Jessica Brandt Profile picture
Policy Director, AI and Emerging Tech Initiative @BrookingsInst and Fellow, @BrookingsFP. Disinfo, foreign interference, techno-authoritarianism.

Jan 24, 2022, 8 tweets

How are China's wolf warrior diplomats and state media covering the Ukraine crisis on Twitter?

✅Boosting Kremlin talking points casting the UK's recent warning as "disinformation"
✅Highlighting schisms in Europe, NATO
✅Dunking on US

Examples, just from today 👇

China's state media and diplomats are boosting Putin's attempts to discredit the British Government's warning that Russia plans to install a pro-Kremlin leader in Ukraine.

Beijing's wolf warriors are hammering the idea that the current crisis is "blowing holes" in the European project and NATO alliance and suggesting that the US is not an effective, respected leader.

Here are more examples, again just in the last 24 hours, highlighting differences among NATO allies on how to approach the crisis.

This is in line with the "divide and discredit" strategy the Kremlin has been running for weeks, which I recently described for @BrookingsFP 👇

brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…

And then, of course, Beijing is using the crisis to troll the United States, framing the State Department as ineffective and American people as bumbling.

We saw a similar approach in Beijing's coverage of the other crisis in the region: Kazakhstan.

As I've argued for @TWQgw, I don't believe China and Russia are formally coordinating, but they share certain near-term goals (denting the global prestige of the US; weakening the EU, NATO, transatlantic alliance) and therefore promote similar narratives.

cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/…

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