Beijing’s state-controlled propaganda units are forging ties with Chinese tech companies, including the sister company of popular e-commerce firm Temu, in what researchers say is likely a coordinated effort to gather targeted data on foreign users that can be used to bolster misinformation campaigns and other state propaganda work abroad. (Wikimedia Commons)
SYDNEY — Beijing’s state-controlled propaganda units are forging ties with Chinese tech companies, including the sister company of popular e-commerce firm Temu, in what researchers say is likely a coordinated effort to gather targeted data on foreign users that can be used to bolster misinformation campaigns and other state propaganda work abroad.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a Canberra think tank, released a report on Wednesday that mapped extensive linkages between state-run propaganda groups tasked with harvesting data from Chinese tech firms, including popular shopping and gaming apps with hundreds of millions of combined users in the United States and elsewhere.
U.S. lawmakers have in recent years raised concerns that the soaring popularity of Chinese-owned apps among American users could have national security implications.
“They use those companies to gain access to strategically valuable data sets, within China, but also globally, to process and use that data to contribute to propaganda work,” said Samantha Hoffman, a former senior analyst at the ASPI who led the research.
The report maps ties between over a thousand Chinese government organizations and Chinese companies, including state-owned enterprises. It includes details of a cooperation agreement between the Chinese sister company of Temu — the breakout Chinese shopping app with over 100 million U.S. users — and a unit of the CCP-controlled media group People’s Daily, which shares commercial data with the Chinese government and police.
Information funneled to these state data agencies could offer Beijing valuable insights into patterns of preferences, behavior and decision-making that can be used in targeted misinformation campaigns among other applications, the report’s researchers say.
Hoffman says it highlights an urgent need for lawmakers to increase scrutiny of how user data is repurposed and consider registering internet companies with ties to China’s state-controlled propaganda groups as state agents — a restrictive designation applied to Chinese state media in the United States.
It comes amid a crackdown on Chinese-owned apps in the United States — including TikTok — over fears that their data could be accessed and misused by the Chinese government. Under Beijing’s strict national data framework, companies are legally compelled to give authorities access to data stored in the country on request.
President Biden signed a bill into law last week that would compel TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the app. The legislation also leaves space to target other apps controlled by Chinese owners, including Temu.
Beijing has strongly condemned efforts by the United States to restrict Chinese apps on the grounds of national security.
“It is sheer robbers’ logic to try every means to snatch from others all the good things that they have,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin in March, after the House passed the legislation to force Chinese-owned ByteDance to divest TikTok.
While links between Chinese propaganda units and the country’s tech products are becoming increasingly visible, there is little direct insight into how data harvested and shared is used.
“It’s hard to tell that story in so many ways because there’s never going to be that sort of smoking gun … and yet you can see that the propaganda system in China is investing heavily into these efforts so it must matter,” said Hoffman.
Beijing tightly controls information through a web of state propaganda units, censorship restrictions and technical infrastructure that separates Chinese internet users from information outside of the country — including bans on all popular Western social media and news outlets.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has sought to retool its propaganda to control and influence narratives about the ruling Communist Party abroad, either by promoting positive messages or by undermining its critics. That drive has become increasingly visible through the aggressive expansion of Chinese state media abroad, as well as the proliferation of networks of pro-Beijing misinformation accounts on social media.
That process is aided by large-scale data collection conducted by a growing number of sophisticated groups linked to China’s central propaganda authorities that are investing in technology, creating state-controlled data-sharing platforms and building partnerships with Chinese tech firms operating abroad.
One of the leading entities behind this drive is the state-run People’s Daily media group, which in recent years has spawned units to oversee mass data harvesting and cloud services that in turn are made accessible to the government, police and other state clients looking to better understand perceptions of Beijing abroad and target critics.
Among the links uncovered by ASPI is a partnership between Pinduoduo — the sister company of Temu — and People’s Data Management, a unit of People’s Daily that facilitates state data sharing.
According to the People’s Data website, the unit says its role is to “break down data barriers between party committees, governments, enterprises and institutions at all levels,” and facilitate the flow of “social data” to the CCP. The project is part of a broader national drive to bring commercial and industrial data into state-run exchanges and cloud centers in aid of a guiding national principle called “party managed data.”
Pinduoduo is listed as an enterprise partner on the website of People’s Data. Pinduoduo, in a statement, denied it has a data-sharing agreement as part of its cooperation agreement with People’s Data, and said it works with the state propaganda unit to “to distribute editorial content like press releases.”
Boston-based Temu says it does not have a relationship with People’s Data, and says it stores U.S. user data on Microsoft Azure cloud services in the United States.
People’s Data is a unit of People’s Daily Online, a group that The Washington Post previously reported conducts extensive overseas surveillance of Western social media targets on behalf of Chinese police and intelligence services, according to troves of government bidding documents.
ASPI researchers pointed to caveats in Temu’s data-sharing agreements that allow information to flow to affiliates - which Hoffman says could include Pinduoduo.
“Significant downstream data access risks emerge if you follow the logic of the Party-state’s stated policy intent,” said Hoffman.
People’s Data did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Pinduoduo was suspended in the Google App store last year over violations of Google’s privacy rules. The company is also facing class-action lawsuits in Illinois and New York over what users claim is unwarranted collection of unnecessary data.
The ASPI report also notes partnerships between People’s Data and Didi Chuxing — China’s top ride-hailing app, which operates in Australia, New Zealand and 10 countries in Central and Latin America — and Air China, the country’s top state-run airline.
State propaganda authorities are likewise expanding links with Chinese gaming, artificial intelligence and metaverse companies. In one case study, researchers point to links between a CCP national technology program and the popular international game and mobile app, Genshin Impact, made by Chinese firm Shanghai miHoYo Tianming Technology.
Pro-Chinese misinformation campaigns have recently expanded on X, while Meta in November cracked down on a network of thousands of Facebook accounts set up in China that sought to boost the country’s image.
Chinese actors are increasingly developing new techniques, including one campaign uncovered last year that saw state-friendly articles placed on the websites of dozens of local U.S. newspapers.
“The more we understand this system and the more we can get on top of managing its implications, the more we’re able to control, the negative effects of those efforts,” said Hoffman.
