Election 2024 China S Efforts To Interfere In The U S Presidential

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This Week: China is following Russia’s lead in meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Russia opened a new chapter in geopolitical competition in 2016 when it used social media to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Whether that effort affected the election’s outcome can be debated.

What seems beyond debate given Russia’s interference attempts in 2020 and again this year is that the Kremlin thinks that meddling works. Now China looks to be following suit. In February, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a threat assessment stating: “Beijing is expanding its global covert influence posture to better support the CCP’s goals. The PRC aims to sow doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy, and extend Beijing’s influence.” This week the New York Times reported that “covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November.” This campaign, known as “spamouflage,” has prompted Meta to take down thousands of fake Facebook accounts operating...

Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy China’s interference efforts mark a significant shift in policy. In 2021, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that China opted not to interfere in the 2020 election: “We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the... We have high confidence in this judgment.” The intelligence community attributed the Chinese decision to a calculation that the costs of being caught meddling outweighed the potential benefits. Likely influencing that judgment was the assessment “that Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election significantly damaged Moscow’s position and relationship with the United States.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government of China interfered in the 2024 United States elections through propaganda and disinformation campaigns, primarily linked to its Spamouflage influence operation.[1] Cyberespionage and wire-tapping operations were launched... politicians by Salt Typhoon, an advanced persistent threat group linked to the Ministry of State Security. The efforts came amidst other foreign interference in the 2024 United States elections. In March 2021, the National Intelligence Council released a report that said the Chinese government "considered but did not deploy" influence efforts in 2020.[2] A declassified U.S. intelligence assessment in 2023 said with "high confidence" that China, Russia, Iran and Cuba attempted to influence the 2022 midterms. It said that China had tacitly approved "efforts to try to influence a handful of midterm races involving members of both US political parties" and "portray the US democratic model as chaotic, ineffective, and...

The assessment said that China had used images generated by artificial intelligence to mimic Americans online and provoke discussion on divisive social issues, and that they believed they would face less scrutiny during the... retaliation would be lower.[3] It also said that since 2020, senior Chinese intelligence officials had issued directives to "intensify efforts to influence US policy and public opinion in China's favor" and "magnify US societal... infrastructure in the transportation and maritime sectors.[5] During APEC United States 2023, Joe Biden and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping met in a separate summit on November 15 where Xi told Biden that China would not interfere... This assurance was given again by director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi to Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan on the weekend of January 26-27 during a meeting... CNN reported in January 2024 that the topic had repeatedly come up during senior-level meetings between the two nations which were held following a shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon by the U.S.

military after it traversed the continental United States in February 2023.[4] U.S. intelligence agencies have described Chinese government interference in the elections as aggressive but overall cautious and nuanced, not targeting any particular candidate, but instead focusing on issues important to Beijing such as Taiwan, and... in general."[1][6] However, China has specifically denigrated President Biden using fake accounts.[7] According to The Washington Post, a senior official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said China is "not attempting... As early as April 1, 2024, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government had created fake pro-Trump accounts on social media "promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead... Voters line up to cast their ballots on Nov.

5, 2024 in Austell, Georgia. Intelligence officials and researchers say Russia, Iran, and China tried to influence Americans in this year's election. But there's no indication so far their efforts swayed results. Megan Varner/Getty Images hide caption The final stretch of the 2024 election was marked by a series of increasingly brazen attempts to influence voters and disrupt polling places. U.S.

intelligence officials and researchers believe Russia and other foreign powers were behind the efforts. On Election Day itself, hoax bomb threats were sent to polling locations in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The FBI says that many of the bomb threats "appear to originate from Russian email domains," which NPR confirmed after reviewing an email sent to Georgia locations. No bombs were found at any of those locations and there's no indication that the delays they caused in voting swayed the election results. But those threats were part of a broader pattern, said Graham Brookie, a senior director at the Atlantic Council's DFRLab. To join the CNBC Technology Executive Council, go to cnbccouncils.com/tec

With the U.S. presidential election fast approaching, U.S. intelligence officials have issued a stark warning: China's latest efforts to influence the outcome is shifting away from the presidential race and toward state and local candidates. This new focus is part of a broader strategy by Beijing to build relationships with officials who could eventually advance China's interests. With Washington largely opposed to its agenda, Beijing is seizing opportunities at the local level, where it believes it has a more profound impact. "Russia, China, and Iran are largely looking to sow discord in the U.S., but China is probably the most strategic of the three, where they've got long-term goals in terms of trying to cultivate...

"Russia and Iran, they're really all about chaos." Local and state elections have become prime targets for Chinese interference because they receive far less scrutiny than national races, making it easier for China's influence campaigns to fly under the radar. While national attention tends to focus on China's cyberthreats to critical infrastructure, economic espionage, or its aggressive diplomacy, the more insidious threats come from its efforts to shape the U.S. political ecosystem by cultivating relationships with local politicians. The country's adversaries are stepping up efforts to influence the U.S. election, including down-ballot races, intelligence officials told the press on Monday.

"We've continued to see actors ramp up their activities as we get closer to Election Day," Voice of America quoted one anonymous intelligence official as saying. These actors "recognize that individuals are already voting— Americans are already voting—and operations can have a greater impact as we get closer," they added. Officials said China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba have sought to "launder their narratives" into election discourse, as well as aggravate divisions among Americans through hot-button issues such as immigration. Though four weeks remain before Election Day, more than 16 million Americans had requested mail-in ballots or opted for early in-person voting as of Tuesday, according to an NBC News poll sourced from state... One official said agencies have been privately briefing candidates for president, congress and local elections about foreign influence efforts. Chinese malign information operations focusing on down-ballot Senate and House races rather than favoring a particular presidential candidate

Banner: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, October 24, 2024. (Source: Maksim Bogodvid/BRICS-RUSSIA2024.RU via Reuters Connect) In the weeks and months leading up to the November 2024 US general election, government agencies and social media platforms have maintained a steady drumbeat of disclosures describing efforts by foreign threat actors to... Not least among these actors is the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In contrast to Russian and Iranian state-linked assets, US intelligence assessments find that PRC state-linked actors do not seem to favor one candidate over another; rather, their main goal is to sow distrust in... Below are five trends in PRC online influence operations in recent years and in the lead up to the 2024 US presidential election.

While the intensity of online debate during elections makes them powerful vectors for digital forms of foreign malign influence, because Beijing is not tied to a specific electoral outcome, these trends are not necessarily... This is because Beijing’s objectives for its online influence operations are part of a longer game: the gradual erosion of trust in democracy, and the destabilization of the United States. The PRC’s online influence activities are best understood with this longer-term goal in mind. This election cycle, China does not seem to have a preferred candidate for president. This is likely because both are seen as anti-China; one commentator described the choice as picking between two bowls of poison. Instead, the PRC has focused much of its covert influence efforts on denigrating specific down-ballot politicians it sees as particularly critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This includes Reps. Barry Moore (R-AL) and Michael McCaul (R-TX), in addition to Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). For example, PRC state-linked accounts on X accused McCaul of insider trading and abusing power for personal gain. McCaul chairs both the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman and the China Task Force, which in 2020 released a report describing China as a “generational threat” and recommended over four hundred policy actions to... He has also been a major supporter of continuing arms sales to Taiwan, and the Chinese government views visits by McCaul and other US officials to Taiwan as provocations.

Oct 23, 2024 | Clint Watts - General Manager, Microsoft Threat Analysis Center With two weeks until Election Day 2024, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) observes sustained influence efforts by Russia, Iran, and China aimed at undermining U.S. democratic processes. Since our last two reports, the U.S. government has taken many actions revealing cyber and influence activity from foreign adversaries related to election 2024. Most recently, that includes revealing malicious Iranian cyber actors’ sending of “stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign” to both individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign and U.S.

media organizations, and the indictment of three Iranian actors for the hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump-Vance campaign. We also noted in our last report that while Iranian actors have focused their cyber-influence operations on the Trump campaign, Russian actors decisively pivoted toward the Harris campaign once she entered the race. Since then, Russian actors continue to integrate generative AI into their content, Iranian groups ramp up their preparations to enable cyber-influence operations, while Chinese actors shift focus to several down-ballot candidates and members of... Russian actors have notably attempted to target the Harris-Walz campaign by attacking the candidates’ characters. History has shown foreign actors’ ability to rapidly distribute deceptive content can significantly impact public perception and electoral outcomes. With a particular focus on the 48 hours before and after Election Day, voters, government institutions, candidates, and parties must remain vigilant against deceptive and suspicious activity online.

Early detection and fact-checking remain essential to countering these efforts and maintaining election integrity. We discuss this activity in our fifth election report by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) released today. Russian interference in the 2016 United States Presidential Election proved that foreign influence can threaten the fabric of our democracy. Both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence found that Russia conducted an extensive campaign, involving efforts ranging from hacking confidential email servers to the use of bots to spread misinformation on social media, all in an effort... Many of the people closest to Trump were happy to accept that help–the Special Counsel found that up to 16 of his associates were connected with Russia during the campaign [1].

People Also Search

• Election 2024: China's Efforts to Interfere in the U.S. Presidential ...
• Chinese interference in the 2024 United States elections
• Foreign influence efforts reached a fever pitch during the 2024 ...
• China's alleged interference in US elections prompts worries up and ...
• China's new focus in U.S. elections interference is not Harris-Trump ...
• US Detects China Interference in 2024 Election - Newsweek
• Trends in China's US election interference illustrate its longer game
• As the U.S. election nears, Russia, Iran and China step up influence ...
• China's Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms ...
• The Threat of Chinese Influence in the 2024 United States Presidential ...