Analysis: China's Attempts To Sway Public Opinion in the Philippines

TaiwanPlus News

Reporting from Reuters says the Chinese embassy in Manila is funding fake social media accounts to sway public opinion. TaiwanPlus spoke to Renato Cruz de Castro of Manila's De La Salle University about Beijing’s attempts to spread propaganda in the Philippines.

Transcript

00:00How is China infiltrating the Philippines through disinformation campaigns?

00:04Well, when you talk about Chinese influence operation, it's multi-layer.

00:11You have the Chinese embassy that's very much active in financing troll farms.

00:17So this year, of course, there was an expose by the Philippine intelligence community

00:23about the Chinese embassy in Manila paying about 300 million pesos to a company

00:32that's managing troll farms to attack, of course, the United States and the Philippine-U.S. alliance.

00:39So that's the element there.

00:41You have the Chinese diplomatic community very active in terms of this operation.

00:47Then, of course, you have Filipino academics or analysts, or they claim to be academics,

00:55who are, of course, embedded in several quote-unquote think tanks

00:59that, of course, also articulating the Chinese narrative.

01:03So they also get support, of course, from the Chinese embassy.

01:06And recently, of course, what is being noticed is Chinese operation,

01:10Chinese influence operation through social media.

01:13That's, of course, being conducted from the People's Republic of China.

01:17So you can see really well-funded, well-oiled, and, of course,

01:22multi-layer Chinese influence operation going on in the Philippines.

01:28To what extent do you think private companies in the Philippines are vulnerable

01:32to misinformation campaigns or information warfare by China?

01:36And how might those companies move to mitigate those risks and vulnerabilities?

01:40When you look at it in terms of this Chinese operation being conducted

01:44in a pluralistic competitive media environment, you see, of course, the fact that it's kind of

01:50the effectivities of Chinese influence operation is diminished by the fact that it had to compete

01:57with other discourse or narratives, especially, of course, in a society that basically looks at,

02:03for example, the West, like, for example, Japan, I think, Taiwan, and many European countries.

02:10So Chinese influence operation effectivity is more or less mitigated by a competitive, pluralistic media environment.

02:19Zooming out from the Philippines and looking at the region more broadly,

02:22it's not the only country that is currently facing issues in either in misinformation

02:27or in maritime boundary disputes with China.

02:30What can the Philippines and Taiwan learn from each other, or what can they work on together

02:35to better face this threat that both of them seem to be going through right now?

02:39Definitely there should be an active engagement of two liberal democracies,

02:45two island republics that are, of course, faced by a common threat.

02:48Chinese influence operation, and, of course, Chinese aggression and expansion into our maritime domain.

02:55In the case of the Philippines, of course, we have the challenge of confronting the Chinese

02:59in the West Philippines East, South China Sea.

03:01And slowly, of course, there's also recognition that Chinese, your dentist's agenda against China

03:08will be a threat to Philippine national security.

03:11No less than President Ferdinand Marcos said it, I think it was in August, early August,

03:16when he was, of course, in India and he was interviewed, that if China would attack Taiwan

03:22and there'll be a major conflict here, the Philippines will be pulled, dragging, and kicking.

03:27So there's also recognition of the fact that we are not only liberal democracies,

03:34our security is more or less intertwined by the fact that we are neighbors

03:39and we are confronted by a common threat, Chinese maritime expansion into the first island chain.

03:46So the reason why many people or several reasons do sacrifices are historical DESAAAAAAAAA

03:54I know doesn't necessarily mean it's at a secret but not man in this case,

03:57we can try to numeric art, Chinese Luego might travel to Canada to Santos

03:59and how many people at the tender countries understand their understanding and what would

04:01interpret the same Airlines.

04:04Oh, yeah.

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