao’s controversial statements over Kashmir:

Lijian Zhao has also posted various controversial tweets over Kashmir. In his tweet, he has addressed Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as ‘Azad Kashmir’.  Whereas India continues to believe that Kashmir is its integral part. On the other hand, Zhao, being a diplomat, should not promote the Pakistani agenda. Apart from this, Zhao’s biased ideology towards India and Kashmir is also demonstrated by the fact that he is addressing Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as ‘Azad Kashmir’, on the other hand he is addressing Indian Kashmir as ‘India Controlled Kashmir’. You can see Zhao’s tweet in the collage given below.

It has been discovered that Lijian Zhao tweeted more than 22 times about Kashmir, where he defined the Kashmir as ‘Azad Jammu and Kashmir’. In one of his tweets about Kashmir, Zhao stated that it is believed that China will  sustain justice on the issue of Kashmir. The most controversial aspect in all of this is the question of what kind of justice he is speaking about in relation to Kashmir?

Zhao’s tweet over Kashmir has received a massive reach . There were 15,700 likes, 4,771 retweets and 870 comments on his tweet. We discovered that most of the likes, retweets and comments on Zhao’s tweets were done by Pakistani users.

Zhao’s aggressive attitude over Taiwan:

Lijian Zhao’s attitude has been remained very aggressive towards Taiwan. When US Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, Lijian Zhao made a very aggressive and confrontational statement. According to Reuters news, Zhao had said: “if Pelosi visits Taiwan, her army ‘will not sit idle’”.

Zhao has continuously referred Taiwan as a part of China and a province. On several occasions, he has reiterated that Taiwan is a part of China. You can see Zhao’s tweet in the collage below.

Zhao DaShuai:

There is a Twitter user named Zhao DaShuai. She mentions herself as a member of the “People’s Armed Police Propaganda Bureau.” DaShuai considers entire media as propaganda. She has 48.9K followers on Twitter. She has pinned a tweet on his timeline which says, “I’m really proud, my family has a history of working in the propaganda departments of China. My grandad was a section chief at the PLA General Political Department. Here’s my granddad accompanying the Minister of Civil Affairs, Cui Naifu, visiting the frontline troops in 1984”.

The Twitter account of Zhao DaShuai was created in May 2018, but the first tweet from the account is visible from July 19, 2021. It indicates that either the account was not active from May 2018 to July 2021, or the account has deleted all its previous tweets. This also suggests that perhaps the account has changed its username.

When our team analysed it, we found that this account was previously being operated under the usernames @obsidianstatue1 and obsidianstatue.

It was also observed that both the accounts Zhao DaShuai and obsidianstatue have the same user ID which is- 999061779870175232. This indicates that this account has changed its username. It can be seen that obsidianstatue tweeted on 18 July 2021, the account owner changed its username to zhao_dashuai later.

obsidianstatue has also tweeted on PM Modi, which was deleted later. The tweet states: “5 years ago Modi was still trying to sell his off-brand discounted hindu nationalism, today he’s still trying to do the same”.

Zhao DaShuai consistently shares posts in support of China. DaShuai tweets over all the issues for which China is criticized on social media. Furthermore, DaShuai has also tweeted regarding Taiwan issue, favoring China. You can see DaShuai’s tweets over Taiwan in the collage given below.

Zhao has been tweeting provocative tweets on the issue of Taiwan and its nuclear weapons. In several tweets, she explicitly stated that China should adopt an aggressive stance on its nuclear policy. Taiwan is a significant topic in many of these tweets. In one tweet, DaShuai advocates abandoning China’s policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. She wrote: “China could nuke a fleet, say the American fleet attacking Chinese assets engaged in action over Taiwan. This is why, the best way for China to counter US posturing in Japan and the Philippines, is by simply abandoning the “No first use policy”.

DaShuai talks about having nuclear weapons on US-China war in one of her tweets. In another tweet, she wrote: “So to prevent war, China must be more aggressive in its nuclear policy, it worked for the Cold War. The US is in the business of war, BUT only when it’s profitable. The best kind of war for the US military industrial complex, is one where they themselves are not involved”.

Shanghai Panda:

A user named Shanghai Panda has 59.4K followers on Twitter who often shares highly objectionable and controversial posts regarding Taiwan. In one tweet, it can be seen that a soldier has pushed a woman onto the road and has placed his foot on her neck. Shanghai Panda captioned the photo with a laughing emoji: “Oh now the shitlibs are admitting Taiwan is part of China”.

In another tweet, Shanghai Panda wrote: “The 2015 Miss Taiwanese American Pageant competitor… It seems that some Taiwanese are abandoning Chinese traditional values and embracing American values. Another reason to recover Taiwan asap”.

Apart from this, Shanghai Panda’s timeline is flooded with Chinese Propaganda. He constantly incites the feelings of the people of Taiwan and makes derogatory remarks on them. Shanghai Panda is also making several disparaging remarks regarding the presidential elections to be held in Taiwan. The tweets of Shanghai Panda can be seen in the collage below.

Our investigation has revealed that there have been more than 40 tweets of Shanghai Panda on Taiwan. After analysing those tweets, we learnt that the tweets had a wide impact. Overall 4,68,732 impressions were received. There were more than 7 thousand likes, 922 retweets and 760 comments on these tweets.

Xu Pan and Jerry’s China:

There are two users on Twitter named “Xu Pan” and “Jerry.” Xu Pan has 2635 followers, while Jerry China has 83.2K followers. Both users consistently tweet in support of China on the Taiwan issue. Their tweets can be seen here.

S.L. Kanthan and Jojo:

Furthermore, S.L. Kanthan and Jojo are users on Twitter. Kanthan has 93K followers, whereas Jojo has 13.6K followers. Kanthan has mentioned his location as Bangalore, India. S.L. Kanthan often expresses a pro-China stance on the Taiwan issue. In a tweet, he wrote: “Wait! Taiwan’s athletes not only go to China and participate in the #Chengdu games, but they also carry the sign that says “CHINESE Taipei.”But the US is going to start WW3 to “protect” Taiwan??GTFO here! Absolute lunacy and delusion of American imperialism”.

In another tweet, Kanthan states China [Taiwan (China)] in brackets next to Taiwan in the medal list whereas China and Taiwan are two different countries in the point table.

In another tweet too, Kanthan has stated China ahead of Taiwan which can be seen in the tweet given below

Here’s a collage of Kanthan’s tweets over Taiwan

S. L. Kanthan’s account has tweeted more than 50 times about Taiwan. These tweets have received a total of over 2,500,000 impressions. Moreover, these tweets have garnered 23,685 likes, 6,980 retweets and 1,634 comments.

Moreover, the collage of Jojo’s tweets is provided below

Andy Boreham:

There is a user named Andy Boreham, who claims himself as a columnist for the Shanghai Daily in his bio. Boreham consistently shares posts on Twitter regarding Chinese issues. He has also tweeted in favor of China over the issue of Uyghur and Taiwan. In a tweet, he wrote: “Aside from the hideous, Yellow Peril-esque imagery and that pesky fact that #Taiwan is part of #China (even the US and UN agree), this guy’s three points are easily discredited:

1 After reunification, Taiwan will keeps its current political system, and even its own military;

2 China has no desire to export its unique system, and has said so many times: China is a massive proponent of countries having their own systems that suit their own circumstances, cultures and history;

3 After reunification, Taiwan will be even better placed to take part in the world economy”

Andy Boreham’s tweets over Taiwan can be seen in the collage given below

Conclusion

China continues to believe Taiwan as its province, but Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, having  its own constitution and a government elected by the people. In recent years, China has adopted a more aggressive attitude over the issue of Taiwan. Chinese Twitter army continues to run constant propaganda on social media regarding Taiwan. There are numerous users, who appear themselves to be unbiased but China is deeply ingrained in their ideology. Apart from this, several users explicitly support China, but here a question raises, China, which ranks second from the bottom i.e. 179th among 180 countries in the World Freedom Index, has employed its full machinery to run the propaganda against Taiwan which shows that China is gaining prominence in both the virtual and real world over the issue of Taiwan.