The dawn of information warfare

A text-book example of China's Art of Disinformation is Beijing’s rewriting the history of the Tibetan Uprising in March 1959. In the photo, the 23-year-old Dalai Lama and his escape party are seen crossing Southern Tibet while being pursued by Chinese military forces. (Photo: AP)

For 70 years, Chinese propaganda has been mastering the Art of Disinformation. Beijing’s rewriting history of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising is a classic example. For several years, analysts have been predicting that Information Warfare (IW) would be an important part of any battle of tomorrow.

In 2003, China’s Central Military Commission approved the concept of ‘Three Warfares’, namely: coordinated use of strategic psychological operations; overt and covert media manipulation and legal warfare designed to manipulate perceptions of target audiences abroad. In recent years,

Beijing has been intensifying its ‘media manipulation’. It was clear that after losing a battle in Wuhan (for more than two months the Chinese authorities hid the truth about the existence and the severity of the new virus), Beijing decided to counterattack. Chinese reactions Zhao Lijian, one of China’s sharpshooters, was appointed as one of the spokesmen of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Zhao, who served earlier as deputy chief of mission in Pakistan, is known for his nasty twitter attacks. Soon Zhao Lijian alleged that the Americans were at the origin of the virus: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! The US owes us an explanation!” he reportedly said.

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