This report analyses a persistent, large-scale influence campaign linked to Chinese state actors on Twitter and Facebook.
This activity largely targeted Chinese-speaking audiences outside of the Chinese mainland (where Twitter is blocked) with the intention of influencing perceptions on key issues, including the Hong Kong protests, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and, to a lesser extent Covid-19 and Taiwan.
Extrapolating from the takedown dataset, to which we had advanced access, given to us by Twitter, we have identified that this operation continues and has pivoted to try to weaponise the US Government’s response to current domestic protests and create the perception of a moral equivalence with the suppression of protests in Hong Kong.
Figure 1: Normalised topic distribution over time in the Twitter dataset
Our analysis includes a dataset of 23,750 Twitter accounts and 348,608 tweets that occurred from January 2018 to 17 April 2020 (Figure 1). Twitter has attributed this dataset to Chinese state-linked actors and has recently taken the accounts contained within it offline.
In addition to the Twitter dataset, we’ve also found dozens of Facebook accounts that we have high confidence form part of the same state-linked information operation. We’ve also independently discovered—and verified through Twitter—additional Twitter accounts that also form a part of this operation. This activity appears to be a continuation of the campaign targeting the Hong Kong protests, which ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre covered in the September 2019 report Tweeting through the Great Firewall and which had begun targeting critics of the Chinese regime in April 2017.
Analysing the dataset as a whole, we found that the posting patterns of tweets mapped cleanly to working hours at Beijing time (despite the fact that Twitter is blocked in mainland China). Posts spiked through 8 a.m.–5 p.m. working hours Monday to Friday and dropped off at weekends. Such a regimented posting pattern clearly suggests coordination and inauthenticity.
The main vector of dissemination was through images, many of which contained embedded Chinese-language text. The linguistic traits within the dataset suggest that audiences in Hong Kong were a primary target for this campaign, with the broader Chinese diaspora as a secondary audience.
There is little effort to cultivate rich, detailed personas that might be used to influence targeted networks; in fact, 78.5% of the accounts in Twitter’s takedown dataset have no followers at all.
There’s evidence that aged accounts—potentially purchased, hacked or stolen—are also a feature of the campaign. Here again, there’s little effort to disguise the incongruous nature of accounts (from Bangladesh, for example) posting propaganda inspired by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While the takedown dataset contains many new and low-follower accounts, the operation targeted the aged accounts as the mechanism by which the campaign might gain traction in high-follower networks.
The operation has shown remarkable persistence to stay online in various forms since 2017, and its tenacity has allowed for shifts in tactics and the narrative focus as emerging events—including the Covid-19 pandemic and US protests in May and June 2020—have been incorporated into pro-Chinese government narratives.
Based on the data in the takedown dataset, while these efforts are sufficiently technically sophisticated to persist, they currently lack the linguistic and cultural refinement to drive engagement on Twitter through high-follower networks, and thus far have had relatively low impact on the platform. The operation’s targeting of higher value aged accounts as vehicles for amplifying reach, potentially through the influence-for-hire marketplace, is likely to have been a strategy to obfuscate the campaign’s state-sponsorship. This suggests that the operators lacked the confidence, capability and credibility to develop high-value personas on the platform. This mode of operation highlights the emerging nexus between state-linked propaganda and the internet’s public relations shadow economy, which offers state actors opportunities for outsourcing their disinformation propagation.
Similar studies support our report’s findings. In addition to our own previous work Tweeting through the Great Firewall, Graphika has undertaken two studies of a persistent campaign targeting the Hong Kong protests, Guo Wengui and other critics of the Chinese Government. Bellingcat has also previously reported on networks targeting Guo Wengui and the Hong Kong protest movement.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group noted that it had removed more than a thousand YouTube channels that were behaving in a coordinated manner and sharing content that aligned with Graphika’s findings.
This large-scale pivot to Western platforms is relatively new, and we should expect continued evolution and improvement, given the enormous resourcing the Chinese party-state can bring to bear in aligning state messaging across its diplomacy, state media and covert influence operations. The coordination of diplomatic and state media messaging, the use of Western social media platforms to seed disinformation into international media coverage, the immediate mirroring and rebuttal of Western media coverage by Chinese state media, the co-option of fringe conspiracy media to target networks vulnerable to manipulation and the use of coordinated inauthentic networks and undeclared political ads to actively manipulate social media audiences have all been tactics deployed by the Chinese Government to attempt to shape the information environment to its advantage.
The disruption caused by Covid-19 has created a permissive environment for the CCP to experiment with overt manipulation of global social media audiences on Western platforms. There’s much to suggest that the CCP’s propaganda apparatus has been watching the tactics and impact of Russian disinformation.
The party-state’s online experiments will allow its propaganda apparatus to recalibrate efforts to influence audiences on Western platforms with growing precision. When combined with data acquisition, investments in artificial intelligence and alternative social media platforms, there is potential for the normalisation of a very different information environment from the open internet favoured by democratic societies.
This report is broken into three sections, which follow on from this brief explanation of the dataset, the context of Chinese party-state influence campaigns and the methodology. The first major section investigates the tactics, techniques and operational traits of the campaign. The second section analyses the narratives and nuances included in the campaign messaging. The third section is the appendix, which will allow interested readers to do a deep dive into the data.
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre received the dataset from Twitter on 2 June and produced this report in 10 days.
The Chinese party-state and influence campaigns
The Chinese party-state has demonstrated its willingness to deploy disinformation and influence operations to achieve strategic goals. For example, the CCP has mobilised a long-running campaign of political warfare against Taiwan, incorporating the seeding of disinformation on digital platforms. And our September 2019 report—Tweeting through the Great Firewall—investigated state-linked information campaigns on Western social media platforms targeting the Hong Kong protests, Chinese dissidents and critics of the CCP regime.
Since Tweeting through the Great Firewall, we have observed a significant evolution in the CCP’s efforts to shape the information environment to its advantage, particularly through the manipulation of social media. Through 2018 and 2019 we observed spikes in the creation of Twitter accounts by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokespeople, diplomats, embassies and state media.
To deflect attention from its early mishandling of a health and economic crisis that has now gone global, the CCP has unashamedly launched waves of disinformation and influence operations intermingled with diplomatic messaging. There are prominent and consistent themes across the messaging of People’s Republic of China (PRC) diplomats and state media: that the CCP’s model of social governance is one that can successfully manage crises, that the PRC’s economy is rapidly recovering from the period of lockdown, and that the PRC is a generous global citizen that can rapidly mobilise medical support and guide the world through the pandemic.
The trends in the PRC’s coordinated diplomatic and state-media messaging are articulated as a coherent strategy by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which is a prominent PRC-based think tank. The academy has recommended a range of responses to Western, particularly US-based, media criticism of the CCP’s handling of the pandemic, which it suggests is designed to contain the PRC’s global relationships. The think tank has offered several strategies that are being operationalised by diplomats and state media:
the coordination of externally facing communication, including 24 x 7 foreign media monitoring and rapid response
the promotion of diverse sources, noting that international audiences are inclined to accept independent media
support for Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo, WeChat and Douyin
enhanced forms of communication targeted to specific audiences
the cultivation of foreign talent.
The party-state appears to be allowing for experimentation across the apparatus of government in how to promote the CCP’s view of its place in the world. This study suggests that covert influence operations on Western social media platforms are likely to be an ongoing element of that project.
Methodology
This analysis used a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis of bulk Twitter data with qualitative analysis of tweet content. This was combined with independently identified Facebook accounts, pages and activity including identical or highly similar content to that on Twitter. We assess that this Facebook activity, while not definitively attributed by Facebook itself, is highly likely to be a part of the same operation.
The dataset for quantitative analysis was the tweets from a subset of accounts identified by Twitter as being interlinked and associated through a combination of technical signals to which Twitter has access. Accounts that appeared to be repurposed from originally legitimate users are not included in this dataset, which may potentially skew some analysis.
This dataset consisted of:
account information for 23,750 accounts that Twitter suspended from its service
348,608 tweets from January 2018 to 17 April 2020
60,486 pieces of associated media, consisting of 55,750 images and 4,736 videos.
Many of the tweets contained images with Chinese text. They were processed by ASPI’s technology partner in the application of artificial intelligence and cloud computing to cyber policy challenges, Addaxis, using a combination of internal machine-learning capabilities and Google APIs before further analysis in R. The R statistics package was used for quantitative analysis, which informed social network analysis and qualitative content analysis.
Research limitations: ASPI does not have access to the relevant data to independently verify that these accounts are linked to the Chinese Government. Twitter has access to a variety of signals that are not available to outside researchers, and this research proceeded on the assumption that Twitter’s attribution is correct. It is also important to note that Twitter hasn’t released the methodology by which this dataset was selected, and the dataset doesn’t represent a complete picture of Chinese state-linked information operations on Twitter.
Download full report
Readers are warmly encouraged to download the full report (PDF, 62 pages) to access the full and detailed analysis, notes and references.
Acknowledgements
ASPI would like to thank Twitter for advanced access to the takedown dataset that formed a significant component of this investigation. The authors would also like to thank ASPI colleagues who worked on this report.
What is ASPI?
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.
Important disclaimer
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.
This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.
First published June 2020.
ISSN 2209-9689 (online) ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/28104744/PB33_Retweeting_through_the_great_firewall-banner.jpg6041811nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-06-12 06:00:002025-03-28 10:48:40Retweeting through the Great Firewall
Foreign interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s united front system
What’s the problem?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is strengthening its influence by co-opting representatives of ethnic minority groups, religious movements, and business, science and political groups. It claims the right to speak on behalf of those groups and uses them to claim legitimacy.
These efforts are carried out by the united front system, which is a network of party and state agencies responsible for influencing groups outside the party, particularly those claiming to represent civil society. It manages and expands the United Front, a coalition of entities working towards the party’s goals.1 The CCP’s role in this system’s activities, known as united front work, is often covert or deceptive.2
The united front system’s reach beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—such as into foreign political parties, diaspora communities and multinational corporations—is an exportation of the CCP’s political system.3 This undermines social cohesion, exacerbates racial tension, influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage, and increases unsupervised technology transfer.
General Secretary Xi Jinping’s reinvigoration of this system underlines the need for stronger responses to CCP influence and technology-transfer operations around the world. However, governments are still struggling to manage it effectively and there is little publicly available analysis of the united front system. This lack of information can cause Western observers to underestimate the significance of the united front system and to reduce its methods into familiar categories. For example, diplomats might see united front work as ‘public diplomacy’ or ‘propaganda’ but fail to appreciate the extent of related covert activities. Security officials may be alert to criminal activity or espionage while underestimating the significance of open activities that facilitate it. Analysts risk overlooking the interrelated facets of CCP influence that combine to make it effective.4
What’s the solution?
Governments should disrupt the CCP’s capacity to use united front figures and groups as vehicles for covert influence and technology transfer. They should begin by developing analytical capacity for understanding foreign interference. On that basis, they should issue declaratory policy statements that frame efforts to counter it. Countermeasures should involve law enforcement, legislative reform, deterrence and capacity building across relevant areas of government. Governments should mitigate the divisive effect united front work can have on communities through engagement and careful use of language.
Law enforcement, while critically important, shouldn’t be all or even most of the solution. Foreign interference often takes place in a grey area that’s difficult to address through law enforcement actions. Strengthening civil society and media must be a fundamental part of protecting against interference. Policymakers should make measures to raise the transparency of foreign influence a key part of the response.
Introduction
The United Front … is an important magic weapon for strengthening the party’s ruling position … and an important magic weapon for realising the China Dream of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.
—Xi Jinping, at the 2015 Central United Front Work Meeting5
In recent years, groups and individuals linked to the CCP’s United Front have attracted an unprecedented level of scrutiny for their links to political interference, economic espionage and influence on university campuses. In Australia, businessmen who were members of organisations with close ties to the United Front Work Department (UFWD) have been accused of interfering in Australian politics. In the US, at least two senior members of united front groups for scientists have been taken to court over alleged technology theft. Confucius Institutes, which are overseen with heavy involvement from the UFWD, have generated controversy for more than a decade for their effects on academic freedom and influence on universities. Numerous Chinese students and scholars associations, which are united front groups for Chinese international students, have been involved in suppressing academic freedom and mobilising students for nationalistic activities.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has also highlighted overseas united front networks. In Australia, Canada, the UK, the US, Argentina, Japan and the Czech Republic, groups mobilised to gather increasingly scarce medical supplies from around the world and send them to China.6 Those efforts appear linked to directives from the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, a united front agency.7 The party’s Central Committee has described the federation as ‘a bridge and a bond for the party and government to connect with overseas Chinese compatriots’.8 After the virus spread globally, united front groups began working with the CCP to donate supplies to the rest of the world and promote the party’s narratives about the pandemic.
Regardless of whether those activities harmed efforts to control the virus, they appeared to take governments by surprise and demonstrate the effectiveness of united front work. The CCP’s attempts to interfere in diaspora communities, influence political systems and covertly access valuable and sensitive technology will only grow as tensions between China and countries around the world develop. As governments begin to confront the CCP’s overseas interference and espionage, understanding the united front system will be crucially important.
This paper dissects the CCP’s united front system and its role in foreign interference. It describes the broad range of agencies and goals of the united front system, rather than focusing only on the UFWD.
It examines how the system is structured, how it operates, and what it seeks to achieve. It reveals how dozens of agencies play a role in the united front system’s efforts to transfer technology, promote propaganda, interfere in political systems and even influence executives of multinational companies.9
The united front system has nearly always been a core system of the CCP.10 For most of its history it’s been led by a member of the Politburo Standing Committee—the party’s top leadership body.
However, Xi has emphasised united front work more than previous leaders, pushing it closer to the position of importance that it occupied in the party’s revolutionary era by elevating its status since 2015. That year, he established high-level bodies and regulations that signalled a greater emphasis on and centralisation of united front work. Later, the Central Committee’s UFWD was expanded by giving it authority over religious, ethnic and Chinese diaspora affairs.11 The united front system and the UFWD in particular have also been given a central role in coordinating policy on Xinjiang, where the darkest side of the party’s political security efforts are on full display.
The CCP originated as a chapter of the Soviet Comintern in 1921. It is itself a product of Lenin’s international united front efforts. In 1922, it began carrying out its own united front work by proposing a united front of supporters of democracy.12
The party credits China’s victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) to the ‘favourable conditions’ created through its united front with the Kuomintang. This arguably prevented the CCP’s annihilation by shifting the focus of the Kuomintang military from the CCP to Japan.13 It also enabled the party to infiltrate the Kuomintang and subvert it from inside. In the lead-up to the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the party successfully co-opted influential religious figures, intellectuals, engineers and political leaders. Many of them were organised into party-led civil society groups and eight political parties (often referred to as China’s ‘minor parties’ or ‘satellite parties’) that were promised a say in a post-liberation democratic China. Those parties officially accept the leadership of the CCP as a precondition for participation in China’s ‘multiparty cooperation and political consultative system’.
They now serve as platforms for united front work.14
During the ‘reform and opening period’, the United Front played an important role in supporting China’s economic development. Businesspersons, including those from the Chinese diaspora, were encouraged to invest in China and integrated into the United Front through platforms such as the UFWD-run All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (中华全国工商业联合会).15 According to united front expert Gerry Groot, ‘economic construction required vast numbers of technicians, scientists and administrators’, and groups in the United Front helped reform China’s education system and attract foreign experts and technology.16
To this day, the united front system helps the CCP claim legitimacy, mobilise its supporters and manage perceived threats. It plays a central role in developing policy on highly sensitive issues such as Xinjiang, Tibet, religion and ethnic affairs. It also oversees the CCP-led political model of ‘multiparty cooperation and political consultation’ that’s been in place since 1949.17 This consultation takes place through the annual Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, 中国人民政治协商 会议), which is chaired by the Politburo Standing Committee member responsible for the united front system and attended by more than 2,000 party-approved representatives from different sectors of PRC society.18
The CCP claims that its system of political consultation and multiparty cooperation is a democratic model.19 However, it operates as a way for the CCP to falsely claim that it represents the full breadth of Chinese society. The CCP serves as China’s ruling party while other groups, such as the eight minor political parties (officially known as ‘democratic parties’) that accept the CCP’s leadership, offer advice to it through the CPPCC. Organisations that claim to speak for different interest groups—the China Association for Science and Technology and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, for example—are official components of the CPPCC.20 In practice, those organisations are controlled by the CCP. Their leaders are often party members, and, historically, some have been manipulated through inducement and coercion, including blackmail.21
In recent years, Xi Jinping has been promoting the United Front’s ‘multiparty cooperation and political consultative system’ as a ‘new type of party system’. It also serves as an inspiration for the CCP’s engagement with political parties around the world.22 A 2018 foreign policy editorial by the People’s Daily claimed that Xi Jinping’s ‘systematic elaboration on the super advantages of China’s party system has enlightened the whole world.’23 The chaos of Western societies shows that the CCP ‘is providing the world with … a China solution on how to seek a better political system’, the piece concluded. This point is echoed in training material for united front cadres, which warns that ‘Western hostile forces’ seek to overthrow the CCP and that their influence on overseas ethnic Chinese must be undone.24
The fact that the United Front is a political model and a way for the party to control political representation—the voices of groups targeted by united front work—means its overseas expansion is an exportation of the CCP’s political system. Overseas united front work taken to its conclusion would give the CCP undue influence over political representation and expression in foreign political systems.
Key terminology
The United Front (统一战线) is a coalition of groups and individuals working towards the CCP’s goals.
United front work (统一战线工作) refers to the CCP’s efforts to strengthen and expand the United Front by influencing and co-opting targets.
The United Front Work Department (中央统一战线工作部) is a CCP Central Committee department that coordinates and carries out united front work.
The united front system (统一战线系统 or 统一战线工作系统) is the grouping of agencies, social organisations, businesses, universities, research institutes and individuals carrying out united front work.
United front work is political work
In the words of the UFWD’s director:
The United Front is a political alliance, and united front work is political work. It must maintain the party’s leadership throughout, having the party’s flag as its flag, the party’s direction as its direction, and the party’s will as its will, uniting and gathering members of each part of the United Front around the party.25
It’s designed to bring a diverse range of groups, and their representatives in particular, under the party’s leadership.26
These activities focus on building relationships. Xi Jinping has emphasised that ‘the United Front is about working on people.’27 Co-opting and manipulating elites, influential individuals and organisations is a way to shape discourse and decision-making.
United front work encompasses a broad spectrum of activity, from espionage to foreign interference, influence and engagement (see box). There’s no clear distinction between overseas and domestic work. Premier Zhou Enlai, one of the PRC’s founding revolutionaries and a pioneer of the CCP’s United Front, advocated ‘using the legal to mask the illegal; deftly integrating the legal and the illegal’ (利用合法掩护非法,合法与非法巧妙结合), ‘nestling intelligence within the United Front’ (寓情报于统战中) and ‘using the United Front to push forth intelligence’ (以统战带动情报).28
The scope of united front work is constantly evolving to reflect the CCP’s global ambitions, assessments of internal threats to its security, and the evolution of Chinese society. Today, the overseas functions of united front work include increasing the CCP’s political influence, interfering in the Chinese diaspora, suppressing dissident movements, building a permissive international environment for a takeover of Taiwan, intelligence gathering, encouraging investment in China, and facilitating technology transfer.
Key united front groups and events linked to foreign interference
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference is the peak united front forum, bringing together CCP officials and Chinese elites.
The China Overseas Friendship Association is a group run by the UFWD that recently subsumed the China Overseas Exchange Association.
The China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification is an organ of the UFWD with numerous overseas branches.
The All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese is a peak united front body for ethnic Chinese with overseas links.
The Western Returned Scholars Association is the UFWD’s primary body for interacting with ethnic Chinese scholars and scientists.
The Forum on the Global Chinese Language Media is a biennial meeting of overseas Chinese-language media outlets convened by the UFWD.
Chinese students and scholars associations are overseen by Ministry of Education officials and often seek to speak for, influence and monitor Chinese students abroad.
Local equivalents, such as the provincial Guangdong Overseas Friendship Association, exist for most major united front groups.
To those ends, united front work draws on hundreds of thousands of united front figures and thousands of groups, most of which are inside China. This report refers to members of united front groups—organisations guided or controlled by parts of the united front system—as ‘united front figures’. The most readily identifiable united front groups are China-based organisations officially supervised by united front agencies. For example, the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification—which has chapters in at least 91 countries or territories around the world—and the China Overseas Friendship Association are both directed by the UFWD.29 Members of China-based united front groups often run united front groups abroad. Many China-based united front groups have overseas branches.
Citations and Notes
Readers are urged to download the report PDF for the full list of citations and notes.
United front work: a Xi family business
United front work runs deep through Xi Jinping’s life and family history. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was a central figure carrying out united front work directed at Tibet, seeking to influence the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. As a Politburo member in the 1980s, he continued to spend most of his time supervising united front work. He was reportedly seen still wearing a watch given to him by the Dalai Lama three decades earlier.30 Two of Xi Jinping’s siblings were involved in political warfare work for the Chinese military.31
Xi Jinping himself spent 15 years climbing the CCP ranks in Fujian Province—a hotbed of united front and intelligence work targeting Taiwan and the Hokkien-speaking diaspora. In 1995, as a municipal party secretary, he penned a paper on united front work on the Chinese diaspora.32
Two decades later, in 2015, Xi moved to implement many of the ideas he advocated in the paper— greater emphasis on united front work by the party’s leadership and the integration of efforts across the party and bureaucracy. That year, at the Central United Front Work Conference, he repeated Mao Zedong’s famous 1939 description of the United Front as one of three ‘magic weapons’ (法宝) for achieving victory in the communist revolution.33 This was nothing new. Party leaders since the founding of the PRC have consistently run united front conferences and emphasised the United Front as a ‘magic weapon’, with the exception of the Cultural Revolution period.34 But, unlike his predecessors, Xi Jinping has reinvigorated the United Front by launching the greatest reforms of the united front system in at least a generation.
The December 2014 purge of Ling Jihua (令计划), who headed the UFWD and was a close ally of former president Hu Jintao, set the scene for Xi Jinping’s reform of the united front system.35 After positioning Ling as a scapegoat for the department’s problems, Xi began pursuing the ‘Great United Front’ (大统战)—a program for ensuring that united front work is carried out by the entire party and with greater centralisation, coordination and direction.36 He established a ‘leading small group’ for united front work that brought together dozens of agencies to inspect and improve united front work across the country, formally raised the status of the Central United Front Work Conference, reorganised the UFWD, and introduced the first regulations for united front work.37
In his report to the 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping referred to the United Front as being about drawing the largest concentric circle around the party.38 Under the direction of the united front system’s leaders, agencies of the united front system seek to co-opt influential individuals and groups in a range of areas, including business, politics and science. Party committees, whether in multinational companies, research institutes or embassies, have been directed by Xi to follow the Central Committee’s directions and regulations on united front work.39 Figure 1 shows the system.
Figure 1: The united front system
* Asterisks denote agencies subordinate to the UFWD.
Leadership and agencies
Figure 2: Wang Yang
The united front system’s leader is Wang Yang (汪洋), the fourth-ranked member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top leadership body. Wang chairs the most important united front forum: the CPPCC. He also heads the Central United Front Work Leading Small Group.
Sun Chunlan (孙春兰), a Politburo member and vice premier who holds culture, health, sport, religion and education portfolios, may also be involved in supervising the government’s (as opposed to the party’s) contributions to united front work.40 Sun was previously head of the UFWD and currently chairs the council of Confucius Institute Headquarters, overseeing the global Confucius Institute program.41
The presence of State Council Secretary-General Xiao Jie (肖捷) at a recent leading small group event indicates that he may now be responsible for government agencies’ involvement in united front work.42
The status of the UFWD’s director, a key member of the system’s leadership, has been elevated in recent years. You Quan, the current head of the UFWD, is one of seven members of the Central Secretariat, which carries out the Politburo’s day-to-day work.43 His predecessor sat on the Politburo while heading the department.
Leaders of the united front system and representatives of relevant agencies sit in the Central United Front Work Leading Small Group.44 At least 26 agencies were represented in the leading small group’s activities in 2017.45 Agencies involved in united front work include the Propaganda Department, the Organisation Department, the Ministry of Education, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of State Security, which is the PRC’s civilian intelligence agency.46
The United Front Work Department
‘With everyone doing [united front work] together, there must be division of labour’, a senior UFWD official wrote in 2016.47 The UFWD acts as a coordinating agency for united front work. In practice, China’s bureaucracy is famously stovepiped and it’s difficult to determine how successful the UFWD’s coordination efforts are.
The CCP Central Committee has authorised the department to manage all overseas Chinese affairs, religious affairs and ethnic affairs work. Nominally, it oversees actions by other departments, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in those areas. Since March 2018, it has controlled three relevant government agencies: the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and the State Administration for Religious Affairs.48
Together with the Taiwan Affairs Office, the UFWD and 11 of its subordinate agencies had more than 600 officials at the level of bureau chief or above in 2016 (Figure 3). Bureau chiefs are ranked just under vice ministers and deputy heads of provincial governments. They’re roughly equivalent to first assistant secretaries in the Australian Public Service or assistant secretaries in the US Government.49
Figure 3: The UFWD’s 12 bureaus
*Asterisks denote unofficially named bureaus. Note: Bureaus 6 and 8–12 were all created after 2015.
The UFWD runs the offices of the central coordination groups on Tibet and Xinjiang affairs and coordinates policy on the two regions.50 The establishment of the UFWD’s Xinjiang Bureau, which doubles as the office of the Central Coordination Group on Xinjiang Work (中央新疆工作协调小组), coincided with the rapid expansion of re-education and detention camps there in 2016. United front work departments are found at lower levels of government across China. Provincial, city and even district party committees typically oversee their own UFWDs.
Internally, the department has 10 leaders, at least six of whom hold ministerial rank or higher (see Appendix 1 for further information about the department’s leaders). It has 12 bureaus, half of which were created after 2015. Bureaucratic changes in 2018 that brought overseas Chinese affairs under the UFWD’s ‘unified management’ also injected dozens if not hundreds of officials with substantial overseas experience into the department.51 Jinan University, Huaqiao University and the Central Institute of Socialism in Beijing are all subordinate to the UFWD and carry out research and training to support its efforts.52 Additionally, the UFWD runs dedicated training facilities, such as the Jixian Mountain Estate (集贤山庄), which is a complex in the outskirts of Beijing used for training China Overseas Friendship Association cadres.53
The department supervises more than 80 ‘civil groups’ at the national level, and more than 3,000 organisations are overseen by local UFWDs (see Appendix 2). Many of them, such as the China Overseas Friendship Association, are officially described as ‘united front system work units’ and operate like bureau-level organs of the UFWD.54 At least two of them have held special consultative status as NGOs in the UN Economic and Social Council.55 In 2014, an official from one of them, the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture (中国西藏文化保护与发展 协会), was barred from a UN human rights hearing after he intimidated a woman testifying about her father, political prisoner Wang Bingzhang.56
Propaganda work by the United Front Work Department
The UFWD commands substantial resources for propaganda efforts targeting the Chinese diaspora. It runs China News Service (中国新闻社), one of the CCP’s largest media networks, which has dozens of overseas bureaus.57
Several overseas Chinese-language media outlets are owned or controlled by the UFWD through China News Service, including Qiaobao (侨报) in the US and Australia’s Pacific Media Group (大洋传 媒集团).58 At least 26 WeChat accounts run by nine Chinese media outlets are in fact registered to a subsidiary of China News Service.59 The accounts operate in all Five Eyes countries, the European Union, Russia, Japan and Brazil. They include accounts registered to Qiaobao and Pacific Media Group, indicating that they may all belong to companies supervised by the UFWD. Many of the accounts appear to have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of followers.
Figure 4: At least 26 overseas Chinese-language media WeChat accounts are registered to a company that’s ultimately owned by the UFWD
China News Service engages with foreign media through its biennial Forum on the Global Chinese Language Media (世界华文媒体论坛). The event has drawn hundreds of overseas media representatives, including some from Australia’s national broadcaster.60 Training classes on topics such as ‘How to tell the Belt and Road Initiative’s story well’ are held on the sidelines of the forum.61
Agencies carrying out united front work
Party committees at all levels must place united front work in an important position.
—Xi Jinping, speaking at the 2015 Central United Front Work Conference62
Party members are expected to play a role in the ‘Great United Front’ by carrying out work in their relevant areas.63 Dozens of party and government agencies are involved in united front work. More and more party committees in state and private companies, universities and research institutes are engaging in united front work. Representatives of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also attended the 2015 Central United Front Work Conference, indicating that the military is involved in united front work.64
Education
The Ministry of Education and party committees in Chinese universities lead united front work on campuses.65 The ministry works with the UFWD to hold regular conferences on ‘university united front work’ and maintains its own database of united front work targets, including relatives of overseas Chinese.66 Education officials also study official guidance on united front work and describe the education system as ‘an important battlefield’ for that work.67
Most Chinese universities have UFWDs responsible for the full breadth of united front work.68 For example, Xiamen University’s UFWD oversees religious affairs work at the university, which includes building a database of religious believers, managing student informants and monitoring students’ phones.69 Dalian University of Foreign Languages’ UFWD establishes alumni associations around the world and runs a database of overseas students and alumni as ‘a basis for overseas united front work’.70
Foreign affairs
United front work targeting the Chinese diaspora involves several agencies. Major ‘overseas Chinese affairs’ events are usually presided over by representatives of:
the UFWD (or the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office that it subsumed in 2018)
the National People’s Congress Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee
the CPPCC Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Overseas Chinese Committee
the China Zhi Gong Party (致公党)
the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.71
The first five of those organisations are often called the ‘five Overseas Chinese’ (五侨).72 Most, if not all, of China’s embassies have several diplomats tasked with interfering in the diaspora— a kind of activity that’s officially under the ‘unified management’ of the UFWD.73 The decision to place diaspora affairs under the UFWD’s leadership came in March 2018 and ‘effectively resolved the problem of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UFWD’s overlapping responsibilities’, according to the People’s Daily.74 Embassies hold meetings with local united front leaders where the leaders receive directions to influence public opinion, such as by coordinating rallies in support of Chinese Government policy or visiting officials.75
Increasing numbers of diplomats responsible for diaspora work now come from the UFWD rather than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For example, China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka has a background not in the foreign affairs system but as a united front official.76
Indeed, the UFWD was an important foundation for China’s foreign affairs bureaucracy. The International Liaison Department (the party agency managing party-to-party relations) was formed on the basis of a UFWD bureau in 1951.77 The International Liaison Department still has united front characteristics, although it isn’t known whether any of its activities are guided by the united front system.78 A former head of the department from the 1990s stated that he views its work as an international version of united front work. In an interview, he compared its interactions with foreign political parties to the CPPCC—the primary platform for the United Front’s so-called ‘system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation led by the CCP’.79
Intelligence and political warfare
Intelligence agencies carry out and take advantage of united front work. The networks, status and relationships built through united front work, as well as information gathered through it, facilitate intelligence activity. The integration of intelligence and united front work runs deep through the party’s history: at a 1939 Politburo meeting, CCP leader Zhou Enlai advocated ‘nestling intelligence in the United Front’ and ‘using the United Front to push forth intelligence’.80
The Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is China’s civilian intelligence agency, is involved in and benefits from united front work. Official accounts state that the MSS was created in 1983 by combining parts of four agencies, including the UFWD.81 One of its fronts, the China International Cultural Exchange Center (中国国际文化交流中心), carries out united front work. In 2004, a committee member at the centre said that the scope of its ‘domestic and overseas united front work activities is extremely broad’.82 At the time, its nominal director was a former UFWD minister.83
The China International Cultural Exchange Center may have been an important part of the MSS’s overseas operations. It’s linked to the MSS’s Social Affairs Bureau (社会联络局 or 社会调查局), also known as the 12th bureau. In their book Chinese communist espionage, Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil describe the bureau as handling ‘MSS contributions to the CCP’s united front work system’.84 One of the bureau’s former chiefs, Mao Guohua (毛国华), was double-hatted as the centre’s secretary-general (Figure 5).85 Mao was the handler of Katrina Leung, a triple agent who successfully gained the trust of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1980s and 1990s.86
Figure 5: Retired MSS officer Mao Guohua in 2018
Source: ‘前国安部社会调查局局长说, “奉化的长处的短板是。。。。。。”’ [The former chief of the Social Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of State Security said, ‘The shortcomings of Fenghua’s strengths are …’], Sohu, 15 October 2018, online.
Similarly, the political warfare arm of the PLA—the Political Work Department Liaison Bureau (政治工 作部联络局), formerly the Liaison Department of the General Political Department (总参谋政治部联 络部)—has been described by experts as ‘most closely aligned with the united front system’.87 Like the International Liaison Department, this agency uses united front tactics (such as the use of prominent front groups, an emphasis on co-opting influential individuals, and efforts to discredit those who aren’t aligned with the CCP’s goals) but it’s unlikely that it’s part of the institutionalised united front system. The China Association for International Friendly Contact (中国国际友好联络会) is a united-front-style group run by the Liaison Bureau that seeks to build ties with foreign groups and individuals. Those it has interacted with include an Australian mining magnate, a former Australian ambassador to China, a new-age religious movement in Japan, and retired generals and bureaucrats from the US.88
Intelligence officers have used united front positions as cover. The overseas Chinese affairs consul in San Francisco during the 2008 Olympic torch relay was a suspected MSS officer, according to former US intelligence officials.89 Guangdong State Security Bureau Director Zhou Yingshi (周颖石) may have claimed to be a Guangdong UFWD vice minister as a form of cover in the past.90 An officer from the PLA’s Liaison Bureau was concurrently serving as a division head in Guangzhou city’s UFWD.91
There’s also evidence that the UFWD itself has recently carried out clandestine operations involving the handling of people covertly reporting to it. The Taiwanese Government is currently prosecuting a father–son pair who were allegedly recruited by an official from the Fujian Province UFWD.92 The father heads a united-front-linked political party in Taiwan, while his son is a retired lieutenant colonel.
Unverified reports have claimed that, like China’s intelligence agencies, the department is allowed to recruit Taiwanese as agents.93
Groups targeted by united front work
CCP regulations on united front work define 12 broad groups to be targeted:
new social strata individuals (urban professionals)
overseas and returned overseas students
people in Hong Kong and Macau
Taiwanese people and their relatives in the PRC
overseas ethnic Chinese and their relatives in the PRC
any other individuals who need uniting and liaising.94
Work on the targeted groups is designed to bring them under the party’s leadership not merely to neutralise any opposition they may pose, but also to have them serve as platforms for further efforts.
Once groups or individuals have been integrated into the united front system, they can be used to co-opt and influence others. They’re also used to support the party’s claim that it represents and consults various constituencies not just in China but increasingly beyond China’s borders.
There’s no clear distinction between domestic and overseas united front work: all bureaus of the UFWD and all areas of united front work involve overseas activities. This is because the key distinction underlying the United Front is not between domestic and overseas groups, but between the CCP and everyone else.95 For example, the UFWD’s Xinjiang Bureau plays a central role in policy on Xinjiang but is also involved in worldwide efforts to whitewash the CCP’s internment of an estimated 1.5 million people in Xinjiang, primarily ethnic Uyghur Muslims, as an anti-terrorism and vocational training effort.96
State-owned enterprises and research institutions often have mature united front work departments.
For example, Baowu Steel (宝武钢铁), one of the world’s largest steel producers, has an internal UFWD and has established united front organisations for Taiwanese people and ethnic Chinese who have lived abroad.97 The company’s united front work evidently earned it praise—its CEO from 2007 to 2016 has been a UFWD vice minister since 2017.98
Large numbers of leading Chinese scientists were educated abroad and are members of China’s eight minor parties or have no party affiliation, making them another priority of united front work.99 The Chinese Academy of Sciences—one of the world’s largest research organisations, with more than 60,000 researchers—has a UFWD and a united front work leading small group that provides oversight of the academy’s united front work.100
Both Chinese and foreign private enterprises are increasingly targeted by united front work. In 2015, ‘new social strata individuals’—a category covering urban professionals such as managerial staff and NGO workers—became a new focus of united front work because of their growing influence in Chinese society and strong links to the West.101 For example, JD.com, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, is an official pilot site for united front work in private companies. In 2018, CEO Richard Liu announced the establishment of two united front groups within JD.com (Figure 6).102
Figure 6: Richard Liu (right) unveiling a plaque for JD.com’s united front work pilot site
‘Multinational companies such as the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms are also targets of united front work.103 Deloitte China established a united front association for young and middle-aged employees in 2016, headed by its CEO.104 At the association’s founding, a Deloitte partner thanked the UFWD for its support and promised: ‘The Deloitte Young and Middle-aged Intellectuals Association will comply with the Trial Regulations on United Front Work’.105
According to a government website, the Shanghai UFWD ‘took a liking’ (看上了) to a Deloitte partner, Jiang Ying, during its visits to Deloitte’s office.106 Senior members of China-based united front organisations are typically selected by local UFWDs. Jiang is now deputy CEO of Deloitte China, is a delegate to the CPPCC and was recently awarded a commendation from the Shanghai UFWD.107
In total, at least eight Deloitte China executives are delegates to the CPPCC or its local equivalents.108
United front structures within multinational companies provide additional channels for influencing the companies beyond party committees. United front groups often target people who aren’t members of the CCP, especially those who have spent time abroad. Under the ‘Trial regulations on united front work’, the UFWD is supposed to direct ‘relevant civil organisations’, such as Deloitte’s united front group, ‘to play a role in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas united front work’.109 After anonymous employees of the Big Four paid for a Hong Kong newspaper ad supporting protests there, all four companies released statements in support of the Chinese Government’s actions and were pressured to fire those responsible for the ad.110
In 2017, Deloitte partnered with the Australian Financial Review for an infrastructure forum in Melbourne, at which a Deloitte China executive who is also a delegate to the Shandong Committee of the CPPCC warned that Australia’s refusal to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative was hurting business.111 His role in the united front group doesn’t seem to have been disclosed in the conference agenda.
Figure 7: Deloitte China Deputy CEO Jiang Ying at the CPPCC.
Source: ‘德勤声音——全国政协委员蒋颖在两会上踊跃谏言 多份提案吸引媒体高度关注’ [Deloitte’s voice—CPPCC member Vivian Jiang enthusiastically offers advice at the two sessions], Deloitte, no date, online.
Foreign interference and the united front system
This section of the report describes several aspects of united front work abroad, and particularly efforts to influence politics and think tanks, collect data and transfer technology. United front work generally involves covert activity and is a form of interference that aids the CCP’s rise and reduces resistance to its encroachment on sovereignty.112
It will be important for future studies to examine overseas united front work in Asia, North America and Europe. Efforts targeting scientific communities, religious groups and Chinese-language education remain understudied. Outside of Australia, New Zealand and the Czech Republic, there are very few detailed country-specific studies of influence and technology-transfer efforts linked to the united front system.113
Many CCP agencies, such as the International Liaison Department, the MSS, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the PLA, engage in their own foreign interference efforts. Those activities often overlap with or take advantage of those of the united front system, and draw on the tradition of united front work, but they’re probably carried out independently.
Political influence
When it seeks to build political influence, united front work primarily targets political actors rather than political systems. Democracies subjected to united front work might retain democratic structures and processes, while representation and political participation are ultimately manipulated by the CCP.
Independent researcher Jichang Lulu has referred to this as a process of ‘repurposing democracy’ (see box).114
Understanding CCP influence, a prerequisite to any sound policy formulation, thus necessitates the analysis of the foreign activities of China’s entire political system, rather than decontextualised aspects of the work of its more familiar agencies. Such analysis would be vitiated by an a priori compartmentalisation guided by, e.g., distinctions between ‘influence’ and ‘interference’, ‘benign’ and ‘malign’, or ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’. While relevant to target-country policy responses, such categories may not be useful in the actors’ Leninist context. A narrow focus on the hostile leaves much influence work unaccounted for. Influence work as described in this study does not seek to disrupt democratic structures, but to repurpose them as tools facilitating the advancement of the policies of a totalitarian, expansionist régime.
—Jichang Lulu, Repurposing democracy: The European Parliament China Friendship Cluster, Sinopsis, 26 November 2019, online.
The role of the CCP in these activities is often covert. United front figures typically deny any links to the united front system. Australian-Chinese businessman and political donor Chau Chak Wing, for example, claimed he had never heard of the UFWD, despite mentioning it in a speech and being pictured meeting with its officials.115
Ethnic Chinese communities are a focus of united front work.116 In activities directed at diaspora communities, the CCP seeks to co-opt, control and install community leaders, community groups, business associations and media. It seeks to collapse the diversity of Chinese communities into a fictional homogeneous and ‘patriotic’ group united under the party’s leadership.117 Successful united front work wedges the party between ethnic Chinese communities and the societies they live in, expanding the party’s control of those communities’ channels for representation and mobilisation.
Members of Chinese communities who want to participate in community activities may unwittingly become associated with united front groups. Combined with the party’s surveillance and censorship of the Chinese social media app WeChat, this has smothered independent Chinese media outlets and community groups.118
Interference in Chinese communities harms genuine and independent political participation in politics by ethnic Chinese. In countries such as Australia, where united front work is quite mature, it’s proven difficult for politicians to avoid associating with united front groups and implicitly legitimising them as representatives of the broader Chinese community.119 For example, both major party candidates for a seat in parliament during the 2019 Australian federal election had reportedly either been members of united front groups or had travelled on united-front-sponsored trips to China.120 Both contenders for leadership of the NSW Labor Party in 2019 had attended events run by united-front-linked groups.121
Case study: Huang Xiangmo
Huang Xiangmo (黄向墨) is one of the most informative cases of united-front-linked influence efforts.
Ironically, his active efforts to influence Australian politics became a catalyst for the Australian Government’s introduction of counter foreign interference legislation and his own expulsion from the country.
Huang, also known by his legal name, Huang Changran (黄畅然), was born in 1969 in a small village in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong Province. According to a hagiographic account of his life published in 2012, he grew up in poverty and left school at an early age.122 Despite that, he worked hard and read widely. In 1998, he was working for the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation.123 He soon founded a property development company named after his home village, Yuhu, and prospered amid rapid economic growth in the province.124
By 2012, Huang was ranked as China’s 420th richest person, worth an estimated Ұ4.5 billion (roughly A$700 million at the time).125 He also donated generously to public projects—specifically, those favoured by the Jieyang Party Secretary, Chen Hongping (陈弘平), such as the massive Han dynasty-inspired Jieyang Tower in the city’s central square.126 Huang also gained social standing, reflected in his appointment to the Jieyang People’s Political Consultative Conference—the city’s peak united front forum.127
In July 2012, Huang’s allies ran up against the CCP’s anticorruption machine. Party Secretary Chen was taken into the extralegal ‘shuanggui’ investigation process.128 Five years later, Chen received a suspended death sentence for corruption.129 He took down at least six associates, including the Guangzhou Party Secretary, with him.130 Among his sins, the People’s Daily reported, was his obsession with grand cultural and spiritual projects, including the Jieyang Tower and a lavish personal mausoleum.131 The next year, 17 police officials in Jieyang were fired, under suspicion of tipping off suspects about investigations.132
Shortly before the scandal erupted, Huang Xiangmo began relocating to Australia, building an investment portfolio in Sydney and purchasing a $12.8 million mansion. It’s reported that several business associates followed him, buying nearby properties provided they were cheaper and lower down the hill than his. Huang denies being involved in the Jieyang corruption case.133
It would be nearly a decade before Huang was next spotted in the Chinese mainland. However, his connections to Chinese authorities didn’t end with the corruption case and his arrival in Australia.
As early as February 2012, Huang became an honorary president of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (ACPPRC, 澳洲中国和平统一促进会), despite having no known substantial links to Australia before then.134 The reunification council is closely linked to the UFWD-run China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification, which promotes the PRC’s annexation of Taiwan.135 Huang eventually became president of the Australian reunification council and a senior director of the UFWD-run China Council.136 The China Council’s president is Wang Yang, the Politburo Standing Committee member who oversees the united front system. Its senior vice president is the UFWD minister.137
As Philip Wen and Lucy Macken wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016, ‘Huang arrived in Australia in near-total obscurity. But big spending and relentless networking behind closed doors has seen him swiftly ingratiate himself with Australia’s most powerful politicians’.138
After arriving in Australia, Huang hired long-time ACPPRC member Eng Joo Ang (洪永裕) as an adviser to his company. Ang accompanied Huang as he met with former prime minister Kevin Rudd in December 2012 (Figure 8).
Sam Dastyari, then general secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party, also appeared at the meeting.139 Dastyari was known as a prolific fundraiser, and his relationship with and patronage from Huang Xiangmo led to the downfall of both. As Dastyari later said, ‘There is an arms race for donations between the parties. And when you’ve got individuals like Huang who are prepared to fork out millions of dollars they get listened to.’140
Figure 8: Eng Joo Ang, Kevin Rudd, Huang Xiangmo and Sam Dastyari, December 2012
Huang and his companies, associates and employees donated a total of over $3 million to both sides of politics.141 He also stepped in to pay a legal bill for Sam Dastyari, by then a senator.142 Another businessman—a CPPCC delegate and member of the UFWD’s China Overseas Friendship Association— helped Dastyari settle the difference when the senator overspent his parliamentary travel budget.143 Huang also partnered with CCP agencies, including the International Liaison Department, to organise and sponsor parliamentarians to travel to China.144
Former prime minister Rudd was only one in a long list of political figures with whom Huang networked. Huang secured meetings with the prime minister and opposition leader. At least four political figures—a former New South Wales Labor general secretary, a former New South Wales Labor treasurer, a former federal Liberal minister, and a former media adviser to a different federal Liberal minister—were hired by Huang and helped him build influence.145 Senior representatives of both major parties attended his daughter’s wedding in 2016.146
It seems that politicians treated Huang Xiangmo as a wealthy Chinese community leader and didn’t think too much about the political objectives contained in the very name of the reunification council he ran. Rather than alerting politicians to his links to the CCP, Huang’s leadership of united front groups was misinterpreted as a marker of his influence among Chinese-Australians. When Huang took over leadership of the reunification council when its original president died in 2015, senior Liberal Party politician Philip Ruddock appeared to gloss over the council’s founding purpose, remarking that it ‘has a rather strange name … Some people are very interested in the title. My emphasis is always on “peaceful”’.147
Roughly a dozen reunification council members have stood for election or gained jobs as political staffers. Chief among them was Ernest Wong (王国忠), whose predecessor in the New South Wales Legislative Council house was hired by Huang’s company.148 In a 2014 article attributed to him, he copied, word for word, advice on political participation from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office—a core united front system agency that’s since been absorbed by the UFWD.149 In a line that also appears verbatim in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office document, the article recommends: ‘[one of the ways for Chinese to participate in politics is] by pushing changes in policy and influencing government positions by working on politicians and elites.’150 Wong held positions in several united front bodies in both China and Australia and was reportedly a target of cultivation by Chinese intelligence officers.151
Consistent with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office’s guidance, Wong and Huang sought to mentor young Chinese-Australians with political aspirations.152 The pair organised the Australia Young Leadership Forum for Chinese university students, which worked to train future political talent.153
Huang also engaged in philanthropic activities and gave generously to universities. He established centres in two Australian universities: the Australia–China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney and the Australia–China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Huang claimed to have personally selected a former Australian foreign minister as director of ACRI, which has attracted controversy since its founding in 2014.154 ACRI hosted a senior united front official in 2016 and also organised trips to China, supported by the Propaganda Department, for Australian journalists.155
Figure 9: Huang Xiangmo, surrounded by leaders of the reunification council and the Australia China Economics, Trade and Culture Association, shakes hands with Politburo member and former UFWD director Liu Yandong in 2012
Source: ‘Liu Yandong, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Australian overseas Chinese’, news release, Yuhu Group, 19 December 2012, online.
Huang caught the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation’s attention by 2015. That year, the agency’s director-general reportedly warned about Huang’s potential links to the CCP in briefings to Australian political parties.156
As investigative journalists began scrutinising Huang’s activities, his transactional dealings with political parties became clearer. In 2016, Huang reportedly withdrew a promised $400,000 donation to the Labor Party after its defence spokesman criticised China’s militarisation of the South China Sea.157
The next week, Senator Dastyari stood beside Huang at a press conference for Chinese-language media and urged Australia to remain neutral in the territorial dispute, which he described as ‘China’s own affair’.158
Dastyari eventually quit politics after it emerged that he’d warned Huang that Huang’s phone was probably bugged.159 Dastyari admitted in 2019 that Huang may have been an ‘agent of influence’ for the Chinese Government.160
Public figures began distancing themselves from Huang and his reunification council as controversy surrounding him grew. Several members had their names removed from the group’s public membership list.161 A Victorian state politician who had previously been a member of the council said, ‘I know what this organisation is about so I keep 100 miles from them.’162 Tim Xu, a former assistant to Huang, testified in 2019 that the reunification council is a front for the CCP.163
According to media reporting, some of Huang’s associates may have been involved in organised criminal activity. In July 2019, it was reported that two of Huang’s reunification council members were running illegal gambling junkets for Crown Casino and involved in money laundering. Huang himself gambled $800 million in one year with Crown Casino.164 In October, the Australian Taxation Office accused him of underpaying tax by $140 million, ordering his assets to be frozen.165
The growing scrutiny of Huang’s activities culminated in his residency in Australia being canceled while he was in Hong Kong. His citizenship application was denied and his residency rescinded after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation reportedly concluded that he was ‘amenable to conducting acts of foreign interference’.166 Huang later complained to the state-owned Global Times that Australia has ‘the innate characteristics of a giant baby’.167
Huang’s story, however, hasn’t ended. His political donations, some of which were allegedly disguised through proxies, are being investigated by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption.168 In May 2019, Huang reappeared in mainland China for the first time in years—as a delegate to a united front meeting attended by Xi Jinping.169 In November 2019, Wang Liqiang, a Chinese defector to Australia, alleged that Huang had met with a PLA intelligence officer.170 Wang is now being sued by a former reunification council member.171 Huang’s networks, and united front networks more generally, are still active in Australia, and more than 120 organisations protested his expulsion.172
Recognising united front groups
There’s no foolproof way to identify a united front group, but the following activities may indicate that an organisation is associated with the united front system:
Its executives hold positions in China-based united front groups.
It advocates for the ‘reunification’ of China.
It associates frequently with the local PRC diplomatic mission.
It participates in pro-PRC political rallies.
It hosts visiting CCP officials from the united front system.
It issues statements or holds events in coordination with known united front groups.
Asking a knowledgeable friend in the Chinese community for advice can also be helpful.
Because of the opacity of some aspects of united front work, it’s difficult to know the degree of direction party officials exercise over united front figures. Even within each overseas united front group there appears to be variation in the relationships that members and executives have with PRC officials. To the extent that they’re directed, many of their united front activities are likely to be supervised by provincial or even municipal UFWDs, some of which have a greater overseas focus than the central UFWD.
It’s also possible that a small number of united front figures are ultimately directed by the MSS or PLA as intelligence assets, using united front work as a platform for intelligence activity. The two organisations are better resourced for and more experienced in serious political interference work than the UFWD.173 Both have records of using united front roles as cover. They may also be better positioned to wield leverage over individuals who are wanted for crimes in China.
Nonetheless, many united front figures aren’t acting spontaneously out of patriotic sentiments and an independent desire to please Beijing. Overseas united front figures frequently meet with united front system officials, receive directions and study relevant guidance. A Sydney man reportedly set up the Australian Jiangsu China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification (澳洲江苏中国和平统一 促进会) at the direction of a senior UFWD official.174 The Australian Guangxi Business Association (澳洲 广西总商会) was reportedly founded in 2011 under the ‘coordination’ of a provincial UFWD.175
When the PLA Navy made a visit to Sydney Harbour on 3 June 2019, a day before the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, it was met by a welcoming crowd from the Sydney Beijing Association (悉尼北京会) bearing a custom-made banner.176 The visit hadn’t been publicly announced, indicating that the group had been notified beforehand by the Chinese Government.
In July 2015, the president of a Sydney-based association said his group ‘will strengthen its use of Xi Jinping’s spirit at the Central United Front Work Conference to go further in demonstrating our special characteristics’.177
In Australia and Taiwan, the CCP has used organised crime groups to carry out united front work.178
Several cases suggest that criminal activity may be tolerated by the Chinese Government and even used as leverage in exchange for participation in political influence operations.179 For example, media have reported that a prolific gambling junket operator involved in money laundering also runs three prominent united front groups in Melbourne, one of which is officially endorsed by the UFWD, and served as an honorary president of the ACPPRC.180 At the same time, he was a business partner of a former adviser to the Victorian Premier.181
In 2008, Sydney man Frank Hu (胡扬) was charged with importing 250 kilograms of cocaine.182
However, Hu was known to the public as a ‘Chinese community leader’ who was close to the PRC Consulate and ran a cultural association that took parliamentarians on tours of China.183 Similarly, Chang An-lo (张安乐), a Taiwanese gangster also known as ‘White Wolf’, is the founder of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party. The party has been raided by the Taiwan Government as part of investigations into political parties illegally accepting money from the Chinese Government.184
The lack of any clear distinction between domestic and overseas united front work means that changes in how that work is carried out in China could have important implications for foreign interference. While the UFWD has long worked with Chinese security agencies, links between those worlds appear to be deepening.185 In 2018, Ministry of Public Security Vice Minister Shi Jun was reassigned as a UFWD vice minister and now oversees the department’s work on Xinjiang.186 The UFWD plays a central role in the securitisation of Xinjiang, including the disappearance of approximately 1.5 million Uyghurs and other minorities into concentration camps.187 It has worked with the National Counter-Terrorism Office on security in the lead-up to major political meetings and runs campaigns with the MSS and the Ministry of Public Security to crack down on Christianity.188 This may foreshadow an increase in the brazenness, intolerance and intensity of united front work abroad, helped by the party’s increased ability to coordinate and direct that work.189
Case study: The British Chinese Project
The kinds of united front work observed in Australia, the US190 and New Zealand191 can be clearly seen in other Five Eyes countries and across Europe. In the UK, for example, the British Chinese Project (BC Project, 英国华人参政计划) is a group that says it seeks to foster the political participation of ethnic Chinese and build their influence on policy.192 It provides advice to, and acts as the secretariat for, the All-Party Parliamentary Chinese in Britain Group. The parliamentary group had six members in 2018.193
However, the BC Project’s close links to the united front system call into question its independence and ability to genuinely represent ethnic Chinese. Its chair and founder, Christine Lee (李贞驹), is an executive member of the China Overseas Friendship Association and a committee member of the CPPCC, which are both run by the UFWD (Figure 10).194 Lee is also a legal adviser to several Chinese Government organs, including the Chinese Embassy in London, the UFWD’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.195 Her law firm claims to be the only British one authorised by the Chinese Government to practise as a foreign law firm in China.196
Figure 10: Christine Lee at a 2019 united front meeting for overseas Chinese. United front system leader Wang Yang is seated directly in front of her.
Source: ‘Xi Jinping meets with representatives of the Ninth Conference for Friendship of Overseas Chinese Associations and the Fifth Council of China Overseas Friendship Association’, YouTube, 28 May 2019, online.
Since 2009, Lee has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Labour Party shadow secretary of state for international trade Barry Gardiner.197 Reports by The Times in February 2017 scrutinised Lee and Gardiner’s relationship, but appeared to have little effect on their activities.198 Lee’s son, Daniel Wilkes, has worked for Gardiner since 2015.199 Gardiner has been the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Chinese in Britain Group since its inception in 2011.200
As shadow energy secretary, Gardiner was an outspoken advocate of a controversial proposal for Chinese Government involvement in the Hinkley Point nuclear reactor project. He argued that it was important to sign the agreement to show the UK’s acceptance of Chinese investment, even if it was a bad deal in financial terms.201 The Chinese partner on Hinkley Point, China General Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC), is a state-owned nuclear company that’s been involved in espionage and is subject to a US Government export ban because of its history of diverting nuclear technology to the Chinese military.202 The US Government has warned that CGNPC uses nuclear technology to aid the Chinese military, including through the development of floating nuclear reactors and reactors for submarines.
Technology transfer
The united front system is a central component of the PRC’s legal and illicit technology-transfer efforts.
United front technology-transfer efforts seek to establish or co-opt professional associations with members in universities, governments and private companies. The groups then help recruit overseas scientists and promote technology transfer to China.203 Some of them are also tasked with building databases on overseas scientists.204 The role of the united front system in technology transfer will be detailed in a forthcoming report by the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre.
Exemplifying the united front system’s involvement in technology-transfer efforts, the UFWD’s Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA, 欧美同学会) runs the official association for participants in the Thousand Talents Plan (千人计划专家联谊会), which is a flagship CCP talent recruitment program for foreign scientists.205 China’s Minister of Science and Technology from 2007 to 2018 was also a senior united front official and chair of the Zhi Gong Party (致公党), which is a minor party supervised by the UFWD that draws its membership from Chinese who have returned from abroad.206
The party and country respect the choices of overseas students. If you return to China to work, we will open our arms to warmly welcome you. If you stay abroad, we will support you to serve the country through various means. Everyone must remember: no matter where you are, you are sons and daughters of China.
—Xi Jinping, in his speech to the Western Returned Scholars Association, 2013
Some united-front-linked overseas professional associations have been implicated in economic espionage. For example, Yang Chunlai (杨春来), a programmer at a US mercantile exchange company, was convicted in 2015 of trade secret theft after stealing source code to set up a business in China. Yang had been president of the USA Association of Chinese Scientists and Engineers, which frequently meets with united front officials, and served on an advisory committee to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.207
In 2006, Yang visited Beijing for a ‘young overseas Chinese leaders’ united front training course.208
During the course, he said that his employer would never outsource work on its proprietary source code, but that ‘everyone is still looking for a suitable entrepreneurial opportunity to return to China.’ Three years after the training course, an opportunity may have presented itself when he met an investment and talent recruitment delegation from a Chinese county government. The source code he later stole, some of which he sent to the county government, was meant to help grow the business he established in the county’s free trade zone.209
More than a dozen groups in Australia are involved in technology transfer and talent recruitment work for the Chinese Government.210 For example, the Federation of Chinese Scholars in Australia (全澳华人专家学者联合会) was established in 2004 to promote scientific exchange between Australia and China. Its organising meeting was held in the PRC Embassy’s Education Office. Speaking at its founding, the Chinese Ambassador expressed her hope that its ‘experts and scholars would be able to transfer advanced technology achievements to China.’211 The federation and many of its members are associated with united front system organs, such as the WRSA.212 Its hundreds of members include several senior university officials and professors, most of whom have joined Chinese government talent recruitment programs.
Data collection
United front work is supported by the united front system’s growing use of information technology.
United front groups can build databases that may support the CCP’s political influence and technology-transfer efforts. For example, the Melbourne Huaxing Arts Group (墨尔本华兴艺术团) writes biannual reports back to the UFWD, keeps a database of political figures, public figures, and community groups, and has internal ‘secrecy regulations’.213 One part of the united front system even claims to hold data on 2.2 million ethnic Chinese scientists abroad.214 The Chinese Government has also provided overseas united front groups with lists of possible members, such as Chinese PhD students in America who have the same home town, to help their expansion.215
United front agencies are encouraged to take advantage of the internet and big data in their work.216
In November 2019, the UFWD partnered with the Central Cyberspace Administration to hold the first-ever meeting for united front work on ‘online figures’ such as social media influencers and live-streamers.217
Think tanks
The UFWD seeks to engage with foreign think tanks through the WRSA, which is the primary united front group for Chinese scientists and scholars who have lived abroad. The association’s secretary-general is a UFWD official, and it’s described as a ‘united front system work unit’.218 The association is active in both influence and technology-transfer efforts. It holds international think tank forums while also playing a key role in the Thousand Talents Plan—a CCP recruitment scheme for overseas scientists that’s been linked to economic espionage.219
One of the WRSA’s most successful activities has been the establishment of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG, 中国与全球化智库), which claims to be an independent think tank.220 The centre is headed by Wang Huiyao (王辉耀), a prominent international commentator who is also an adviser to the UFWD, a member of several united front groups and an important figure in the development of China’s talent recruitment strategy.221
Wang’s united front links first attracted widespread attention when he was scheduled to speak at a May 2018 Wilson Center panel on CCP influence. The event’s description didn’t mention his position in the united front system and claimed that discussions on CCP influence were ‘often poorly defined, exaggerated, and abused.’222 After Senator Marco Rubio wrote a letter to the Wilson Center asking it to disclose Wang’s united front links, Wang pulled out of the panel.223
But, since then, several Australian politicians have been taken to visit the CCG. In both 2018 and 2019, Australian NGO China Matters took several Australian politicians on trips to China, where they met with people from the centre.224 Australia’s then shadow treasurer repeated the CCG’s claim of being China’s largest independent think tank in a press release about the trip.225 On one of these trips, participants were also taken to meet the assistant president of the MSS’s University of International Relations.226 In 2019, Australia’s Trade Minister also gave a speech at the think tank.227
Aside from using the WRSA to engage with think tanks and scholars, united front figures have established and funded overseas think tanks. Thai united front figure Dhanin Chearavanont (谢国民), who is regularly given the seat of honour at major united front events, established Georgetown University’s Initiative for US–China Dialogue on Global Issues.228 A foundation run by Tung Chee-hwa (董建华), a vice chair of the CPPCC and former chief executive of Hong Kong, has funded research at several prominent American think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.229 The University of Texas turned down funding from the foundation after commentators highlighted Tung’s united front links.230
Chinese students and scholars associations
Overseas Chinese students, as well as returnees from abroad, have long been a target of united front work. This was reiterated in 2015 when Xi Jinping designated them a ‘new focus of united front work’.231 These efforts seek to maintain the CCP’s influence over Chinese students even when they are overseas and ensure that some can be mobilised when needed.
Chinese students and scholars associations (CSSAs) are the primary platform for united front work on overseas students. Most CSSAs operate under the guidance of Chinese embassies and consulates.232
A 2013 People’s Daily article describes Australian CSSAs as ‘completing their missions … under the direct guidance of the Embassy’s Education Office’.233 Globally, they have become the dominant bodies claiming to represent Chinese students at universities. At the same time as they provide useful services to students, CSSA executives have also been found reporting on dissident students, organising rallies and promotional events in coordination with the Chinese Government and its talent recruitment programs, and enforcing censorship.234
CSSAs primarily interact with Chinese Ministry of Education officials, but there’s evidence that this is a form of united front work carried out by the Ministry of Education. For example, Korea University’s CSSA claims on its website that the UFWD is responsible for ‘overall guidance on overseas student associations’.235 This is supported by a 2013 statement made by China’s Ambassador to Australia, who urged ‘outstanding CSSA cadres’ to study Xi Jinping’s remarks on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the UFWD-run WRSA.236 A UFWD deputy bureau chief was posted as the education attaché in Chicago between 2013 and 2016, indicating substantial overlap between the work of Chinese education officials abroad and UFWD cadres.237 In 2011, the UFWD led a delegation of Ministry of Education and university officials to the UK to study the establishment of associations for Chinese students, meeting with the chairman of the CSSA-UK.238 The CSSA-UK, a peak body for Chinese students in the UK, is a member organisation of the WRSA.239
Recommendations
Responses to united front work must engage governments, civil society and ethnic Chinese communities. They should seek to couple punitive measures for agents of interference with a positive agenda of support for and engagement with communities affected by united front work. Effective efforts to counter foreign interference are essential to protect genuine participation in politics by ethnic Chinese citizens. Counter-interference work can complement engagement with the PRC when carried out properly by helping to ensure that it aligns with national interests and isn’t used as a platform for interference.
This report recommends that governments pursue the following measures.
1. Recognise and understand the problem
Carry out detailed studies of united front work across the country as well as in specific sectors or regions.
Develop analytical capacity in government and the private sector for tracking and responding to foreign interference.
2. Develop high-level guidance and policy on countering foreign interference, issuing statements, policy documents and funding to establish it as a priority across relevant parts of the bureaucracy
3. Raise awareness of united front work and foreign interference
Effectively implement transparency-building measures such as the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
Political leaders should improve how they frame efforts to counter foreign interference, making clear that they are not targeting minority communities, and seek to publicly attribute major cases of foreign interference.
Intelligence agencies should produce regular case studies and public reports on political interference threats, naming and describing the activities of major actors.
Intelligence agencies should increase their outreach to influential figures, such as retired politicians.
Expand intergovernmental channels for discussing foreign interference.
4. Ensure that legislation, resourcing and political will exist to build transparency and prosecute agents of interference
Existing laws and policies on espionage, foreign agents, external employment, conflicts of interest and foreign interference must be enforced.
Laws that introduce criminal offences for foreign interference and seek to expand transparency, such as registers of foreign agents, should be introduced and refined.
Ban foreign political donations where they are currently permitted.
Introduce real-time reporting of political donations.
Agencies responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases of interference must be sufficiently resourced.
Ban accepting support from or providing material support to foreign interference agencies (in addition to intelligence and security agencies).
Australia should reform its defamation laws, such as by introducing a national security defence.
The Australian Public Service should introduce and enforce a unified conflict of interest and external employment policy.
5. Protect those exposing interference
Police should be trained to handle and respond to politically motivated stalking and harassment.
Establish and promote reporting mechanisms for foreign interference.
6. Engage with universities to develop responses to related issues, such as monitoring and mobilisation by Chinese Government-backed student associations, technology transfer, economic coercion and censorship
7. Support and engage Chinese diaspora communities
Politicians and public officials should seek to engage with independent Chinese community groups and avoid legitimising united front groups and figures.
Politicians and public officials should ensure that they use precise language that distinguishes between ethnic Chinese communities, Chinese citizens and the Chinese Communist Party, as explained in John Fitzgerald’s report for ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre, Mind your tongue.240
Support new and independent Chinese community groups.
Emerging independent Chinese civil society groups must be priorities for protection from interference.
Security, migration and homeland affairs agencies should hold workshops and produce targeted, multilingual informational materials on interference.
Support independent Chinese-language media.
Ensure the independence of government Chinese-language media, such as Australia’s SBS Mandarin.
Award grants to independent Chinese-language media.
Place government notices in independent Chinese-language media outlets as a way to provide advertising funding to them.
Pay for local outlets to have the right to republish articles from independent Chinese-language media outlets in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
Establish scholarships for Chinese students to study journalism.
Explore ways to ensure freedom of speech and freedom from surveillance on WeChat, including through legislation.
8. Build expertise on China, Chinese people, the CCP and foreign interference
Commission and sponsor research on foreign interference and the CCP.
Fund research institutions to establish courses and workshops on foreign interference and the CCP.
Invest in greater Chinese-language training in schools, universities and government.
9. Deny visas for or expel agents of foreign interference
Visa applications by united front system officials and united front figures should be approached with a presumption of denial.
Foreign nationals, including diplomats, shown to have been involved in foreign interference should be expelled.
Appendix 1: Leaders of the United Front Work Department
You Quan (尤权)
Member of the Central Secretariat and UFWD minister (2017 – present); probably deputy head of the Central United Front Work Leading Small Group
Born in Hebei Province in January 1954
Party Secretary of Fujian Province (2012–2017)
Deputy secretary-general of the State Council (2008–2012)
Chairman of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (2006–2008)
Ba Te’er (巴特尔)
UFWD deputy minister; vice chairman of the CPPCC; director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (2016 – present); member of the Central Committee
Born in Liaoning Province in 1955
Ethnic Mongolian
Deputy Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia (2009–2016)
Zhang Yijiong (张裔炯)
UFWD senior deputy minister (2012 – present), overseeing the day-to-day operation of the department; member of the Central Committee
Born in Shanghai in 1955
Worked in Qinghai Province from 1972 to 2006
Deputy Party Secretary of Tibet (2006–2010)
Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Tibet (2010)
Xu Yousheng (许又声)
UFWD deputy minister; director of the State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (2018 – present); member of the Central Committee
Born in Fujian Province in 1957
Apart from a period in the Party Committee of Hunan Province (2012–2017), has worked mostly in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office since 1982
Xu Lejiang (徐乐江)
UFWD deputy minister; party secretary and senior deputy chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (2017 – present); member of the Central Committee
Born in Shandong Province in 1959
Worked in China Baowu Steel Group, one of the world’s largest steel manufacturers from 1982 to 2016; chairman and party secretary from 2014 to 2016
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology vice minister (2016–2017)
Wang Zuo’an (王作安)
UFWD deputy minister (2018 – present); director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs
Born in Jiangsu Province in 1958
UFWD policy researcher (1983–1987)
State Administration for Religious Affairs official (1987–present)
Author of China’s religious issues and policies (中国的宗教问题和宗教政策) (2002
Tan Tianxing (谭天星)
UFWD deputy minister (2018 – present), responsible for international united front work.
Born in Hunan Province in 1963
Worked in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese from 1991 to 2018
Attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC (1998–2002)
PhD in history from Peking University (1991)
Author of Reflections on history (历史的思考) (2015)
Shi Jun (侍俊)
UFWD deputy minister (2018 – present); director of the Office of the Central Coordinating Small Group on Xinjiang Work (中央新疆工 作协调小组).
Born in Jiangsu Province in 1962
Worked in Sichuan Province from 1978 to 2016
Party Secretary of Ngaba County (2007–2012); oversaw a crackdown on Tibetan Buddhism that led to a wave of self-immolations
Sichuan Province Public Security Bureau chief (2013–2015)
Central Political and Legal Commission deputy secretary-general (2016–2017)
Ministry of Public Security vice minister (2017–2018)
Zhou Xiaoying (周小莹)
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection representative in the UFWD (2018 – present); member of the Central Committee
Born in Yunnan Province in 1960
Worked in Qinghai Province (1975–2008)
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection representative in the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (2016–2018)
Zou Xiaodong (邹晓东)
UFWD vice minister (2018 – present); National People’s Congress delegate; responsible for united front work on intellectuals, scientists and universities
Born in Shandong Province in 1967
Worked and studied at Zhejiang University (1984–2018), apart from a period as deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Organisation Department (2016–2017)
Party Secretary of Zhejiang University (2017–2018)
Sources: All information and images taken from the UFWD’s website, online or Joske, The Central United Front Work Leading Small Group: institutionalising united front work, Sinopsis, 23 July 2019, online.
Appendix 2: National-level social organisations run by the UFWD or its subordinate agencies
The Ministry of Civil Affairs’ database of officially registered social organisations recorded the groups listed here in August 2019.241 These groups claim to be NGOs but are registered under various united front agencies.
On 11 August 2019, in addition to the organisations listed here, the Ministry of Civil Affairs database also recorded 5,432 organisations registered to local religious affairs bureaus, 3,089 registered to local UFWDs, 324 registered to local returned overseas Chinese federations (归国华侨联合会 )and 288 registered to local overseas Chinese affairs offices (侨务办公室).
Registered under the United Front Work Department
China Warmth Project Foundation (中华同心温暖工程基金会)
Elion Green Foundation (亿利公益基金会)
Oceanwide Foundation (泛海公益基金会)
China Overseas Study Talent Development Foundation (中国留学人才发展基金会)
Across the Strait Taiwanese Exchange Association (两岸台胞民间交流促进会)
China Foundation for Guangcai Program (中国光彩事业基金会)
China Glory Society (中国光彩事业促进会)
China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture (中国西藏文化保护与发展协会)
China Sun Yat-sen Cultural Exchange Association (中华中山文化交流协会)
China Civil Chamber of Commerce (中国民间商会)
Wu Zuoren International Foundation of Fine Arts (吴作人国际美术基金会)
China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (中国和平统一促进会)
Alumni Association of the Huangpu Military Academy (黄埔军校同学会)
China Overseas Friendship Association (中华海外联谊会)
China Association of Zen Tea (中国茶禅学会)
China Research Association of the 1911 Revolution (中国辛亥革命研究会)
Chinese Private Economy Research Association (中国民营经济研究会)
Chou Pei-yuan Foundation (周培源基金会)
China United Front Theory Research Association (中国统一战线理论研究会)
Taiwan Scholar Association (台湾同学会)
Western Returned Scholars Association / Overseas-educated Scholars Association of China (欧美同学会/中国留学人员联谊会)
China Siyuan Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (中华思源工程扶贫基金会)
The UFWD also runs the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (中华全国工商业联合会), the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots (中华全国台湾同胞联谊会), the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (中国宋庆龄基金会) and the China Vocational Education Association (中华职业教育 社); however, these are referred to as ‘united front system work units’ and are not social organisations registered under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.242
Registered under the State Administration for Religious Affairs
Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (慈济慈善事业基金会)
China Religious Culture Communication Association (中华宗教文化交流协会)
Buddhist Association of China (中国佛教协会)
Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China (中国天主教主教团)
National Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China (中国基督教三自爱国运动委员会)
China Christian Council (中国基督教协会)
China Islamic Association (中国伊斯兰教协会)
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (中国天主教爱国会)
Taoist Association of China (中国道教协会)
Young Men’s Christian Association of China(中华基督教青年会全国协会 )
Young Women’s Christian Association of China (中华基督教女青年会全国协会)
Registered under the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce
China Cultural Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector (中国民营文化产业商会)
National Federation of Industry and Agriculture Industry Chamber of Commerce (全联农业产业商会)
China Chamber of Commerce for Metallurgical Enterprises (全联冶金商会)
China Environment Service Industry Association (全联环境服务业商会)
China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce (全联房地产商会)
China Education Investors Chamber of Commerce (全联民办教育出资者商会)
China International Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector (中国民营经济国际合作商会)
China Science and Technology Equipment Industry Chamber of Commerce (全联科技装备业商会)
China Mergers and Acquisitions Association (全联并购公会)
Chamber of Folk Culture Artefacts and Artworks (全联民间文物艺术品商会)
China Book Trade Chamber of Commerce (全联书业商会)
China New Energy Chamber of Commerce (全联新能源商会)
China Chamber of Tourism (全联旅游业商会)
China Urban Infrastructure Chamber of Commerce (全联城市基础设施商会)
China–Africa Business Council (中非民间商会)
Registered under the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
Silk Road Planning Research Center (丝路规划研究中心)
China Institute of Theory on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (中国人民政协理论研究会)
China Economic and Social Council (中国经济社会理事会)
China Committee on Religion and Peace (中国宗教界和平委员会)
Registered under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office
China Overseas Exchange Association (中国海外交流协会)—now merged with China Overseas Friendship Association
China World Association for Chinese Literatures (中国世界华文文学学会)
Alumni Association of Huaqiao University (华侨大学校友会)
Heren Foundation (河仁慈善基金会)
China Language Education Foundation (中国华文教育基金会)
Registered under the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese History Society of China (中国华侨历史学会)
Jinlongyu Charity Foundation (金龙鱼慈善公益基金会)
Silijiren Foundation (思利及人公益基金会)
Huang Yicong Charity Foundation (黄奕聪慈善基金会)
China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs (中国侨商联合会)
Overseas Chinese Charity Foundation of China (中国华侨公益基金会)
Overseas Chinese Literature and Art Association (中国华侨文学艺术家协会)
China Society of Overseas Chinese Photographers (中国华侨摄影学会)
China Association for International Cultural Exchanges with Overseas Chinese (中国华侨国际文化交流促进会)
Registered under the State Ethnic Affairs Commission
Alumni Association of the High School Affiliated to Minzu University of China (中央民族大学附中校友会)
Minzu University of China Alumni Association (中央民族大学校友会)
Chinese Association for Mongolian Studies (中国蒙古学学会)
China Ethnic Medicine Association (中国民族医药协会)
China Promoting Minority Culture & Art Association (中国少数民族文化艺术促进会)
Nationalities Unity and Progress Association of China (中华民族团结进步协会)
National Architecture Institute of China (中国民族建筑研究会)
Association for Promotion of West China Research and Development (中国西部研究与发展促进会)
China Ethnic Minorities’ Association for External Exchanges (中国少数民族对外交流协会)
Chinese Association for Ethnic Policy (中国民族政策研究会)
Korean-Chinese Scientists and Engineers Association (中国朝鲜族科技工作者协会 / 중국조선족과학기술자협회)
China Korean Language Society (中国朝鲜语学会)
Taiwanese Ethnic Minorities Research Association (台湾少数民族研究会)
China Association for Preservation of Ethnic Minorities’ Relics (中国少数民族文物保护协会)
China Korean Minority History Association (中国朝鲜民族史学会)
Academic Society of the History of Philosophical and Social Ideas in Chinese Minorities (中国少数民族哲学及社会思想史学会)
China Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (中国人类学民族学研究会)
China Mongolian Studies Association (中国蒙古语文学会)
Economic Promotion Association of Longhai & Lanxin Railway (陇海兰新经济促进会)
Research Association of Bilingual Education for Chinese Minorities (中国少数民族双语教学研究会)
China Association of Ethnic Economy (中国少数民族经济研究会)
Citations and Notes
Readers are urged to download the report PDF for the full list of citations and notes.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Peter Mattis, John Garnaut, Lin Li, Jichang Lulu, Clive Hamilton, Robert Suettinger, Danielle Cave, Michael Shoebridge, Peter Jennings, Fergus Hanson, Fergus Ryan, Matt Schrader and Gerry Groot for their feedback and insights. In particular, Peter Mattis helped formulate the concept for this paper and I benefited enormously from related discussions with him. I would also like to thank Nathan Ruser for creating the map in Figure 4.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands provided ASPI with AUD80,000 of funding, which was used towards this report.
What is ASPI?
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.
The work of ICPC would be impossible without the financial support of our partners and sponsors across government, industry and civil society.
Important disclaimer
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.
This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.
First published June 2020.
ISSN 2209-9689 (online), ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
In 2019, I studied and discussed the concept of the united front system together with Peter Mattis, then a visiting fellow at ASPI, and am deeply indebted to him for his analysis and insight on this issue. ↩︎
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (online) defines acts of foreign interference as activities taken on behalf of or in collaboration with a foreign power that involve a threat to any person or are clandestine or deceptive and carried out for intelligence purposes, for influencing government or political processes, or are otherwise detrimental to Australia’s interests. ↩︎
Xi Jinping, ‘Secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era’, speech delivered at the 19th National Congress of the CCP, 18 October 2017, online; See, for example, a former head of the CCP International Liaison Department’s comparison between domestic united front work and the CCP’s interactions with political parties around the world, discussed in Martin Hala, Jichang Lulu, The CCP’s model of social control goes global, Sinopsis, 20 December 2018, online. Julia Bowie and Nathanael Callan of the Center for Advanced China Research have also argued that China is offering the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the primary platform for the United Front, as a political model for other countries. See Julia Bowie, Nathanael Callan, China’s ‘new type of party system’: a ‘multiparty’ system for foreign consumption, Center for Advanced China Research, 21 August 2018, online. ↩︎
This point has also been made by independent researcher Jichang Lulu. See Jichang Lulu, Repurposing democracy: The European Parliament China Friendship Cluster, Sinopsis, 26 November 2019, online. ↩︎
Guo Lunde [郭伦德], ‘习近平引领统战工作进入新时代’ [Xi Jinping leads united front work into the new era], www.tibet.cn, 12 December 2017, online. ↩︎
‘海 外 华媒为战“疫”加油!’ [Overseas Chinese media cheers us on in the battle against the virus], ACFROC, 10 March 2020, online; ‘旅日侨团及华商华企侧援祖国疫情阻击战’ [Overseas Chinese groups in Japan as well as Chinese businesspersons and companies help the Fatherland’s battle against the virus], ACFROC, 7 February 2020, online; ‘悉尼华星艺术团团长余俊武:把抗疫之爱讲给世界听’ [Sydney Huaxing Arts Troupe leader Yu Junwu: Let the whole world hear our love in fighting the virus], ACFROC, 7 May 2020, online. ↩︎
‘中国侨联关于号召海内外侨胞为打赢“新型冠状病毒感染的肺炎”防控阻击战捐赠款物的倡议书’ [Proposal from the All‑China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese on rallying overseas and domestic Chinese compatriots for donations to achieve victory in the battle to prevent and stop the pneumonia spread by a novel coronavirus], Consulate‑General of the People’s Republic of China in Melbourne, 26 January 2020, online; ↩︎
‘中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》’ [The CCP Central Committee issues ‘plan for deepening the party and state’s institutional reform’], Xinhua, 21 March 2018, online. ↩︎
Other forms of influence work carried out by the CCP, such as that carried out by the International Liaison Department, might not sit within the united front system, but can be described as using ‘united front tactics’ when they draw on the doctrines and principles of united front work. For example, united front tactics could involve the heavy use of front organisations and proxies, an emphasis on claiming representative power, and an emphasis on building interpersonal relationships with key representatives of targeted groups. Most Chinese party and state agencies run united front‑style groups that serve to co‑opt civil society and act as proxies for the CCP. For example, the International Liaison Department runs the Chinese Association for International Understanding (中国国际交流协会). ↩︎
The Cultural Revolution may have been the only extended period in which the party’s united front work largely stopped. ↩︎
‘中共中央印发《深化党和国家机构改革方案》’ [The CCP Central Committee issues ‘plan for deepening the party and state’s institutional reform’], Xinhua. ↩︎
‘关于“民主的联合战线”的议决案’ [About the ‘democratic united front’ decision], 中国共产党历次全国代表大会数据库 [Database of the CCP’s congresses], n.d., online. ↩︎
‘西安事变的由来’ [Origins of the Xi’an Incident], 中国统一战线新闻网[China United Front Online], 8 May 2014, online; 党政干部统一战线知识读本 [Party and government cadre: united front knowledge reader], 华文出版社 [Huawen Press], 2014, 35. ↩︎
China’s eight minor parties were formed in the years before 1949, but are all socialist and have ‘accepted the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party’. For a detailed study of these parties and the United Front, see Gerry Groot’s Managing transitions, 2004. The eight minor parties are the Jiusan Society, the China Democratic League, the China National Democratic Construction Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, the China Zhi Gong Party, and the Taiwan Democratic Self‑Government League. These parties have different constituencies; for example, the China Zhi Gong Party was established in San Francisco as an alliance of overseas secret societies, and its members are overseas and returned overseas Chinese. See ‘中国共产党领导的多党合作是我国政治制度的一个特点和优点’ [Our country’s political system of multiparty cooperation under the CCP’s leadership is a special characteristic and advantage], 中央统战部网站[Central United Front Work Department], 8 January 2009, online; ‘中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度’ [The system of political consultation and multiparty cooperation under the leadership of the CCP], 中国政府网综合 [PRC Government Online], 27 July 2017, online. ↩︎
Gerry Groot, ‘Managing transitions: the Chinese Communist Party’s united front work, minor parties and groups, hegemony and corporatism’, PhD thesis, December 1997, online, 332–334. ↩︎
Groot, ‘Managing transitions: the Chinese Communist Party’s united front work, minor parties and groups, hegemony and corporatism’, 329, 340–341. ↩︎
党政干部统一战线知识读本 [Party and government cadre: united front knowledge reader], Huawen chubanshe, 2014, 80–104. ↩︎
See Groot, ‘Managing transitions: the Chinese Communist Party’s united front work, minor parties and groups, hegemony and corporatism’, 156–163, for a discussion of the CPPCC’s creation in 1948. ↩︎
Officially, the consultative system is ‘a democratic form and an institutional channel through which many things can be discussed and negotiated in a proper way’. See ‘What is a “new type of party system”?’, China.org.cn, 23 March 2018, online; In 2012, an American united front group specialising in educational exchanges even held what it claimed to be the world’s first ‘model CPPCC’ event: ‘Recap: The Ameson Foundation holds world’s first model CPPCC event’, Ameson, 2 August 2012, online. ↩︎
‘人民政协的组成和性质’ [The CPPCC’s make‑up and character], CPPCC, 14 September 2011, online. ↩︎
Hu Zhi’an [胡治安], ‘知名民主人士的中共党籍问题’ [The issue of CCP membership of well‑known democratic figures], Yanhuang chunqiu, online; Xiao Yu [萧雨], ‘解密时刻: 统战内幕—前中共干部亲述’ [Declassified moment: inside the United Front—a former CCP cadre’s own account], Voice of America, 23 June 2017, online. ↩︎
‘中国共产党的对外交往——访中联部原部长朱良’ [The CCP’s external engagement—interview with former International Liaison Department minister Zhu Liang], China National Radio, n.d., online; European scholars Martin Hála and Jichang Lulu have called the International Liaison Department a ‘new comintern’, expanding its activities to foreign ‘bourgeois’ parties: Martin Hála, Jichang Lulu, A new Comintern for the new era: the CCP International Department from Bucharest to Reykjavik, Sinopsis, 16 August 2018, online. ↩︎
Zhong Sheng, [钟声], ‘Op‑ed: China’s new type of party system enlightens world’, People’s Daily, 12 March 2018, online. ↩︎
Toshi Yoshihara, A profile of China’s United Front Work Department, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, May 2018, 46–48, online. ↩︎
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/25192739/PB32-The-Party-speaks-for-you_banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-06-09 06:00:002025-03-25 19:29:00The party speaks for you
Disaster risk reduction is a global policy issue. Reducing the likelihood and severity of damage and related cascading and cumulative impacts from natural hazards has become central to all nations and has triggered the evolution of international cooperation, multilateral responses and humanitarian aid efforts over many years.
The nexus between natural hazards and vulnerability is central to appreciating the scale of the damage caused by large disasters and resultant sociotechnical impacts. Multilateral efforts to mitigate the impacts of weather and climate hazards have progressed over time. The Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World: Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation was a harbinger for the Hyogo Framework for Action, which emphasised building the resilience of communities and nations to the effects of disasters, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction as the current flagship of unified effort.
Pacific island countries (PICs) have long been affected by weather-related disasters. Many PICs have been listed among the top 10 most disaster-prone countries in the World Risk Index over several years. In addition to damaging winds a convergence of flash flooding, king tides and high intensity rainfall contributed to damage to essential services, food supply and displacement of people across island economies.
This year marks the fifth year of applying the Sendai Framework to Disaster risk reduction efforts globally – completing one-third of the Framework’s operational life cycle. It seems an opportune time to take stock of the challenges faced by selected PICs in incorporating guidance from the Sendai Framework into policy, legislation and practice.
This report details independent views on challenges to implementing the Sendai Framework in eight Pacific economies. It does not pursue an in-depth analysis of constraints or impediments to implementation of the framework but seeks to present independent views on the ‘fit’ of the Sendai Framework to local needs in a general context of the Four priorities central to the Framework.
It hoped that it can contribute to ongoing discussion and thought about important issues in a vibrant yet vulnerable region.
How foreign affairs and defence agencies use Facebook
What’s the problem?
For defence and diplomacy, digital media, and specifically social media, have become an unavoidable aspect of their operations, communications and strategic international engagement, but the use of those media isn’t always understood or appreciated by governments.
While the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Department of Defence (DoD) both use social media, including accounts managed by diplomatic posts overseas and by units of the ADF, both departments can improve how they reach and engage online. It’s important to note, however, that their use cases and audiences are different. DFAT’s audience is primarily international and varies by geographical location. Defence has a more local audience and focus.
More importantly than the content, online engagement is dependent on the strength of the ties between the senders or sharers and the recipients of the content. For both departments, improving those online ties is vital as they seek to influence.
What’s the solution?
The Australian Government should use social media far more strategically to engage international audiences—particularly in the diplomatic and defence portfolios. Both DFAT and Defence should review outdated digital strategies, cross-promote more content and demonstrate transparency and accountability by articulating and publishing social media policies.
Both departments should create more opportunities for training and the sharing of skills and experiences of public diplomacy staff. They should refrain from relying solely on engagement metrics as success measures (that is, as a measure of an individual’s, usually senior staff’s or heads of missions’, level of ability or achievement).
Instead, by changing the emphasis from the producers of social media content to the audiences that interact with it, the engagement data can be usefully regarded as a proxy for attention and interest. This can tell us what kinds of audiences (mostly by location) are engaged, and what types of content they do and don’t engage with. This information indicates the (limited) utility of social media; this should guide online engagement policy.
This report also highlights and recognises the value of social media for the defence community — especially as a means of providing information and support for currently serving personnel and their families—by supporting the use of Facebook for those purposes by all defence units.
DFAT should remove the direction for all Australian heads of mission overseas to be active on social media. While this presence is indeed useful and boosts the number of global government accounts, if our ambassadors aren’t interested in resourcing those accounts, the result can be sterile social media accounts that don’t engage and that struggle to connect with publics online. Instead, both departments should encourage those who are interested in and skilled at digital diplomacy to use openness, warmth and personality to engage.
Introduction: the global rise of Facebook
This report examines DFAT’s and the DoD’s use of one social media platform—Facebook—and evaluates current practices to identify how, where and for what purposes Facebook has impact.
The focus on Facebook reflects the platform’s global reach and its popularity as an everyday, essential medium for accessing and sharing information. Besides notable exceptions (such as China), in most places (such as some Southeast Asian countries), Facebook is so popular that it’s often roughly synonymous with ‘the internet’. This is a symptom of the platform’s ubiquity and utility as well as a consequence of Facebook’s heavily promoted services, including the Free Basics internet access service, which provides limited online access via a Facebook application.1
In order to generate lessons learnt, this report makes comparisons between Australian Government pages and their counterparts in the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada. The analysis of Facebook use for diplomatic purposes is based on 2016–17 data extracted from Facebook pages of the diplomatic missions of eight ‘publisher’ nations (the five that are the subject of this report, as well as India, Israel and Japan) in 23 ‘host nations’.2 More recent data couldn’t be used because access is no longer available, but a review of the pages suggests that the analysis stemming from the data extracted during that period remains relevant.
The underlying design of Facebook deeply influences and limits its use by publishers and users. The Facebook newsfeed—the most commonly used feature for getting regularly updated information — prioritises posts from accounts that are either closely associated through a history of user activity, including liking, sharing, commenting and messaging, or are boosted through paid promotion.
One of the main consequences is that the more a Facebook user interacts with content that they prefer, the more likely they are to receive that type of material in their newsfeeds, which they’re in turn more likely to interact with and so on. Successful content has emotional appeal, or is useful, and comes from a Facebook page that’s been frequented by the user or been shared with a close member of a user’s Facebook network of friends. As this cycle continues, Facebook ‘gets to know its users better and better’.3
In other words, it isn’t enough to make engaging (meaning fun, compelling or relevant) content. Online engagement is dependent on the strength of the ties between the senders or sharers and the recipients of the content, at least as much and very probably more than the nature of the content. Understanding this is vital for governments as they seek to influence online.
But, as a social media network, Facebook brings with it complications for public diplomacy and defence social media strategies. For example, Facebook’s utility is limited by its underlying algorithm architecture and the habits and preferences of individual Facebook users, which are influenced by in-country patterns of social media usage and internet access. These issues need to be factored into departmental communications policies and social media strategies.
Online content, classified
Facebook posts can be classified into four types, according to their apparent function or purpose: outward-facing publicity (including propaganda), inward-facing publicity, engagement, and diplomacy of the public.4 The categories often overlap: content may be both inward- and outward-facing, for example. An analysis of these four types of content can be very useful for creating a strategy for effective DFAT and DoD Facebook use.
1. Outward publicity
Outward-facing publicity is the most common. It’s characterised by its evident target being the broader public of the country in which it’s posted, or a section of that public, such as overseas students, potential immigrants or, less commonly, large expatriate populations. It therefore uses the language of the local population and locally popular themes and topics. Content varies but usually involves the provision of information, publicity for events, branding exercises or the posting of trivia (such as pictures of koalas). Posts can also be warm and personal and include one of the internet’s maligned features—cuteness.
The most popular Facebook post recorded during this research displays many of those features. It’s a video of two American embassy ‘diplokids’ playing the Indian national anthem on the occasion of India’s Independence Day.5 It’s been viewed 2.53 million times and shared more than 125,000 times (as of January 2020).
Many popular posts are practical and transactional, such as information about employment, scholarships, funding opportunities and visa applications. The US Embassy in Mexico, for example, published a series of videos outlining the procedures for various visa classes. The Australian Consulate in Hong Kong published a sequence of posts targeting Australian citizens in the lead-up to the 2016 Australian federal election with information about how to vote, and—taking advantage of Facebook’s potential to target specific audiences—paid to promote them.
Posts announcing employment opportunities at the embassy or consulate for locally engaged staff are consistently among the most popular, especially in small and developing countries. These posts can serve as more than mere job ads. One such post, on the American Facebook page in Iraq, prompted an enquiry via the comment feed from a potential applicant who feared he might be too old to apply. The American page administrator replied, assuring this applicant that his application would be welcome and reiterating American policies against age-based discrimination in a way that promoted US values and demonstrated respect for an older Iraqi man, which in return inspired several positive comments in the thread.
Other popular outward-facing promotional posts include commemorations on significant memorial days and on the occasion of tragedies such as natural disasters. Noting these days of significance on Facebook should out of respect be considered obligatory, as they largely appear to be. Posts announcing support in the aftermath of disasters are often very well received (as indicated by numbers of shares and supportive comments) and suggest that Facebook can have a useful role in promoting aid and relief efforts. For example, the Australian Embassy in Fiji posted about assistance efforts after Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016; those posts had engagement figures in the thousands (the mean engagement figure for 2016 was 29).6
Facebook posts promoting military activity elicited significant support in other contexts. US Facebook posts in support of Iraqi soldiers serving as part of the American-led coalition against Daesh, for example, were widely shared and commented on, almost entirely positively.
How important are ambassadors and consuls-general as proponents of outward-facing publicity? The research suggests that they’re significant assets where they’re personable and relatable and embrace the community and nation where they’re posted. Speaking the local language, either proficiently or with evident effort, is a major asset. While most posts are typically published in the local language (often as well as in English), publishing videos of heads of mission speaking the language seems to have additional audience appeal. One of the few Australian Facebook pages that increased its levels of engagement from 2016 to 2017 was that of the Embassy in Paris. Australia’s Ambassador to France, Brendan Berne, a fluent French speaker, features in a number of posted videos, including media appearances and official speeches.
In one popular video post, Ambassador Berne introduced changes in Australian law to legalise same-sex marriage and then popped the question to his unsuspecting partner, Thomas.7 This was acknowledged as unorthodox but was a calculated risk that paid off, increasing the profile of the Ambassador and thereby providing him with further platforms, including popular mainstream broadcast media, on which to promote the bilateral relationship.
Former US Consul-General in Hong Kong, Clifford Hart, exemplified how the personal can empower public diplomacy, to the extent that he was known as Clifford Baby (or ‘Clifford BB’).8 His very popular farewell video post featured Hart reflecting in Cantonese on his favourite places and dishes in Hong Kong. The video also uses catchphrases from Stephen Chow (an iconic actor in Hong Kong), which, while meaningless for those unfamiliar with his work, carried immense appeal for Hong Kongers.
2. Inward-facing publicity
Inward-facing publicity is related to outward-facing publicity but has an internal focus by appealing to smaller audiences—perhaps the local diplomatic or government community or to (even more internal) colleagues in Barton, Foggy Bottom or Whitehall.
This content frequently features a staged, formulaic photo of ‘distinguished guests’ at an official event.
Anecdotally, it’s been made clear to me on a number of occasions that this type of content is regarded as important, to the extent that hours can be spent on its production—the text carefully parsed and often escalated up the chain for approvals.
Although these events have limited appeal, they have a specific value that isn’t evident in their typically low engagement metrics.9 They’re important for those people featured in the photo and at the event as a record and an acknowledgement of their participation, and for indicating their status by highlighting their access, but the limited broader appeal of the posts suggests that the resources devoted to them should be minimised.
Other types of posts are evidently not (or poorly) targeted at a broader local public. These posts are characterised by the negligible use of local language or cultural connections and an overt emphasis on topics and themes that are of minimal interest to local target populations and more aligned to internal or specialised interests.
Common examples include key messages from governments about matters that are perhaps of global significance and represent core national values or positions on international matters (such as an opinion on certain environmental or human rights issues) but do not, according to the engagement data, resonate locally. These types of posts do no harm and are probably useful as records of, and advocacy for, important international issues. However, if they’re resource intensive, they present a poor return on investment.
One example of content that’s, probably inadvertently, inward-facing is a series of podcasts produced by the Australian Embassy in South Korea using the time of very senior diplomatic officials and promoted on the Embassy’s Facebook page. The podcasts featured interviews in English with significant Australians, including senior government figures. The low engagement metrics on Facebook (and the modest listening figures via Soundcloud) are unsurprising: in a saturated media market it’s difficult to imagine the appeal of podcasts in English featuring guests who (although esteemed and accomplished) are of marginal interest to a Korean audience.
The podcasts weren’t an evidently effective way of engaging with a Korean audience and, after 28 episodes over 18 months, were concluded at the end of 2017. While here it’s characterised as unsuccessful, creativity and bravery in public diplomacy should be supported. The idea of using podcasts is one that has value and could be adopted elsewhere, perhaps targeting specific audiences such as potential international students or investors and promoted via a more professionally oriented platform, such as LinkedIn. The South Korean experiment has the obvious lesson that such efforts can be made more likely to have impact if they’re planned to connect to and target local audiences as well as conveying Australian views and expertise.
Analysis for this report reveals that both outward- and inward-facing publicity posts by DFAT and Defence vary greatly in the engagement rates they enjoy. It’s difficult to see a pattern, and most successful posts are probably a result of good luck, good management and additional localised idiosyncrasies. But the general sense is that audiences largely pay attention to content that’s useful and relevant for them, not necessarily what’s most important to the authors of the content.
3. Engagement
Engagement posts are far less common than publicity posts. This is a bit surprising, as social media has been lauded as a site for interaction, discussion and debate and for making connections.
Some recent scholarship has concluded that diplomats aren’t taking advantage of this potential due to ingrained, institutionalised resistance, based on norms for information control and risk aversion.10 As a probable factor, this report outlines another entrenched problem: Facebook, due to its algorithmic factors that prefer close ties or paid promotion, isn’t often a very good platform for two-way engagement.
There are, however, some excellent examples of how Facebook has been used by Australian diplomats to facilitate a limited yet effective type of engagement through photo competitions. One, in Timor-Leste, invited photographs that characterised and shared affection for that country, thereby demonstrating ‘relational empathy’.11 Another, in the Australian Office in Taipei, invited Taiwanese in Australia to submit photographs of their travels and experiences, resulting in Taiwanese participating in a kind of networked conversation with other Taiwanese about their positive experiences in Australia, via an Australian diplomatic Facebook page. These types of photo-based campaigns could be replicated elsewhere.
Both of these competitions take advantage of a key function of social media—the ability to share images and tag friends—to increase the reach of their content. This turns Facebook users into micro-influencers, quite powerful at a smaller scale, distributing and personally endorsing content in their networks. An obvious advantage is that the content is provided and driven by users, not government officials. The fact that the content providers are from the local community also makes the content itself likely to have local references and appeal.
4. The audience, themselves
The last type of content present on these Facebook pages isn’t authored by the account holders (the diplomats) but by the Facebook users themselves. Usually, this appears in the comments, which can easily veer off onto (some malicious but some benign, even useful) tangents. The US Embassy in Mexico, for example, posts information about visa applications that can prompt reams of comments that ask for advice about people’s precise circumstances. Many of the requests are responded to by other Facebook users, who are able to offer specific advice.
Examples like this underscore the key lesson about Facebook for public diplomacy: social media users are often active audiences and participants who make choices about what content they respond to and how they respond to it based upon how relevant, useful and appealing they find it. This fundamental conclusion is a core lesson for DFAT and similar agencies.
Engagement—by the numbers
Ranking nations according to metrics fuels the spurious idea that those nations might be in competition with each other for attention in the digital space. Instead, it’s evident that diplomacy per se is in competition with the practically limitless amount of material published from all manner of sources, much of it antithetical to the aim of international amity, and all diplomats could benefit by learning from each other’s experiences. Instead of treating them as a measure of success, engagement metrics can be useful means of approximating audience size and attention.
On average, the data (in Figures 1–4) indicates that the Facebook audience for the 23 US official diplomatic accounts reviewed is far larger than others, but is also relatively passive. In comparison, Australia’s audience is comparatively more active and engaged. But we should note that all the figures below are global averages, varying considerably by location (again suggesting that a global ranking is unhelpful). The variations between the locations (see Table 1) contain important insights about what types of useful content, and which audiences are more active and engaged, are consequently more valuable.
All the following data is based on the Facebook pages of official diplomatic posts (embassies, consulates and similar offices).12 They’re typically managed by diplomatic staff who are often not public diplomacy specialists and are usually on a 3–4 year posting, usually with considerable input by locally engaged staff.
Figure 1 is based on the numbers of page likes (people who have ‘liked’ a Facebook page) in the host country where an embassy or consulate is located. Figures 2–4 are based on the levels of engagement (reactions, comments, shares) with the content that those embassies and consulates posted on their Facebook pages.
Figure 1: Facebook page likes, January–February 2018 (total, users located in host country)
Note: This data is no longer downloadable from Facebook’s application programming interface due to restrictions introduced by Facebook in 2019. This is one of the ways Facebook has limited public access to data. For example, until early 2018, it was possible to extract data about the location (based on their Facebook profile) of Facebook page followers, making it feasible to analyse the percentage of followers who were located in the host country (that’s the figure used here) or who were located elsewhere, either based in the home country (probably mostly expats) or in a third country. This includes followers who are suspected to be bogus, either paid to follow through click farms or fake accounts attempting to appear real. See D Spry, ‘Facebook diplomacy, click farms and finding “friends” in strange places’, The Strategist, 7 September 2017, online.
Figure 1 is the total for all of the embassies and consulates counted (a list of them is included in Table 1). Figure 2 is the average figure per embassy or consulate.
Figure 2: Average engagement per Facebook page, January–February 2018
The large number of the US Facebook page likes/followers highlighted above results in a relatively high level of engagements per post but not more engagements per user. In the latter category, Australia leads; the US runs last.
Figure 3: Average engagement per Facebook post, January–February 2018
Figure 4: Average engagement per Facebook user, January–February 2018
Table 1 shows Facebook reach (the percentage of a country’s total Facebook users who are following an embassy or consulate Facebook page) for 23 countries. As per Figure 1 (and see endnote 11), these figures include only those Facebook users who are located (according to their profile) in the country where the embassy or consulate is based (for example, followers of the Australian Embassy in Dili who are based in Timor-Leste). The figures in Table 1 are the average figures for the five nations and can vary considerably. For example, for Timor-Leste the average for all five embassies is 10.495% but for Australia it’s considerably higher (approximately 35% when last checked; this is one of the few embassy Facebook pages that demonstrates significant growth).
Table 1 also demonstrates the correlations between Facebook reach and per capita GDP, population size and median age (see the appendix for the methodology). Also, countries that are closer or more strategically intertwined are more likely to follow embassy and consulate Facebook pages (for Australia, Timor-Leste; for the US, Mexico and Iraq). An important finding of this research for Australian officials is that Facebook appears to be more useful for public diplomacy in developing countries that are small, young and geographically close to Australia.
Table 1: Facebook reach across 23 countries via a selection of indicators
The metrics vary by orders of magnitude: in Timor-Leste (on average) a Facebook page will be followed by about 10% of the population who have Facebook accounts; in Myanmar, it’s about 2%; in Taiwan and New Zealand, it’s about 1 in 1,000; in the UK and Canada, it’s about 1 in 10,000. In other words, on average, a Facebook page in Timor-Leste is close to a thousand times more likely to have a local follower than one in the UK or Canada.
For Australian diplomatic posts, the contrast is even starker: in Timor-Leste, around 26% of the local Facebook population follow the Facebook page of the Australian Embassy in Dili; the equivalent in the UK is 0.01%; in Canada, 0.005%. Australia’s Facebook page in Timor-Leste is around 5,000 times more likely to have a local follower than in Canada.
The temptation is to see this as a measure of the performance of Australia’s staff in Dili, Ottawa and London. That temptation should be resisted—there are, as Table 1 suggests, demographic factors (age, size, wealth) to consider when seeking reasons for the large variations in Facebook reach.
These demographic correlations suggest that Facebook diplomacy’s ‘success’ (or, I would suggest, ‘relevance’) isn’t necessarily the result of the public diplomacy staff’s skills and endeavours but more likely a product of external factors: the popularity of Facebook as a means of accessing information among younger populations; a lack of competing sources of information in smaller countries (with smaller media industries); and the funnelling of users onto the Facebook platform in those countries (including Timor-Leste and Cambodia) where Facebook’s Free Basics service provides free but limited internet access.
This implies that, while a Facebook page may be an effective, even a primary, public diplomacy tool in some places, it won’t always be in others: therefore, resources and strategy can be adjusted accordingly. For example, it suggests that the Australian embassies in Dili, Port Moresby and other high-ranking Facebook locations should be supported and encouraged to use Facebook (as they appear to be successfully doing). The high commissions in London, Ottawa and similar locations should maintain a presence but not prioritise Facebook as a means of public diplomacy, as it isn’t an efficient communication channel.
Limitations of using Facebook for diplomacy
However, if these numbers look small enough to question the point of having a Facebook page in some locations at all, it gets worse: average posts prompt engagement from between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000 followers. This means that in the UK, for example, the reaction rate is about 1 in 1 million active Facebook users. While reaction rates don’t equate to reach (reach figures aren’t obtainable), they’re indicative of attention and interest, and also contribute to the organic (non-paid) spread of the content.
This is likely to get worse. Changes to the Facebook algorithm since 2014 have made it more difficult to reach large audiences unless content is promoted through paid boosts. This is reflected in the engagement metrics falling or flattening year-on-year in most locations, with a few exceptions.
Therefore, the argument for an active Facebook page shouldn’t rest on the average engagement metrics alone. Facebook posts, as long as they’re prepared using minimal resources, are low risk, low investment and usually low reward. But some posts are quite valuable, even in locations where there’s usually little engagement, potentially serving as an economical means to exert influence with small, but repeated, effects. An examination of the types of posts and the levels of engagement they receive offers some insights.
Defence’s use of social media
A review of available defence organisations’ policies and associated commentary outlines three general areas of social media use:
personal use by personnel, whether or not on deployment or active duty, and their families
professional use by personnel in matters relating to their employment, such as networking and communication for the purposes of professional development and knowledge sharing
official use by personnel acting as representatives of the defence force and in pursuit of the defence force’s aims.
The first type—personal use—prompts concern among military forces for its potential to endanger military personnel and operations, or to damage the reputation of defence organisations. Those risks aren’t confined to official Facebook pages and are as likely to occur elsewhere; infringements are already covered under existing policies (such as preventing harassment and promoting operational and personal security). Posting on social media may bring infractions to light, meaning that they can be addressed, but also increases the risk of exposing the offending content to a wider audience before it can be deleted and the infraction contained.
The UK and US defence forces are especially active in promoting responsible social media use, including by publishing guidelines for personnel.
These concerns are counterbalanced by the capacity for social media to act as a means for military families and friends to stay in touch with loved ones while they’re on deployment. Also, as some American studies suggest, social media are especially beneficial for military spouses who form support networks based on their shared experiences and concerns.13
The second type of use—professional but unofficial use—is evidenced in limited ways on Facebook.
One example is the Facebook page for The Cove,14 a website set up for the purposes of promoting research for military professionals.
The third type, official use, is the focus of this report. The defence forces of the Five Eyes nations all operate numerous Facebook pages. In the case of the US, each branch of the armed services has at least hundreds (US Air Force), if not thousands (US Army), of Facebook pages.15 The pages representing each of the main branches have millions of followers, while pages at the level of operational units (regiments, battalions and the like) vary in size accordingly.
Unsurprisingly, the Facebook pages of the branches of the US military have followers (page likes) an order of magnitude larger than in other nations (Figure 5).
Figure 5: US main military Facebook page likes, March 2018
The militaries of the others have comparable numbers of page followers, but the British Army has a significantly larger cohort than the others (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Main military Facebook page likes, non-US, March 2018
Quantitative analysis of the defence forces’ Facebook pages indicates that they receive considerably more attention and engagement than their diplomatic counterparts. The average Australian diplomatic Facebook page is followed by about 0.02% of the Facebook population in the host country (the notable exceptions are Timor-Leste, 26%, and Papua New Guinea, 7%). The larger defence force pages are followed by a larger portion of the Australian Facebook population: Defence Jobs Australia (3.3%) and the Australian Army (2.4%).
The raw numbers are similarly stark. Defence Jobs Australia has close to half a million followers, the Australian Army more than 360,000, the RAAF more than 280,000 and the RAN more than 120,000. Those numbers increase daily.
The combined figure of the page likes of the ADF Facebook pages analysed for this report is 1.45 million, or close to 10% of the Australian Facebook population (although of course many Facebook users can follow multiple pages and some may come from overseas).
In comparison, major news programs have about 1.5–2 million Facebook followers, and the ABC News Facebook page has close to 4 million. News and magazine pages are the leading Facebook pages for engagement, averaging about 100,000 engagements per page per week; Defence pages averaged 45,000 in total. The Australian Army page alone received 12,500 engagements on average per week—comparable to the music industry average and above education, department stores and politics.16
Other nations’ pages are similarly popular. These figures suggest that Facebook is valuable for defence forces as a means of communicating to their publics. They also suggest that those publics are paying attention to these pages.
Why? Partly, the answer lies in the content posted on the pages and the ways that publics engage with it. Defence department Facebook pages differ from their diplomatic counterparts in important ways—chief among them is the nature of their audiences, which appear more domestic and more closely engaged. Partly, this arises out of the large numbers of current and former personnel and their friends and families. Also, in many democracies, publics have greater levels of emotional connection— trust,17 nostalgia, admiration—with militaries than with other parts of government (including foreign affairs agencies).
Official use of these Facebook pages includes a number of related functions. The main ones are:
publicity, firstly in the sense of promoting the defence force’s values, achievements and legacies, as well as information for potential recruits, and secondly in the sense of maintaining the openness and transparency that (within the parameters of operational and personal security) are expected from defence forces of democratic nations
information sharing with the defence force’s broader community of interest, including family and friends of serving personnel and veterans as well as other stakeholders (such as people residing near bases or training areas), and including sharing details about exercises and deployments
commemorations, including notifications and memorials for service personnel who have died on deployment or exercises, celebrations and thanks for retiring senior service personnel, and days of significance, either national (such as Anzac Day) or specific to the defence force.
This report’s analysis suggests that Facebook performs each of those functions usefully and in ways other forms of media would find difficult. User engagement varies considerably across the Facebook pages analysed. Some general observations include the following:
Levels of engagement are generally higher than for public diplomacy pages. In particular, defence content is shared more and attracts more comments.
Content on smaller Facebook pages (such as regiment, brigade or group pages) has a higher level of engagement per capita, suggesting a smaller but more engaged user community.
Comments appear to be positive and supportive: they express admiration for defence personnel, thanks for service (especially for those who died on duty), patriotism and nostalgia.
Military hardware in use has considerable appeal—cinematographic and otherwise.
Defence forces are highly regarded for their service (the ‘trust factor’) as well as their embodiment of national identity.
Members of defence forces, and their families and loved ones, use defence Facebook pages to express and share emotions, including, commonly, pride and admiration.
Some important posts—including notices about mental health—attract less engagement because those topics are sensitive and Facebook is public. This is an example of how Facebook users are conscious of their online personas and tend to portray themselves cautiously. It isn’t an argument against the value of those posts, which are useful opportunities for defence forces to raise awareness of important issues and available support services.
In action and in memoriam: ADF pages
The ADF Facebook pages attracting the highest engagement fall into two main categories: accounts of activities undertaken by ADF personnel (including community undertakings, training, exercises, deployments and military action) and commemorations of days of significance, the loss of military lives, or both.
The most important commemorative day on the Australian calendar, Anzac Day, is also the dominant topic on Defence Facebook pages, appearing in the top five most engaged posts of all the larger pages.
An exception is the Chief of the Defence Force’s Facebook page, where the most popular posts are those commemorating the return to Australia of fallen Vietnam War veterans and the 20th anniversary of the loss of 18 Army personnel during a Black Hawk helicopter collision in 1996.
On the smaller, unit-level Facebook pages, in addition to Anzac Day, popular posts commemorate important battles in the history of the unit, such as Long Tan in the Vietnam War and Kapyong in the Korean War. Other popular Facebook posts noted Australia Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day and Christmas, sometimes connecting them to personnel currently serving overseas.
The popularity of commemorative posts suggests that Facebook facilitates support for ADF personnel and traditions in a public, shareable forum. Anzac Day’s popularity among the larger Facebook pages implies that those pages enjoy widespread popularity, whereas attention to unit-specific commemorations in the smaller pages indicates their importance to those with closer ties to those units, including veterans and their families.
Some posts feature videos of ADF personnel using impressive military equipment. These have evident appeal for military aficionados and, according to the Defence Jobs Australia Facebook page metrics, for potential recruits.
Another popular type of post outlines current actions taken by the ADF. Examples of this type include HMAS Darwin’s seizure, under UN sanctions, of illicit weapons heading to Somalia; assistance provided by HMAS Canberra to Fiji following Cyclone Winston; and Operation OKRA: Strike Vision, involving F/A-18A Hornets destroying facilities operated by Daesh in central Iraq.
Other examples of popular Facebook pages featuring the ADF in action include graduations (the Australian Defence Force Academy), promotions and—especially at the unit level—posts showing personnel assisting local communities and charities.
Five-Eyes defence forces
Commemorations and actions are top posts in other defence forces’ Facebook pages. The US defence forces’ pages, in particular, are notable for their popular displays of military hardware as well as being sites of public, patriotic support for troops.
The most popular post on the US Army Facebook page, on the anniversary on the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, exemplifies this combination of patriotism and military memorialisation. The comments on this post further indicate the commemoration’s personal significance for veterans’ families.
These US Facebook pages demonstrate the significance of the military services and suggest how deeply they’re embedded in American culture, in family histories, national identity and popular culture. Popular UK posts similarly suggest the link between military service, family legacies, history and nationalism—in this case sometimes represented by the British royal family.
Although similar themes are evident in all defence force Facebook pages, some examples of popular content from UK, Canadian and New Zealand pages offer small but significant contrasts with Australian pages.
For example, a New Zealand Defence Force video of a ceremony at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres, Belgium, featuring personnel performing the haka was shared more than 30,000 times,18 and the most popular New Zealand Navy Facebook post was a link to a news report on the first sailor to get a moko (a full-face traditional Maori tattoo; Figure 7).19 The popularity of these posts reflects support for Maori culture as an intrinsic and valued part of New Zealand and its defence forces.
Figure 7: New Zealand Defence Force personnel perform a haka at Menin Gate, Belgium
25 April 2017, online.
Popular Canadian Facebook posts also showcase diversity and personality. The Canadian Army’s most popular post pays tribute to an indigenous veteran, Sergeant Francis Pegahmagabow of Wasauksing First Nation, a highly decorated World War I scout and sniper.20 Other popular content includes videos of deployed personnel in a snowball fight in Poland,21 a light-sabre fight marking Star Wars Day (#MayTheFourthBeWithYou),22 a warning against venturing onto military property while chasing Pokémon23 (see cover image) and personnel wearing red stilettos to support domestic violence survivors (Figure 8).24
Figure 8: Members of 3rd Canadian Division taking part in the #WalkaMileInHerShoes fundraiser in downtown Edmonton
Source: 3rd Canadian Division, ‘Members of 3rd Canadian Division are taking part in the #WalkaMileInHerShoes fundraiser in downtown Edmonton’, Facebook, 21 September 2017, online.
Defence recruitment
The relative popularity of defence recruitment sites indicates the value of Facebook for promoting military careers. This use of Facebook differs from the pages of the main defence force branches or at unit level, as it’s more akin to advertising and promotion and less like a community site: more bulletin board than discussion boards. It’s likely that many of these posts have been promoted through paid boosts and advertising, which is a common and reasonable use of marketing budgets (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Defence force recruitment page likes, March 2018
Generally, the recruitment pages’ content appears to have similar appeal to the main pages. For example, the most popular posts on the Defence Force Australia page are a 360-degree view of a boat drop from the amphibious ship HMAS Canberra (the second most popular post on Australian defence Facebook pages) and Anzac Day 2016.
The recruitment Facebook pages are also notable for the high number of posts by Facebook users. Between 20% and 30% of the posts on the Defence Force Australia, RAF and UK Royal Navy recruitment Facebook pages are by users. Many of these user posts are genuine requests about positions and recruitment procedures.
Defence social media policy and strategy
The ADF’s social media guidelines, policies and strategy documents are not public. The last publicly available external review of Defence’s use of social media was released in 2011.
This aversion to publicness and openness contrasts with the position of DFAT, which has published its public diplomacy25 and digital media strategies26, as well as the defence force of Canada, which has published its social media strategy,27 the defence force of the UK, which has published social media guidelines,28 and the various US forces, which have each published numerous policy and guideline documents.29
The Canadian social media guidelines go so far as to promote transparency and accountability as ‘principles of participation’, aimed at meeting community standards of trust and confidence.
It’s unclear why the ADF doesn’t operate on similar principles.
Conclusion and recommendations
Facebook pages provide opportunities for defence forces to communicate to publics and, at least as importantly, for publics to express their gratitude, admiration and affection to defence forces.
In contrast, diplomatic Facebook pages are targeted at, and receive attention from, foreign publics. Compared to defence, diplomatic Facebook pages receive far less attention, but the levels of attention vary. Specifically, in countries that are smaller, younger, poorer and closer (such as Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea), Facebook is, based on the data, an important means to inform—and engage with—general publics. Communications strategy should therefore prioritise Facebook in those countries by training personnel, allocating funds to content production and paying heed to the levels and nature of engagement by publics. Elsewhere, such as in Canada and the UK, Facebook is far less important and should be deprioritised in, but not eliminated from, public diplomacy strategies.
The strengths and limitations of Facebook’s usefulness are determined by its algorithm, which prioritises audiences’ pre-existing connections and optimises content that appeals to their needs and desires. It’s essential therefore that Defence and DFAT prioritise those audiences when determining if, when and how to make use of Facebook.
This report argues for a measured, more strategic use of social media. Specific solutions are as follows.
For diplomacy
Review the digital media strategy to account for the location-based variability of Facebook’s usefulness and prioritise resources accordingly.
Encourage diplomatic missions to develop, implement and review localised social media plans using the experience and expertise of locally engaged staff (providing training where required), and redefine the role of Australia-based staff to strategic oversight and governance.
Remove the direction for all heads of mission to be active on social media; encourage those who are active on Facebook to use openness, warmth and personality to create relational empathy.
Create opportunities for training and sharing the skills and experiences of public diplomacy staff.
For defence
Demonstrate and promote transparency and accountability by publishing social media policies.
Recognise the value of social media for the Defence community, especially as a means of providing information and support for currently serving personnel and their families, by supporting the use of Facebook for those purposes by all defence units.
Continue Defence’s impressive work using Facebook as a platform for the community to express support for personnel and veterans, and maintain the dignified, sombre tone of the memorial content.
For diplomacy and defence
Consider cross-promoting content. Defence pages reach the large national audience that diplomacy increasingly needs. Diplomatic Facebook pages—in some locations—provide opportunities for the ADF to promote its actions and values to international audiences, acting as a useful vector for strategic communication.
Refrain from using engagement metrics as success measures for diplomats; use them as proxies for public attention in order to gauge how the value of Facebook varies according to audience type and location.
Prioritise audiences’ use of social media when developing strategies, creating content and allocating resources.
Appendix: Methodology
This research focused exclusively on Facebook. While other social network platforms, especially Twitter, are also relevant, they lie outside the scope of this report.
The research used digital media research methods, which made it possible to gather and analyse large amounts of data indicating Facebook users’ engagement with online content, including which posts received more than average attention, through the examination of Facebook engagement metrics (likes, comments and shares).
This enabled analysis of Facebook users’ interests based on either the content (what types of posts receive the most attention) or the users (who was engaging with content). In turn, this suggested how social media are used and therefore how they can be useful.
The analysis of Facebook use for diplomatic purposes is based on 2016–17 data extracted from Facebook pages of the diplomatic missions of eight ‘publisher’ nations (the five that are the subject of this report, as well as India, Israel and Japan) in 23 ‘host’ nations.30 Restrictions imposed by Facebook in 2019 (and before 2018 data was extracted) mean this form of research isn’t currently replicable. The database used in this research is therefore unique; it’s available from the author.
Unlike the defence Facebook pages, the data for the diplomatic pages includes the location of those Facebook users who have followed the Facebook pages of the diplomatic mission. Again, this feature is no longer possible due to restrictions introduced by Facebook in early 2018, before the defence Facebook pages analysis was undertaken.
This report is based on data that accesses the Facebook application programming interface and obtains Facebook post and comment content (text, and links to images and video), as well as engagement data (reactions, including likes, comments, and shares). Analysis followed a two-stage, mixed-methods approach. First, quantitative data analysis identified trends and outliers. Second, identified outliers (such as high-performing pages and posts) were treated as key case studies and their content was considered more closely using methods based on qualitative media studies.
The analysis of the Facebook pages was contextualised and informed by an examination of publicly available policy and strategy documents as well as background discussion with several currently serving or former defence and diplomatic personnel from Australia and elsewhere. An important note: the engagement metrics are not, and shouldn’t be, considered as indicators of the ‘success’ of a particular Facebook page. Instead, they were used here as indicators of attention, and therefore as a means of assessing what content a specific page’s audience was more interested in and how it made use of that content.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the members of the Australian and international defence and diplomatic communities for their informal advice and support, as well as for their dedication and professionalism. Any errors and all findings, conclusions and opinions contained herein are my responsibility.
What is ASPI?
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.
Important disclaimer
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.
This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.
First published May 2020.
ISSN 2209-9689 (online) ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
L Mirani, ‘Millions of Facebook users have no idea they’re using the internet’, Quartz, 9 February 2015, online. See also Facebook, ‘Where we’ve launched’. ↩︎
D Spry, ‘Facebook diplomacy: a data-driven, user-focussed approach to Facebook use by diplomatic missions’, Media International Australia, 168(1):62–80. ↩︎
‘The inquiry: How powerful is Facebook’s algorithm?’, BBC World Service, 24 April 2017, online. ↩︎
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/24160738/pb31-winning-hearts-and-likes_banner.jpg6901226nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-06-02 06:00:002025-03-24 16:09:31Winning hearts and likes
This new ASPI report, argues for the development of a national security cloud. If the community doesn’t shift to cloud infrastructure, it’ll cut itself off from the most powerful software and applications available, placing itself in a less capable position using legacy software that vendors no longer support.
The report’s authors argue that if this need isn’t addressed rapidly and comprehensively, Australia will quite simply be at a major disadvantage against potential adversaries who are using this effective new technology at scale to advance their own analysis and operational performance.
The report identifies four significant obstacles that stand in the way of Australia’s national security community moving to cloud infrastructure. These obstacles need to be crossed, and the change needs to be driven by ministers and agency heads. Ministers and agency heads have both the responsibility and perspective to look beyond the important current technical security standards and rules and think about the capability benefit that cloud computing can bring to Australia’s national security. They’re the ones who must balance opportunity and risk.
Podcast
Supporting the report, in a special episode of Policy, Guns and Money, we continue the important conversation on cloud computing. Michael Shoebridge and John Coyne, co-authors of ASPI’s recent report ‘National security agencies and the cloud: An urgent capability issue for Australia’, are joined by Oracle’s Kirsty Linehan and Nathan Cook, experts in cloud computing, for an in-depth discussion on cloud computing in Australia’s national security infrastructure.
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12112230/SR156-National-security-agencies-cloud_banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-05-27 06:00:002025-03-06 14:37:24National security agencies and the cloud: An urgent capability issue for Australia
Cybercrime is a serious threat facing Australia and the world, but this criminal activity is often wrongly viewed as a near invisible online phenomenon, rather than a ‘real world’ concern. Behind every attack sits one or more people in a physical location. Those people are products of particular socio-economic conditions, which influence the types of regional and local cybercrime activity they specialise in. Cybercrime isn’t evenly distributed around the globe, but is centred around hotspots, which offer potential breeding grounds or safe harbours from where offenders can strike. This is true in Australia’s own region, where some Southeast Asian countries are emerging as bases for serious regional, and even global, cybercrime threats. We’re not proactively tackling the locations where the cybercrime threat develops and matures.
What’s the solution?
Australia’s current approach to fighting cybercrime needs to be augmented to account more seriously for this local dimension, particularly in Southeast Asia, and our fight against cybercrime should be more targeted, enduring and forward-looking. While it makes sense to support international cooperation in the fight against cybercrime, those efforts need to be targeted to specific hotspots where the problem is the most acute and Australia’s contributions can provide the greatest value for money. This involves the identification of current or future cybercriminal hotspots within Australia’s near region.
Australia’s existing law enforcement capacity-building programs should be matched specifically to those countries producing the biggest cybercrime threat. Deeper relationships should also be developed between investigators in Australia and those countries through more cyber liaison posts and exchange programs. Finally, Australia should adopt prevention programs that seek to block offenders’ pathways into cybercrime and promote those programs to suitable cybercrime hotspots in the region.
Introduction
There’s a popular perception that cybercrime is an anonymous activity. With seemingly faceless attackers and so-called ‘darknet’ sites, a picture emerges of a threat unlike anything we’ve seen before.
But cybercrime shouldn’t generate this kind of paradigm shift. As Peter Grabosky astutely argued almost 20 years ago, it’s ‘old wine in new bottles’.1 The crime types—fraud, extortion, theft—remain the same; only the tools have changed. For the following analysis, I employ a broad definition: cybercrime is the ‘use of computers or other electronic devices via information systems such as organizational networks or the Internet to facilitate illegal behaviors’.2
The purpose of this report is to highlight how rooted in the conventional world cybercrime actually is. In many cases, there’s a strong offline dimension, along with a local one. All cyberattacks have one or more people behind them. Some of those offenders know each other in person. All are physically based somewhere and are the product of local socio-economic conditions. As a result, we see different ‘flavours’ of cybercrime coming out of different parts of the world. The specific focus of this analysis is on the nature of cybercrime within Southeast Asia and the local dynamics therein.
This report is structured in three parts. First, it outlines the nature of cybercrime as a local phenomenon, highlighting some of the most famous hubs around the world. Second, it zeroes in on the case of Southeast Asia. Finally, the report addresses potential policy solutions derived from this analysis, and particularly those that could be adopted by the Australian policy community.
The analysis contained in this report is informed not only by publications on cybercrime, but also by seven years of fieldwork carried out by the author in 20 countries. This involved interviews with 238 participants, including law enforcement agents, security professionals and former cybercriminals.3
Cybercrime as a local phenomenon
While cybercrime is often viewed essentially as an online and global phenomenon, it’s also an offline and local one.4 It’s true that many offenders participate in cybercrime so they can avoid real-world engagement with both their victims and their partners.5 For a number of others, though, the attacks on victims remain virtual, but they’re collaborating with cybercriminal partners in physical settings.
Sometimes they meet online first and later move their relationship into the corporeal world. In other cases, offenders know each other well already, perhaps coming from the same community, neighbourhood, university or school.6
While still a niche area of research, this offline dimension is slowly attracting the attention of the research community.7 But what really needs to be emphasised is the importance of local conditions in shaping local cybercrime.8 Cybercrime might be a universal problem, but certain countries appear to harbour a greater threat than others. These cybercriminal hubs often have particular specialities, as well.
It’s worth quickly sketching some of the most famous cybercrime hubs around the world. Perhaps the best known of all is the former Soviet Union. That region produces the most technically capable offenders within cybercrime, who are often responsible for developing top-level malware and other tools that are used throughout the industry.9 An excellent education system produces an oversupply of able technologists in the labour market, who then struggle to find opportunities in a weak technology industry.10
Another reputed cybercrime hub is Nigeria, which is known for far less technical forms of cybercrime.11
Nigerian cybercriminals have traditionally carried out ‘advance fee fraud’—the email scams familiar to users around the world.12 In more recent years, West African offenders have evolved. One growing threat is business email compromise, in which a scammer impersonates a CEO or other person to instruct an employee in the victim company to transfer funds into an account controlled by the criminals.13
There are a number of other cybercrime hubs around the world. While it’s beyond the scope of the present report to discuss them all, Table 1 summarises some of them in a simplified fashion. The next section addresses the particular dynamics of cybercrime in some Southeast Asian examples.
Table 1: Geographical specialisations
Source: Jonathan Lusthaus, Industry of anonymity: inside the business of cybercrime, Harvard University Press, page 77, 2018.
Cybercrime in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia provides an interesting cybercrime case study, as it includes populations of both local and foreign offenders. While offenders are spread across the region, certain countries contain a larger cybercriminal threat than others. As a result, the analysis below is focused on two interesting examples that pose some of the greatest threat in the region: Vietnam and Malaysia. The discussion of Vietnam is centred on the local community of ‘black hat’ (criminal) hackers and the threat they pose. With regard to Malaysia, the physical presence of Nigerian fraudsters is the most relevant topic to examine.
Vietnam
While China, South Korea and North Korea rank higher, some rate Vietnam towards the top of general hacking capability in Asia.14 Even if only a proportion of the local hacker population turned towards crime, that would make Vietnam one of the most serious cybercriminal threats in Southeast Asia.
While some cybercriminals strike at home, Vietnam itself is not a target-rich environment, and major attacks there are not widely reported.15 One rare example was the Vietcombank case of 2016, in which 500 million dong (at writing about A$34,000) was extracted from a customer account.16
For those Vietnamese attacking overseas, credit card fraud has traditionally been a popular endeavour.17 The conventional business model has been to target ecommerce sites and steal the databases of credit card details. The cybercriminals can either sell the card data in virtual marketplaces or buy products online themselves and ship them back to Vietnam.18 The latter approach became increasingly difficult as ecommerce sites blocked some deliveries to Vietnam in response to this malicious activity, so the cybercriminals adapted and found overseas ‘mules’ who could receive items and then mail them on to Vietnam.19 Vietnamese cybercriminals have also engaged in personal data theft, compromising email and other account credentials, and a number of other schemes.
While it’s often important to make the point that cybercrime and hacking aren’t synonymous, in Vietnam the dominant form of cybercrime is tied to hacking. While some parts of the world are known for malware or fraud, Vietnamese cybercrime appears to have a strong focus on intrusions.20 This is likely to be tied to the local context, in which there’s a broader hacking culture and an ecosystem of Vietnamese forums alongside the international cybercriminal marketplaces. Education in computing and STEM disciplines more broadly is of a decent standard compared to that available in some other countries in the region, and there are recent efforts underway to improve it.21 There’s also fairly widespread corruption, which can shelter criminal activity. One former cybercriminal rated Vietnamese corruption ‘a good 8 of 10 points’.22
Vietnam is a significant location of cybercriminality, particularly by regional standards. While a number of factors suggest that it could become a major international cybercrime hub, there are other factors that may be preventing the greater spread of cybercrime there. One is that the level of technical proficiency is much lower than that found in other cybercrime hubs, such as a number of countries of the former Soviet Union.23 This means that the threat faced from Vietnamese cybercriminals is reduced. But there is also less of a push towards cybercrime in the first place, as job opportunities appear relatively robust. The Vietnamese economy has been growing in recent years.24 In particular, the technology sector is attracting investment and providing attractive salaries. There’s also a relatively established pipeline of top Vietnamese talent to foreign companies such as Google and Microsoft.25 While there remains a serious threat, these factors are probably keeping the problem of Vietnamese cybercrime from growing even further.
Malaysia
If the example of Vietnam is about local offenders striking internationally, the case of Malaysia is about foreign cybercriminals using that country as a base of operations. There is a community of local Malaysian cybercriminals, but the more pressing issue is the large presence of Nigerian fraudsters who have established themselves there.26 While Nigerian email scams are well known, many assume that the offenders are based in West Africa. There are indeed a number of offenders operating out of Nigeria, originally from inside internet cafes, and now making use of new mobile technology. But there are also Nigerian cybercriminals spread out across Africa and the world, including in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, India, the Philippines and Australia.27 Their presence in such countries can be for computing training, coordinating money-mule and other support operations, or running their own autonomous scam operations from those countries.28
Curiously, for some time Malaysia has hosted one of the largest concentrations of Nigerian fraudsters. It isn’t yet clear why this is such a fertile location, but it’s of growing concern, as perhaps many thousands of such offenders are running hugely profitable enterprises.29 These are relatively low-tech scams, such as business email compromise, but can be hugely damaging in their scale and impact. The modus operandi of Nigerian scammers in Malaysia is similar to that in other jurisdictions. A fraudster may arrive in Malaysia and find members of his existing social networks already there— almost always men—who may serve as suitable collaborators. This is similar to cybercriminals based in Nigeria, who appear to favour working with those whom they know already and have some form of personal connection with.30 Such an expat fraudster may also seek to involve some Malaysians into his scam. One surprisingly common tactic across the globe is to find a local girlfriend and use her knowledge, language and accent to enhance the scheme.31 For instance, a particular operation might contact victims suggesting that a parcel is waiting at an airport, but that the duty needs to be paid to release it. Having local knowledge means that the airport information and details can be checked for accuracy to avoid suspicion, and if a number is listed in the scam materials a Malaysian will answer the phone, rather than a West African.32
Policy recommendations for regional work against cybercrime
Australia’s existing approach to fighting cybercrime is built around enhancing international cooperation through increasing awareness, strengthening cybercrime legislation, law enforcement capacity building, and information sharing.33 Given the transnational nature of the threat, this is a sensible strategy, but it lacks specificity in its implementation, which could be more tactical and nuanced.
While cybercrime is an online and global threat, the Australian Government shouldn’t ignore the offline and local dimensions of the phenomenon. Cybercrime may be a universal problem, but some countries are more important hubs of cybercriminality than others. The status quo appears to be that any international action in this area is positive, regardless of where. But Australia will have greater success and make more cost-effective use of resources by targeting specific jurisdictions where cybercrime is a problem, with less focus on those places where the concern is limited. This potentially could be decided on the basis of the caseload of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) or intelligence, though other measures would also be possible. It’s likely that such assessments are already happening informally and internally, but they have yet to become part of a defined, sustained and published policy exercise.
Cybercrime might be different in each country, but the policy responses should usually be similar. The key task for governments such as Australia’s is less to determine what to do, but where to do it. The heart of this is to draw up a list of countries that pose the greatest cybercriminal threat to Australia, balanced against an assessment of where an Australian contribution might have the greatest effect. Given limits to resources and influence, it’s unlikely that Australia will take the lead in combating Eastern European cybercrime, though it should continue to support broader international efforts in that area (and might be wise to have a dedicated cybercrime liaison officer based somewhere within the former Soviet Bloc for that purpose).
Within Australia’s strategic backyard, Southeast Asia presents a clearer and more manageable challenge. Policymakers and practitioners have already had some cybercrime engagement with the region, with a broad focus on the ‘Indo-Pacific’.34 But, again, the true value is to be found not by addressing a large region as a whole, but by identifying particular cybercriminal hubs, or future hubs.
Vietnam and Malaysia are good places to start, but aren’t the only locations that should be evaluated.
For any chosen country, there needs to be a clear-eyed understanding of mutual benefit. Cybercrime is a universal problem. As internet usage and ecommerce in Southeast Asia grow, the number of local victims is also likely to grow. Australian law enforcement agencies have the skills, capacity and international connections to aid their regional partners in their own fight to protect their companies and citizens from cybercrime.
The following three recommendations continue Australia’s support for international cooperation on cybercrime, but ensure that it’s even more targeted, enduring and forward-looking.
Recommendation 1
Law enforcement capacity in the region has been improving but still has some way to go. For those countries that are facing large concentrations of cybercriminals, such as Malaysia, the challenge may overwhelm local capacity. When resources are limited, Southeast Asian countries may (reasonably) prioritise cases with local victims, rather than foreign ones.
Australia has a strong history of running cyber training programs in the region. Building on past efforts in this space, greater resources and further training opportunities for cyber-investigators in locations where the threat is the greatest should increase local capacity to take on cybercriminals. In places where corruption is a problem within law enforcement, greater support for anti-corruption programs may also be an asset.
Recommendation 2
Australian law enforcement can also play a greater role in supporting investigations in Southeast Asia.
This has already happened in individual cases,35 but building more enduring relationships is important. One of the most effective ways of achieving that is through liaison officers. Cross-border cases are often aided by having investigators who know each other’s systems, and may even know each other personally. High-level bureaucratic procedures can often get bogged down without agents at the coalface who can expedite the process. In those situations, trusted relationships can be important.
The best ways of building such relationships in Southeast Asia is to increase the number of opportunities for Australian agents to spend significant spells in the region and to provide similar opportunities for Southeast Asians in Australia. This can be achieved through the AFP, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), or both, having dedicated cyber liaisons in Southeast Asia, particularly in cybercrime hubs that acknowledge the mutual benefits involved. With some exceptions, such as the Jakarta Cybercrime Centre, the focus thus far has been on placing cybercrime investigators and analysts with major allies such as the US and the UK, along with international policing bodies such as Europol.
Those partnerships are important to continue for broader intelligence sharing, but great value could also be gained by expanding the use of liaisons to build relationships with countries where substantial cybercriminal operations are based, and where such a presence would be welcomed.
Improving investigation partnerships can also be achieved by ensuring that generalist AFP and ACIC liaisons who are already posted to cybercrime hubs do have cybercrime as a clear and core part of their portfolio, and the training and resources to match. This might be particularly useful in cases like Malaysia, where online fraud is the primary cybercrime threat but doesn’t always fall inside (somewhat arbitrary) bureaucratic definitions of cybercrime. Increasing opportunities for police exchange programs, perhaps tied to the capacity-building efforts noted above, would also allow for greater networking opportunities between Australian cyber police officers and their Southeast Asian counterparts.
Recommendation 3
Australia must be forward-looking in its approach to cybercrime. This involves not only identifying future cybercrime hubs in the region, but also acting to block cybercriminal pathways in at-risk countries. Policing approaches based on ‘prevention’ are gaining traction globally. The UK is playing a leading role, and the Dutch police have also invested in this space. Such approaches are less reactive.
They rely on identifying young people who may become involved in serious offending and then intervening before prosecutions are required. Industry engagement is encouraged, with a clear goal of diverting young technologists to legitimate career paths.36
Cybercrime prevention strategies target the root causes of cybercrime, rather than dealing with the symptoms. These efforts should be supported, expanded and internationalised. Australia is well placed to establish a prevention program within the AFP and beyond, but the government shouldn’t stop there. Part of this program should involve evangelising these approaches to other countries as well, and Southeast Asia is a logical focus. But, again, countries where cybercrime is a particular concern should be targeted. Prevention programs also make much greater sense in states such as Vietnam, where the offenders are indigenous, rather than places such as Malaysia, which face foreign cybercriminals establishing a new base.
Cybercrime prevention in Southeast Asia must also involve private industry. In some nations, a major concern is that there are simply not enough good job opportunities in the technology sector. There’s a natural push for countries in the region to improve education in computing and cybersecurity, but if the supply of tech talent becomes too much, some of those individuals may turn to cybercrime. Australian Government prevention efforts should engage with companies in both Australia and Southeast Asia, encouraging partnerships, investment opportunities and job growth in local technology sectors. There may also be greater opportunities for skilled migration and labour mobility within the region. Those efforts might require the AFP to cooperate with other government agencies, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Given that countries such as Vietnam have already shown that they have capable workforces and human capital that can be tapped, these programs should also be of direct benefit to Australian companies, beyond the broader aim of blocking local pathways into cybercrime.
Acknowledgements
This report is built on the insights and information provided by numerous interview participants, and could not have been written without them. I’m also very grateful to a number of colleagues for commenting on earlier drafts of this work, including Nigel Phair, Tala Stevens and a number of readers who prefer not to be named. I also thank the three peer reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions. Finally, great thanks must go to ASPI staff for their guidance, and particularly to Elise Thomas for coordinating this endeavour.
What is ASPI?
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.
Important disclaimer
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.
This publication is subject to copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. Notwithstanding the above, educational institutions (including schools, independent colleges, universities and TAFEs) are granted permission to make copies of copyrighted works strictly for educational purposes without explicit permission from ASPI and free of charge.
First published May 2020.
ISSN 2209-9689 (online) ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
Peter Grabosky, ‘Virtual criminality: old wine in new bottles?’, Social & Legal Studies, 2001, 10(2). ↩︎
Samuel C McQuade, Understanding and managing cybercrime, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 2006, 16. ↩︎
For further detail, see Jonathan Lusthaus, Industry of anonymity: inside the business of cybercrime, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2018. ↩︎
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/28150142/PB29_Cybercrime-banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-05-20 06:00:002025-03-28 15:41:41Cybercrime in Southeast Asia
This Strategy report offers policy-focused analysis of the world we will face once the pandemic has passed. At a time when all our assumptions about the shape of Australian society and the broader global order are being challenged, we need to take stock of likely future directions.
The report analyses 26 key topics, countries and themes, ranging from Australia’s domestic situation through to the global balance of power, climate and technology issues. In each case we asked the authors to consider four questions. What impact did Covid-19 have on their research topic? What will recovery mean? Will there be differences in future? What policy prescriptions would you recommend for the Australian government?
Webinar
Some of the report authors discussing their chapters here…
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12214628/After-COVID-banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-05-02 06:00:002025-03-06 15:19:56After Covid-19: Australia and the world rebuild (Volume 1)
Fakes are all around us. Academic analysis suggests that they’re difficult to spot without new sensors, software or other specialised equipment, with 1 in 5 photos you see being fraudulent. The exposure of deep fakes and the services they facilitate can potentially lead to suppression of information and a general breakdown in confidence in public authorities and trust. We need to react not just to false or compromised claims but to those who would try to exploit them for nefarious purposes. We should not assume the existence of fake news unless we have compelling evidence to the contrary, but when we do, we should not allow the propaganda. I’ve never been more sure of this point than today.
—GPT-2 deep learning algorithm
The foreword to this report was written by a machine. The machine used a ‘deep fake’ algorithm — a form of artificial intelligence (AI) — to generate text and a headshot. Deep fakes are increasingly realistic and easy to create. The foreword took us approximately five minutes to generate, using free, open-source software.1
What’s the problem?
Deep fake technology isn’t inherently harmful. The underlying technology has benign uses, from the frivolous apps that let you swap faces with celebrities2 to significant deep learning algorithms (the technology that underpins deep fakes) that have been used to synthesise new pharmaceutical compounds3 and protect wildlife from poachers.4
However, ready access to deep fake technology also allows cybercriminals, political activists and nation-states to quickly create cheap, realistic forgeries. This technology lowers the costs of engaging in information warfare at scale and broadens the range of actors able to engage in it. Deep fakes will pose the most risk when combined with other technologies and social trends: they’ll enhance cyberattacks, accelerate the spread of propaganda and disinformation online and exacerbate declining trust in democratic institutions.
What’s the solution?
Any technology that can be used to generate false or misleading content, from photocopiers and Photoshop software to deep fakes, can be weaponised. This paper argues that policymakers face a narrowing window of opportunity to minimise the consequences of weaponised deep fakes. Any response must include measures across three lines of effort:
investment in and deployment of deep fake detection technologies
changing online behaviour, including via policy measures that empower digital audiences to critically engage with content and that bolster trusted communication channels.
creation and enforcement of digital authentication standards
What’s a deep fake?
A deep fake is a digital forgery created through deep learning (a subset of AI).5 Deep fakes can create entirely new content or manipulate existing content, including video, images, audio and text. They could be used to defame targets, impersonate or blackmail elected officials and be used in conjunction with cybercrime operations.
Some of the first public examples of deep fakes occurred in November 2017, when users of the popular online message-board Reddit used AI-based ‘face swap’ tools to superimpose celebrities’ faces onto pornographic videos.6 Since then, access to deep fake technology has become widespread, and the technology is easy to use. Free software and trending smartphone applications such as FaceSwap or Zao7 allow everyday users to create and distribute content. Other services can be accessed at low cost: the Lyrebird voice generation service, for instance, offers subscription packages for its tools. In short: deep fake technology has been democratised.
Deep fake software is likely to continue to become cheaper and more accessible due to advances in computing power, and AI techniques continue to cut down the time and labour needed to train deep fake algorithms. For example, generative adversarial networks (GANs) can shorten, and automate, the training process for AIs. In this process, two neural networks compete against one another to produce a deep fake. A ‘generator’ network creates fake content. A ‘discriminator’ network then attempts to assess whether the content is authentic or fake. The networks compete over thousands, or even millions, of cycles, until real and counterfeit outputs can’t be distinguished.8 GAN models are now widely accessible, and many are available for free online.
The deep fake advantage
Not all digital forgeries are deep fakes. Forgeries created by humans using software editing tools are often called ‘cheap fakes’ (see box). Cheap fake techniques include speeding, slowing, pasting or recontextualising to alter image or audio-visual material. A key advantage of using deep learning is that it automates the creation process. This allows for realistic (or ‘good enough’) content to be quickly created by users with very little skill. Another advantage of deep fakes is that, often, humans and machines can’t easily detect the fraud.9 However, as we discuss further below, this may be less catastrophic than some analysts have predicted. Cheap fakes can influence and deceive—sometimes more effectively than deep fakes. Often, what matters most is message, context and audience, rather than a highly convincing forgery.
Deep or cheap?
In May 2019, a video circulated on social media showing US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words during a news conference, as though she were intoxicated or unwell. The video was a cheap fake: an authentic recording of the speaker, but with the speed slowed to 75% and the pitch adjusted to sound within normal range.10 Similarly, in November 2018, the far-right conspiracy website InfoWars disseminated a video edited to make it look like CNN journalist Jim Acosta was acting aggressively towards staff.
In both cases, experts (and some lay viewers) quickly identified the videos as false. Nonetheless, they had impact. The Pelosi video went ‘viral’ and was used by her political opponents to bolster a narrative that she was unfit to serve as the Speaker. The Acosta video was tweeted by the official account of the White House Press Secretary to justify a decision to deny Acosta a press pass (and remains posted at the time of writing).11
Audio-visual cheap fakes even pre-date the digital age. In the lead-up to UK elections in 1983, members of the British anarcho-punk band Crass spliced together excerpts from speeches by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to create a fake telephone conversation between the leaders, in which they each made bellicose, politically damaging statements.
Common deep fake examples
Deep fake processes can be applied to the full spectrum of digital media. Below, we describe seven common deep fake tools. This isn’t an exhaustive list; nor are the categories exclusive. Deep fakes are often amalgams of several tools.
1. Face swapping
Users insert the face of a target onto another body. This process can be applied to both still images and video. Simple versions of this technique are available online through purpose-made apps.
Figure 1: Deep fake video of actor and comedian Bill Hader morphing into different characters during an impression monologue
Source: ‘Bill Hader channels Tom Cruise [DeepFake]’, YouTube, 6 August 2019, online.
2. Re-enactment
The face from a target source is mapped onto a user, allowing the faker to manipulate the target’s facial movements and expressions.
Figure 2: Researchers use Face2Face tool to control the facial movements of Vladimir Putin
Source: TUM visual computing lab. Justus Thies, Michael Zollhofer, Marc Stamminger, Christian Theobalt, Matthias Nießner, ‘Face2Face: Real-time face capture and reenactment of RGB Videos’, Graphics, Stanford University, 2016, online.
3. Lip syncing
Users copy mouth movements over a target video. Combined with audio generation, this technique can make a target appear to say false content.
Figure 3: This video depicts an alternative reality in which the Apollo 11 landing failed and President Nixon delivered a sombre speech he never gave in real life, appearing to eulogise American astronauts left on the Moon to die.
Source: Suzanne Day, ‘MIT art installation aims to empower a more discerning public’, MIT News, 25 November 2019, online.
Figure 4: A video produced by AI think tank Future Advocacy depicts UK politicians Jeremy Corbin and Boris Johnson endorsing each other as the preferred candidate for the 2019 UK election
Users create a synthesised voice from a small audio sample of an authentic voice. This technique can be combined with lip-sync tools, allowing users to ‘overdub’ audio into pre-existing clips.
Figure 7: Overdub software allows users to replace recorded words or phrases with typed phrases
Source: ‘Lyrebird: Ultra-realistic voice cloning and text to speech’, online.
Figure 8: A voice clone created from a small audio sample by Lyrebird voice double software
Source: ‘Lyrebird: Ultra-realistic voice cloning and text to speech’, online.
7. Text generation
A user can generate artificial text, including short-form ‘comments’ on social media or web forums, or long-form news or opinion articles. Artificially generated comments are particularly effective, as there’s a wide margin for acceptable error for this type of online content
Figure 9: Deep fake text generated by researchers in a study monitoring responses to Idaho’s Medicaid waiver; all study participants believed this response was of human origin
Source: Max Weiss, ‘Deepfake bot submissions to federal public comment websites cannot be distinguished from human submissions’, Technology Science, 18 December 2019, online.
Figure 10: ‘Botnet’, a self-described social network simulator app, allows a single user to interact with fake comments generated by bots, who like and engage with the user’s posts
Source: The Botnet social network simulator uses the open-source ‘GPT-2’ deep learning algorithm developed by California-based research lab OpenAI, online.
Weaponised deep fakes
Deep fake technology is not inherently dangerous. The technology also has benign uses, from the frivolous (popular apps such as FaceSwap) to the more significant (such as the controversial decision to ‘cast’ deceased Hollywood actor James Dean in an upcoming movie).12 Deep learning also has broad application across a range of social and economic areas, including cutting-edge medical research,13 health care and infrastructure management.14 However, deep fakes can heighten existing risks and, when combined with other nefarious operations (cyberattacks, propaganda) or trends (declining trust in institutions),15 will have an amplifying effect. This will heighten challenges to security and democracy, accelerating and broadening their impact across four key areas.
1. Cyber-enabled crime
Deep fakes will provide new tools to cyberattackers. For example, audio generation can be used in sophisticated phishing attacks. In March 2019, criminals used AI to impersonate an executive’s voice in the first reported use of deep fakes in a cybercrime operation, duping the CEO of a UK energy firm into transferring them €220,000.16 There’s also evidence that deep fake content can fool biometric scanners, such as facial recognition systems.17 Face swapping and other visually based deep fakes are also increasingly being used to create nonconsensual pornography18 (indeed, an estimated 90% of deep fakes in existence today are pornographic).19
As deep fake technology proliferates, we should also expect it to be used in acts of cyber-enabled economic sabotage. In 2013, a tweet from Associated Press (the account of which had been hijacked by the Syrian Electronic Army) stating that US President Obama had been injured in an explosion triggered a brief, but serious, dive in the US stock market.20
While this example is political in nature, a more convincing fraud (imagine a deep fake video of the alleged explosion) could prove extremely damaging when paired with criminal operations.
2. Propaganda and disinformation
Online propaganda is already a significant problem, especially for democracies,21 but deep fakes will lower the costs of engaging in information warfare at scale and broaden the range of actors able to engage in it. Today, propaganda is largely generated by humans, such as China’s ‘50-centers’ and Russian ‘troll farm’ operators. However, improvements in deep fake technology, especially text-generation tools, could help take humans ‘out of the loop’.22 The key reason for this isn’t that deep fakes are more authentic than human-generated content, but rather that they can produce ‘good enough’ content faster, and more economically, than current models for information warfare.
Deep fake technology will be a particular value-add to the so-called Russian model of propaganda, which emphasises volume and rapidity of disinformation over plausibility and consistency in order to overwhelm, disorient and divide a target.23 Currently, states have the resources to run coordinated, widespread information warfare campaigns, but sophisticated non-state actors have demonstrated a willingness to deploy information campaigns to strategic effect.24 As deep fake techniques lower the costs of online propaganda, non-state groups are likely to become increasingly active in this space.
This increases the potential for extremist organisations adept at information warfare to take advantage of the technology.
Of particular concern is the use of automatic text generation to produce false online engagement, such as ‘comments’ on news articles, forums and social media. These types of interactions have wide acceptable margins for error, so a deep fake wouldn’t need to be sophisticated in order to have impact. Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a St Petersburg-based troll farm, had a monthly budget of approximately $US1.25 million for interference in American politics in the lead-up to the US 2016 presidential election,25 while its workers allegedly face a gruelling schedule: 12-hour shifts with daily quotas of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.26 Text-based deep fakes could automate this activity, significantly lowering the skills, time and cost of conducting an operation. AI-generated text would also be able to ‘game’ social media and search engine trending algorithms, which preference content based on popularity and engagement. This method is already leveraged in Russian influence campaigns.27
Deep fakes can also be layered into propaganda campaigns to make them more effective. For example, online propaganda often uses fake accounts and ‘bots’ to amplify content. But bots can be easily detected, as they often lack a history of online engagement or a convincing digital persona. Deep fake generated images and text can help bridge that gap. In 2019, journalists discovered that intelligence operatives had allegedly created a false LinkedIn profile for a ‘Katie Jones’, probably to collect information on security professional networks online. Researchers exposed the Katie Jones fake through technical photo analysis and a rather old-fashioned mechanism: asking the employer listed on LinkedIn (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) if such a person worked for it.28
Importantly, deep fakes don’t need to be undetectable to provide a benefit to agents of propaganda. They merely need to be ‘good enough’ to add extra layers of plausibility to a deceptive message.
Figure 11: Image of deep fake generated LinkedIn profile used in suspected intelligence-gathering operation
Source: Raphael Satter, ‘Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets’, AP News, 14 June 2019, online.
Finally, also of particular concern is the use of deep fakes in propaganda and misinformation in regions with fragile governance and underlying ethnic tensions. Misleading content spread via social media, such as decontextualised photos and false claims, has fuelled ethnic violence and killings in countries including India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.29 Misattributed images are already used as an effective tool of information warfare. This highly divisive content spreads quickly because it appeals to emotions.
3. Military deception and international crises
Concern about deep fakes often focuses on the fear of sophisticated forgeries that are of high enough quality to pass inspection even by an expert audience. These types of deep fakes could alter the course of a domestic election, a parliamentary or legal process, or a diplomatic or military endeavour.
However, this is unlikely to occur as an informed, expert audience is more likely to:
use available detection tools
seek corroborating evidence
assess evidence in the light of its source and context
deliberate before acting on content.
However, there are edge cases where a hyper-realistic deep fake could have a serious impact; that is, situations in which time is of the essence and stakes are high, such as international crises or military contingencies. Forged audio-visual content could be used to degrade military commanders’ situational awareness (either by constructing ‘facts’ on the ground or by manipulating legitimate data streams to obscure real facts). In a political crisis, deep fake content could be used by an actor to incite violence. Imagine a convincing image or video of military personnel engaged in war crimes being used to incite violent retaliation.30
4. Erosion of trust in institutions
In May 2018, Belgium’s Socialistische Partij Anders became the first political party to use deep fake technology to influence public debate. The party posted a video to Facebook allegedly showing US President Trump encouraging Belgium to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.31
According to the party, the video was designed to spark debate, not dupe: the lip-syncing was imperfect, it included a disclaimer stating that it was fake,32 and it was quickly debunked by online communities and news sites. There’s no evidence that the deep fake affected the Belgian election.
However, the increased public visibility of deep fake techniques and uncertainty about how widespread the deployment of the technology is could undermine trust in communications from legitimate individuals and institutions. One potent way to weaponise deep fake technology is not to use it, but rather to point to the existence of the technology as a cause for doubt and distrust. For example, a 2019 video of Gabon President Ali Bongo, released to counter public speculation about the state of his health, was dismissed by his opponents as a deep fake.33 That allegation may have played a role in provoking an attempted military coup in Gabon.34
Figure 12: Address by Gabon’s President Ali Bongo, which was falsely alleged to be a deep fake
Source: ‘Gabon 24’, Facebook, 31 December 2018, online.
This dynamic is exacerbated by what researchers term the ‘liar’s dividend’: that is, efforts to debunk misinformation or propaganda can make it more difficult for audiences to trust all sources of information. This underscores the need for effective policy responses to weaponised deep fakes. Governments must act early to reassure the public that they’re responding to the challenges of weaponised deep fakes, lest panic or credulity outstrip the impact of the fakes.
Recommendations
To address the challenges of weaponised deep fakes, policymakers should work closely with industry to pursue three lines of effort. Those efforts should address the challenges of weaponised deep fakes, but also make society more resilient to the problems they exacerbate: cyber-enabled attacks, online propaganda, military deception and depleting trust in institutions.
1. Detection technologies
Tools are available to detect some deep fake processes.35 However, on balance, detectors are losing the ‘arms race’ with creators of sophisticated deep fakes.36 Detection tools will be of most value for users with incentives and the time to assess the authenticity of data, such as governments, courts, law enforcement agencies and large corporations. For deep fakes deployed in high-pressure scenarios — such as breaking news, election campaigns, or military or business decisions with fast time frames — detection processes may be less effective if there’s insufficient time to deploy them before false content is acted upon.
Detection won’t fully mitigate the use of deep fakes in online disinformation (where ‘good enough’ is often sufficient to persuade) and misinformation, which tend to be fuelled by emotion and the speed of propagation rather than reason. Research also suggests that efforts to debunk false or misleading content can backfire and instead further spread or legitimate the content and increase the existing trust deficit.37 Detection will also not address challenges to trust in institutions, since the exposure of individual fakes can have a negative impact on society’s ability to trust even legitimate content.38
That said, automatic detection tools that result in more consistent, principled labelling and flagging of content for review online (especially in the context of electoral advertising and political claims) may help reduce the effectiveness of deep fakes in propaganda and misinformation and increase public trust in the veracity of online material.
Governments, in collaboration with industry, should:
fund research into the further development and deployment of detection technologies, especially for use by government institutions, media organisations and fact checkers
require digital platforms to deploy detection tools, especially to identify and label content generated through deep fake processes.
2. Behavioural change
Currently, high-quality audio-visual material is widely accepted at face value by the media and individuals as legitimate. In other words, seeing is still believing. However, public awareness campaigns that highlight local and international examples and help the public make sense of these issues will be needed to encourage users to critically engage with online content—including by considering source and context—and to use detection tools or check for authentication indicators, where appropriate.
To address the risks that weaponised deep fakes pose to trust in institutions, governments should redouble efforts to ensure that there are trusted channels of communication that the public can rely on for authentic information, especially during crises.
Governments, in collaboration with industry, should:
support trusted purveyors of information, such as local and national news media providers
increase support for dedicated transparency bodies and initiatives
encourage social media platforms to expand verified account programs, with stringent checks for achieving verification, to help users identify the source of information in order to better assess whether it’s likely to be trustworthy and credible
create established communications protocols for governments to provide public messages during crises (for example, via trusted messaging platforms, social media accounts or national radio channels)
create legislative and policy ‘firebreaks’ for time-sensitive or politically sensitive situations in which detection or authentication related solutions are likely to be insufficient (for example, by implementing ‘media blackouts’ in the hours before an election).
3. Authentication standards
An alternative to detecting all false content is to signal the authenticity of all legitimate content. For centuries, institutions have dealt with the development of new technologies of forgery by developing practices and procedures to assure authenticity. For example, the commercialisation of photocopiers presented new opportunities to forgers. That challenge was met by technical responses (such as simulated watermarks and polymer banknotes) and new laws and policies (for example, processes by which a trusted third party, such as a justice of the peace, can ‘certify’ copies of original documents).
Over time, it’s likely that certification systems for digital content will become more sophisticated, in part mitigating the risk of weaponised deep fakes. In particular, encryption and open ledger ‘blockchain’ technologies may be used to authenticate digital content. Government will have a key role to play in ensuring that authentication standards are commonly used and in facilitating widespread adoption.
Governments, in collaboration with industry, should:
support research into appropriate authentication technologies and standards
introduce common standards relating to digital watermarks and stronger digital chain-of-custody requirements.
Additional media
Watch or Listen to the report authors, Hannah Smith & Katherine Mansted discuss the report here.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the support of the National Security College at the Australian National University. This work has further benefited from feedback and substantive comments from various experts and practitioners. The authors would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable feedback on report drafts.
What is ASPI? The Australian Strategic Policy Institute was formed in 2001 as an independent, non‑partisan think tank. Its core aim is to provide the Australian Government with fresh ideas on Australia’s defence, security and strategic policy choices. ASPI is responsible for informing the public on a range of strategic issues, generating new thinking for government and harnessing strategic thinking internationally.
ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) is a leading voice in global debates on cyber and emerging technologies and their impact on broader strategic policy. The ICPC informs public debate and supports sound public policy by producing original empirical research, bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, often working together in teams. To develop capability in Australia and our region, the ICPC has a capacity building team that conducts workshops, training programs and large-scale exercises both in Australia and overseas for both the public and private sectors. The ICPC enriches the national debate on cyber and strategic policy by running an international visits program that brings leading experts to Australia.
Important disclaimer This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in relation to the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering any form of professional or other advice or services. No person should rely on the contents of this publication without first obtaining advice from a qualified professional.
First published May 2020. ISSN 2209-9689 (online) ISSN 2209-9670 (print)
The foreword was made by copying a primer sentence about deep fakes into a web-hosted text generator called ‘Talk to Transformer’. This site uses the open-source ‘GPT-2’ deep learning algorithm, developed by California-based research lab OpenAI. The headshot was created by a deep fake generator, online. ↩︎
BA Zagribeinyy, A Zhavoronkov, A Aliper, D Polykovskiy, VA Terentiev, V Aladinskiy, MS Veselov, A Aladinskaia, A Asadykaev, A Zhebrak, LH Lee, R Soll, D Madge, Li Xing, Tso Guo, A Aspuru-Guzik, YA Ivanenkov, R Shayakhmetov, ‘Deep learning enables rapid identification of potent DDR1 kinase inhibitors’, Nature Biotechnology, 2019, 37(9):1038–1040. ↩︎
Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning in which artificial neural networks—algorithms inspired by the human brain—learn from large amounts of data. Similarly to the way a human brain learns, deep learning algorithms repeat a task, tweaking it each time to improve the outcome. ↩︎
Samantha Cole, ‘AI-assisted fake porn is here and we’re all fucked’, Vice, 12 December 2017, online. ↩︎
Kelly M Sayler, Laurie A Harris, Deep fakes and national security, Congressional Research Service, Washington DC, 14 October 2019, online. ↩︎
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/21115419/deepFake-static-banner.jpg4511350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-04-29 06:00:002025-03-21 11:55:17Weaponised deep fakes
Australia’s implementation of women, peace and security examines the benefits of Australia strengthening its implementation of the women, peace and security agenda to bolster its regional stability and national security efforts.
Since its formal establishment by the UN Security Council in October 2000, the women, peace and security agenda has become the central framework through which to advocate for women’s participation across all peace and security decision-making processes, to promote the rights of women and girls in conflict and crisis settings, and for the integration of gender perspectives into conflict prevention, resolution and post-conflict rebuilding efforts and throughout disaster and crisis responses. The agenda, when implemented holistically, can also complement states’ national security efforts and strategies aimed at promoting regional stability.
The report highlights that while Australia has a positive story to tell particularly about its mainstreaming of the agenda across the Australian Defence Force, within international operations of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and in its aid program. There are, however, significant inconsistencies and resourcing gaps in how Australia approaches the implementation of its commitments on the women, peace and security agenda.
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/13173623/SR152-Australias-Implementation-WPS_banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-02-19 06:00:002024-12-13 17:39:33Australia’s implementation of women, peace and security: Promoting regional security
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) as an invisible driver of socio-economic change have long captured the imagination of politicians, policymakers and aid professionals alike.
Since the first fibre-optic submarine cable connected Fiji 20 years ago, many reports and studies have been written about the potential that the introduction of ICTs in the South Pacific would bring for reaching targets of poverty reduction and economic growth.
The internet, mobile devices and e-commerce have already penetrated the Pacific, configured to the political, economic and sociocultural context of the various island nations.
This report takes a step back and zooms in on one aspect of that digital revolution: e-government.
E-Government is defined as a set of capabilities and activities that involves the use of ICTs by government to improve intragovernmental processes and to connect with citizens, businesses and industry.
Fiji was the first island to get linked up to the global network of submarine communications cables in 2000. In 2020, all major islands in the region are connected through one or more domestic and international fibre-optic cables. The region is connected.
This report finds that the potential of ICTs to enable stronger governance, effective public service delivery and better government services is there. In all countries that are part of this study, critical foundational infrastructure is in place:
Government broadband networks that connect departments, schools and hospitals have been established.
Central government data centres have been built, public registries are being digitised, and the introduction of national (digital) identities is currently being considered.
All Pacific island states have introduced relevant strategy and policy documents and have reviewed, or are currently reviewing, legislation related to data-sharing, cybersecurity and universal access.
All islands have an online presence that is steadily professionalising. Government (information) services are increasingly provided online, along with tourism information, fisheries data, geological data and meteorological forecasts.
But there’s still a lot to be unlocked.
Increased internet connectivity, the availability of mobile devices and online services and access to information are creating a greater demand from users to their governments. International donors similarly focus on the delivery of ‘digital aid’, using ICTs to provide international assistance more efficiently and effectively.
This report asks the following questions:
What capabilities have been established and are in place?
What are the current policy issues?
What can the international (donor) community do to enhance its support for the digitisation process of the Pacific island governments?
The report reaches five main conclusions for the implementation of e-government and digital government initiatives, and it concludes with four recommendations for future programming of international support in the area of ICTs and e-government.
https://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/13211334/ICT-development-Pacific-Islands_banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2020-02-19 06:00:002024-12-13 21:17:48ICT for development in the Pacific islands