Chinese websites posing as local news outlets are targeting global audiences with pro-Beijing content aimed at promoting Chinese Communist Party propaganda abroad, reveals a new report by cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab.

February 7, 2024: At least 123 Chinese websites posing as local news outlets in more than 30 countries are targeting global audiences with pro-Beijing content to promote CCP objectives, discredit critics of the regime and spread disinformation with an anti-U.S. flavour, finds a new report by Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog and research agency based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Spanning countries throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, the operation Citizen Lab has dubbed PAPERWALL populates its websites with seemingly “benign” content sourced from local news media and Chinese state media, peppered with “ad hominem attacks” on critics of Beijing (particularly the United States and its allies). One example is a piece that accuses American scientists of “leaking” a new coronavirus.

Posing as legitimate news outlets and newspapers, the websites take on names inspired by the locations they have infiltrated, such as “Rome Journal” or “Eiffel Post,” publishing in the language of the region and scraping material from genuine news sources to conceal their shared vein of Chinese disinformation and coordinated efforts to curb dissent among diasporas and exiles.

Citizen Lab found that most of the articles published by the PAPERWALL global network of websites originate from a press release service called Times Newswire. The Lab traced Times Newswire to a public relations company located in Shenzhen, China, known simply as Haimai and formally as Shenzhen Haimai Yunxiang Media Co., Ltd. The global network of websites the service feeds all appear to have become active in 2020.

Times Newswire service was exposed as one of the main actors in a Chinese propaganda operation targeting U.S. audiences last year by U.S. cybersecurity company Mandiant.

Although exposure of the PAPERWALL network of websites is not considered high, the operation keeps growing. The concern is their increasing number and use of regional languages will draw in local media and audiences, who may fall unintentionally to their influence and amplify the risks posed by the information disseminated.

To read more about the PAPERWALL influence operation, refer to Citizen Lab’s backgrounder and key findings at the Lab’s website here.