https://www.aspi.org.au/report/frontier-influencers

This report explores how the Chinese party-state’s globally focused propaganda and disinformation capabilities are evolving and increasing in sophistication. Concerningly, this emerging approach by the Chinese party-state to influence international discourse on China, including obfuscating its record of human rights violations, is largely flying under the radar of US social media platforms and western policymakers.

In the broader context of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to censor speech, promote disinformation and seed the internet with its preferred narratives, we focus on a small but increasingly popular set of YouTube accounts that feature mainly female China-based ethnic-minority influencers from the troubled frontier regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, hereafter referred to as ‘frontier influencers’ or ‘frontier accounts’.

Despite being blocked in China, YouTube is seen by the CCP as a key battlefield in its ideological contestation with the outside world, and YouTube’s use in foreign-facing propaganda efforts has intensified in recent years. Originally deployed on domestic video-sharing platforms to meet an internal propaganda need, frontier-influencer content has since been redirected towards global audiences on YouTube as part of the CCP’s evolving efforts to counter criticisms of China’s human rights problems and burnish the country’s image.

Alongside party-state media and foreign vloggers, these carefully vetted domestic vloggers are increasingly seen as another key part of Beijing’s external propaganda arsenal. Their use of a more personal style of communication and softer presentation is expected to be more convincing than traditional party-state media content, which is often inclined towards the more rigid and didactic. For the CCP, frontier influencers represent, in the words of one Chinese propaganda expert, ‘guerrillas or militia’ fighting on the flanks in ‘the international arena of public opinion’, while party-state media or the ‘regular army’ ‘charge, kill and advance on the frontlines’.

这份报告探讨了中国政党国家的全球宣传和虚假信息能力是如何演进和日益成熟的。 令人担忧的是，中国政党国家影响有关中国的国际讨论的新方法，包括模糊其侵犯人权记录，在很大程度上是在美国社交媒体平台和西方决策者的监视下飞行的。

在中国共产党试图审查言论、宣传虚假信息和利用其首选叙事播撒互联网的更广泛的背景下，我们关注的是一些规模虽小但日益流行的YouTube账号，这些账号主要以来自新疆边疆地区的华裔女性为特色， 西藏和内蒙古，以下简称”边疆影响者”或”边疆账户”。

YouTube虽然在中国被封锁,但被中共视为与外部意识形态角逐的核心战场,最近几年YouTube在对外宣传上的使用正在加强。 最初部署在国内视频共享平台以满足内部宣传需要，此后，作为中共对抗对中国人权问题的批评和提高国家形象不断努力的一部分，前沿影响力内容已经转向YouTube上的全球受众。

除了党国媒体和外国博客，这些经过仔细审查的国内博客越来越被视为北京对外宣传武库的另一个关键部分。 他们使用更个人化的沟通方式和更柔和的表达方式，预计会比传统的党-国媒体内容更有说服力，后者往往倾向于更僵硬和更具教育意义的内容。 用一位中国宣传专家的话说，对中共来说，边疆势力代表着”国际舆论舞台”中的”游击队或民兵”，而政党国家媒体或”正规军”则代表着”冲锋陷阵、杀阵、在前线前进”。

由HurshidemAblikim主演的短片截图(附英文字幕)
资料来源:”人权”，YouTube，2020年4月23日，在线。

影响者是中国宣传的新面孔。 他们隐藏在关于小狗和化妆的博客中，秘密允许北京粉饰其危害人类的罪行。 YouTube虽然在中国被封锁,但已成为中国共产党重要的意识形态战场。 他们创造了一个全新的影响者生态系统，这些影响者遵循着党的路线。 通过这些视频，这些维吾尔族影响者将他们的祖国新疆描绘成田园诗般的繁荣景象。 然而，许多可信的报告记录了中国对维吾尔族人口持续犯下的罪行——从强奸、强迫绝育到奴役。 澳大利亚战略政策研究所的研究员Daria Impiombato和她的团队观看了其中的1700多个视频。 很快，他们发现了一个令人担忧的灰色区域，这些影响因素在其中运作。 通过在”多频道网络”或MCN工作， 这些”影响力机构”拥有国家认可的VPN网络，允许它们绕过无所不能的”中国防火墙”。 然而，这些机构与中国共产党有联系，其内容必须严格遵守中国法律。 北京的宣传机器正在试图控制叙事，不仅是在他们的边界内，而且也在你们的算法内。

Influencers are the new face of Chinese propaganda. Hidden amongst the vlogs about puppies and makeup, they clandestinely allow Beijing to whitewash its crimes against humanity. Despite being blocked in China, YouTube has become a key ideological battleground for the Chinese Communist Party. And they have created a whole new ecosystem of influencers who tow the party line. From looking at these videos, these Uygher influencers portray their homeland of Xinjiang as idyllic and prosperous. However, numerous and credible reports document China’s ongoing crimes against the Uygher population – from rape, forced sterilization to slave labor. Daria Impiombato, a Researcher at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and her team, watched over 1,700 of these videos. Soon enough, they found a worrying grey area in which these influencers operate. Through working for ‘multi-channel networks’ or MCNs,. These “influencer agencies”, with state-approved VPN networks, allow them to circumnavigate the all-powerful “Great Firewall of China”. However, these agencies are linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and their content must strictly follow Chinese law. Beijing’s propaganda machine is attempting to control the narrative, not just within their borders, but directly within your algorithms too.

Table 1: Frontier accounts on YouTube with more than 2,000 followers

To interact with the hyperlinks, please download the full report.

Figure 18: A video on the Ayituna (阿依图娜) channel describing the beautiful hair of the women in the vlogger’s family

Figure 24: Screenshots of posts from the @Maryamugul Twitter account featuring frontier influencer vide

Source: ‘Xinjiang Mali’ [新疆玛丽], Twitter, 9 October 2021, online; ‘Xinjiang Mali’ [新疆玛丽], Twitter, 27 May 2021, online.

The now-suspended @LeonaBenjamin18 Twitter account shares the same name and profile picture as the currently active @Maryamugul Twitter account

Source: Twitter.

 Xiaowu Brothers’ post outlining ‘detailed rules for the review of online short video content’

Source: ‘Xiaowu Brothers’ [杭州小五和她的兄弟们科技有限公司], Facebook, 30 December 2021, online.

Meta’s blog post on Xiaowu Brothers’ success story

Source: Meta for Media, 5 August 2022, online.

Xiaowu Technology joint party branch held an organisational life meeting and carried out a criticism and self-criticism session of party members

Source: ‘Jincheng Xiaowu Technology’ [晋城小五科技], Weixin, 1 April 2022, online.

Pre-roll advertisements on videos about Xinjiang cotton, appearing on the ‘Annie Guli’ and ‘Chinar girl on horseback’ YouTube accounts, and a pop-up ad on the ‘GuLi XinJiang’ account

Sources: 安妮古丽 (Annie Guli), online; 马背少女驰娜尔 (Chinar girl on horseback), online; GuLi XinJiang, online.

在习近平看来，中国及其边疆地区的形象被用来遏制国家崛起的”外国势力”的负面形象扭曲了。 塑造一个”可信、可爱、可敬”的中国边疆形象，是为中国营造一个良好的内外环境，进而促进中国的稳定、发展和全球力量。 在中国被屏蔽的平台上出现了种族边界账户，这再次表明北京愿意尝试建立其全球话语权。

党国担心，向普通中国人开放社交媒体平台和其他互动渠道，将使他们面临受西方优越的”话语权”影响的风险，并破坏中共的政治计划。 中共不但没有鼓励中国网民广泛参与外国平台，反而继续限制他们跨防火墙进行对话，表明党国不相信中国公民”讲好中国故事”，除非他们通过指定的渠道被引导和引导。

边境影响账户越来越多地被用作北京日益增长的宣传武器库的一部分。 它们被视为一种可以利用的资源，但前提是它们得到适当的利用。 目前，他们的有效性似乎主要限于全球华人侨民。 但是，随着北京继续加大对社交媒体内容制作的政治控制，并使官方言论和自我表达更加一致，这些看似真实的报道很可能会被发布到全世界。

From Xi’s point of view, the image of China and its frontier regions is distorted by negative portrayals from ‘foreign forces’ used to contain the country’s rise. Creating a ‘credible, lovable, and respectable image’ of China’s frontier regions is meant to cultivate a favourable domestic and external environment for the PRC that will, in turn, facilitate the country’s stability, development and global power. The emergence of ethnic-frontier accounts on platforms blocked in China is another sign of Beijing’s willingness to experiment in building its global voice.

The party-state is concerned that opening up access to social media platforms and other interactive channels to regular Chinese people will expose them to the risk that they’ll be influenced by the West’s superior ‘discourse power’ and undermine the CCP’s political project. Far from encouraging widespread participation of Chinese internet users on foreign platforms, the CCP has continued to restrict them from engaging in dialogue across the firewall, indicating that the party-state doesn’t trust Chinese citizens to ‘tell China’s story well’ unless they’re led and guided through designated channels.

Frontier-influencer accounts are increasingly used as an emerging part of Beijing’s growing propaganda arsenal. They’re seen as a resource to be drawn on, but only if they’re harnessed properly. At present, their effectiveness appears to be mostly limited to the global Chinese diaspora. But, as Beijing continues to ramp up political control over social media content production and bring official discourse and self-expression further into line, more of these seemingly authentic accounts are likely to be unleashed onto the world.