Securing Democracy Dispatch

Regardless of who occupies the White House, Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) still see the United States as the world’s hegemon and have “a vested interest in pushing back” against Washington worldwide, Co-Managing Director David Salvo told DW News.

Russian diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• WWII’s Legacy: Russian state media reprimanded US President Donald Trump for his remark that Russia “helped” the United States win the second World War and bemoaned the absence of a Russian delegation at the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. RT en Español claimed that his statement belittled Russia’s crucial role in defeating Nazism and underestimated the Soviet Union’s human loss. During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya praised the Soviet Union’s key role in the liberation of Auschwitz, while the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands blamed EU leadership and European media for not acknowledging Soviet soldiers during the commemoration. Because a Russian delegation was not invited to the commemoration, the embassy also sarcastically added that “those who built the death camps are welcome at the ceremony, while those who liberated Auschwitz are not.”
• DeepSeek: Russian propaganda outlets celebrated a potential technology war between the United States and the PRC after the Chinese-owned startup DeepSeek launched new artificial intelligence (AI) models, which rattled US markets after its release last week. A State Duma deputy noted in TASS that the chatbot was achieved “despite US tech restrictions”. The RT show Going Underground labeled the US reaction to the release “Red Scare 2.0” and described the United States’ supposedly “brazen” and “desperate” attempts to stop PRC technological development by banning the export of semiconductor chips. In this light, Lenta.ru speculated that Chinese developers intentionally opened the DeepSeek code to take revenge on the United States.

The PRC’s diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week: 

• Chinese New Year: Last week, the Spring Festival dominated PRC messaging on all monitored platforms. PRC diplomats and state media used the celebrations to underscore the PRC’s technological dominance and growing global influence. State media used the festival to promote DeepSeek, sharing a clip of its AI models generating New Year’s greetings that Chinese-language speakers could say to “foreign friends”. CGTN ran a segment that claimed “TikTok refugees [are] head over heels for Chinese culture”, in which they interviewed three American RedNote users about their experiences using the app to learn about the Spring Festival. In a highly viewed tweet, People’s Daily also reported that PRC leader Xi Jinping sent a New Year’s card to “friends in the [US] state of Iowa”, in which he expressed a desire for more cooperation. 
• DeepSeek: PRC messaging also seized on DeepSeek’s launch. PRC state media labeled DeepSeek as “groundbreaking” (even calling it the “Sputnik moment for AI”), amplified praise about the application, including from Trump, and mocked the United States and Europe for being unable to keep up with China. Monitored diplomatic and state media accounts criticized the US Navy’s decision to prohibit personnel from using DeepSeek, and speculated about a future ban across the United States. The Global Times published an article that suggested that the United States was involved in various recent cyberattacks against DeepSeek in an attempt to “hinder the development of China’s high-tech industry”. PRC state-affiliated accounts ignored OpenAI’s accusations that Deepseek inappropriately used the US company’s data.

PRC-linked influence campaign called for Spanish government overthrow: The PRC-linked online influence network Spamouflage posed as a Madrid-based human rights advocacy group on Facebook, X, Bluesky, TikTok, and other sites to post content critical of Spain’s government after deadly floods hit Valencia last year, including calling for its overthrow, according to Graphika. Senior Manager for Europe and Fellow Vassilis Ntousas told the Dispatch, “The way the game is played today, foreign interference is increasingly focused on fostering societal and political disruption, viewing any crisis as a potential hook. However ineffective in its actual impact, this revelation underscores how PRC-linked influence campaigns are becoming bolder in their tactics, even flirting with such disruptive political narratives. Previous efforts focused on shaping discourse in a far subtler way, but this could be seen as a sign of increased appetite to exploit crises. It’s also a stark reminder that Europe must remain vigilant against foreign interference from a wider pool of foreign adversaries. Time and again it is proven that Russia is not alone in this game.”

Chinese startup’s AI chatbot dodges sensitive PRC-related questions: Chinese startup DeepSeek’s newly released AI chatbot offers evasive responses to questions about issues of sensitivity for the PRC, including Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong, according to a CNN analysis. In addition, a NewsGuard audit found that the app fails to provide accurate information about news and information topics around 83% of the time. Senior Fellow Bret Schafer said, “We have long known that large language models trained on censored data will produce inaccurate or incomplete information when asked about controversial topics, so it is entirely unsurprising that DeepSeek struggled with prompts that are considered taboo in the PRC. Perhaps more concerning is NewsGuard’s finding that the chatbot ‘relayed the Chinese government’s position’ on topics unrelated to the PRC, suggesting a deep bias in the model towards the PRC government’s view of world affairs.”

Foreign interference widespread but largely unsuccessful in Canada, report finds: Canada’s official investigation into foreign interference concluded that China and India—and to a lesser extent Russia, Pakistan, and Iran—have interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections. The report noted that outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not act quickly enough to combat it, but that the outcome of Canadian elections was not swayed and members of parliament were not compromised. Co-Managing Director David Salvo said, “Canada should be commended for conducting a thorough inquiry into foreign interference in its elections. Multiple countries have attempted to influence Canadian voters and candidates in successive election cycles, often surreptitiously and using many of the tools in the interference toolkit. That the inquiry pointed out deficiencies in the government’s defenses—and even in their communications with election officials—is critical to creating better deterrence in Canada’s upcoming election this year. After a lengthy process that unfortunately saw the question of foreign interference be politicized by members of parliament, this report ought to reassure Canadians that the integrity of their vote can still be trusted, especially given its conclusion that election results weren’t compromised.”

In Case You Missed It

• A Russian internet scheme is behind an influx of sensationally worded posts and ads that have targeted Canadian political figures on X, according to CBC News.
• Russian intelligence agencies are hiring Polish citizens via the “dark web” to spread pro-Kremlin narratives online ahead of Poland’s presidential elections, according to Poland’s digital affairs minister.
• A notorious pro-Kremlin operative used AI to create a network of 102 German-language websites that mimic local and national German news outlets to promote pro-Russian narratives ahead of Germany’s February snap elections. 
• OpenAI announced new technology to give federal agencies greater capability to use the company’s models in government work, with an eye toward handling sensitive data and adherence to cybersecurity requirements.

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—Members of the European Council, in a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27.

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