China's advancing efforts to influence the US election raise alarms

Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Joe Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials. The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Biden. Some of the Chinese accounts impersonate fervent Trump fans, including one on X, formerly Twitter, that purported to be "a father, husband and son" who was "MAGA all the way!!" The accounts mocked Biden's age and shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit, or claimed that Biden was a Satanist paedophile while promoting Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. At least four other similar accounts are also operating, Thomas said, all of them with ties to China. The accounts denounced efforts by American lawmakers to ban the popular TikTok app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, as a form of "True authoritarianism" orchestrated by Israel and as a tool for Biden to undermine China. The accounts sometimes amplified or repeated content from the Chinese influence campaign Spamouflage, which was first identified in 2019 and linked to an arm of the Ministry of Public Security. The report underscores the persistence of China's efforts despite Meta's repeated efforts to take down Spamouflage accounts.