{"id":475,"date":"2020-06-02T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=475"},"modified":"2024-03-12T20:27:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T20:27:08","slug":"disinformation-and-other-tools-of-antidemocratic-influence-an-armenian-outlook-in-the-eu-and-eastern-partnership-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=475","title":{"rendered":"Disinformation and other tools of antidemocratic influence: an Armenian outlook in the EU and Eastern Partnership context"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?page_id=397\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"397\">Armen Grigoryan<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong>Growing Chinese influence observed by Freedom House<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The recent Freedom House <a href=\"https:\/\/freedomhouse.org\/report\/nations-transit\/2020\/dropping-democratic-facade\"><em><strong>Nations in Transit 2020<\/strong><\/em><\/a> report pays particular attention to the growing Chinese influence in a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia. The report notes: \u2018While China\u2019s international engagement is often less directly confrontational than Russia\u2019s, it nevertheless has an insidious effect on the development and functioning of democratic institutions  \u2026  influence  campaign  is  focused  around  two major    goals  \u2014  expanding    the    country\u2019s influence abroad, and promoting a positive image of China globally. &#8230; It tailors its approach to each individual country, taking advantage of institutional weaknesses, and surreptitiously embedding itself into corrupt political and economic structures. The aggregate impact of these measures is the further degradation of good governance, transparency, and the rule of law\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>\nThe\nreport notes three specific tools used by China for expanding\nantidemocratic influence in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nFirst\nand foremost, surveillance tools including \u2018Safe City\u2019\nagreements, cameras for monitoring public spaces, facial and\nlicence-plate recognition, are actively promoted. According to the\nreport, some of those have been introduced in four EaP countries \u2013\nArmenia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, as well as in Russia,<sup><a href=\"#sdfootnote1sym\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>\nCentral Asian states, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nSecond,\ninfluence campaigns in the media have been going on, including\npromotion of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s preferred narratives,\nsuppression of critical viewpoints, as well as management of content\ndelivery systems. The report particularly mentions misleading op-eds\npublished in several Central and Eastern European countries, pushing\na pro-China narrative. A number of EU members are among the countries\nexposed to this method if influence. Third, China has been increasing\ninfluence in the region by \u2018debt diplomacy\u2019, providing\ninfrastructurally weak countries in need of cash with funds in a way\nresulting in political dependency. This is the case of Montenegro,\nNorth Macedonia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"#sdfootnote1anc\">1<\/a>\n\tIt may be argued that in Russia\u2019s case political preferences and\n\tgoals of Putin\u2019s regime would have resulted in an expansion of\n\telectronic surveillance methods even irrespective of China\u2019s\n\tinterests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full article can be accessed at: <a href=\"https:\/\/centreforpolicystudies.org\/gallery\/CPS_EaP_bulletin2.pdf\">centreforpolicystudies.org<\/a><br>It was originally published by&nbsp;the Yerevan-based Centre for&nbsp;Policy Studies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Armen Grigoryan Growing Chinese influence observed by Freedom House The recent Freedom House Nations in Transit 2020 report pays particular attention to the growing Chinese influence in a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia. The report notes: \u2018While China\u2019s international engagement is often less directly confrontational than Russia\u2019s, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Disinformation and other tools of antidemocratic influence: an Armenian outlook in the EU and Eastern Partnership context - Democratic Security Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=475\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Disinformation and other tools of antidemocratic influence: an Armenian outlook in the EU and Eastern Partnership context - Democratic Security Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Armen Grigoryan Growing Chinese influence observed by Freedom House The recent Freedom House Nations in Transit 2020 report pays particular attention to the growing Chinese influence in a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia. 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