N C Bipindra, Indian defence analyst, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on China’s covert influence operations in India | SAM Conversation
N C Bipindra, Indian defence analyst, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on China’s covert influence operations in India | SAM Conversation
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00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor.
00:15Our topic today is China's covert influence operations in India.
00:24And for this, it's a pleasure to invite Mr. N.C. Bipindra, a senior journalist who's been
00:32covering defense affairs for a couple of decades now.
00:43I think we should start with a clarification that ever since 1967, the first war we had
00:57with China was in 1962, which is history and how it happened, why it happened.
01:07One of the main reasons was the Dalai Lamas, India welcoming the Dalai Lama for settling in this
01:26country. In 1967, the skirmishes that we had in Natula and Chola in Sikkim, the PLA lost about
01:42400 soldiers and we lost 67. And after that, they pressed very hard that we should not fire at each
01:52other. They made very good use of this agreement because their salami slicing continued, attempts
02:05at salami slicing continued. And even till 2020, when they attacked us again, it was not with
02:14bullets, it was with medieval barbaric weapons. Since then, again, it is quite clear to the PLA
02:27that war with India with firearms is something they would try to avoid. But war by every other
02:41possible means is continuing. Bipindra, I request you to, with reference to what you have written
02:58recently, if you could throw some light on Chinese covered influence operations in India.
03:06Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Colonel Anil Bhatt and South Asia Monitor for this opportunity to be
03:16here today with you to share some of the research work that I have done and some of the writings
03:22that I have done on the subject. As rightly pointed out by Colonel Anil Bhatt, China has
03:30been following a very important policy of winning wars without fighting, which it has borrowed from
03:37Sun Tzu, 15th BC, 5th BC military strategist, Chinese military strategist. For this purpose,
03:47they actually do not need to put foot on the soil, boot on the ground. There are other means by which
03:54war can be fought and also the enemy can be defeated. So, that is a strategy that they have
04:00been adopting. So, as he rightly pointed out, they need not send military personnel or troops
04:06or brigades into India to fight a war. They can actually fight it by other means. And one of the
04:14important strategies that they have adopted is called as the three warfare strategies, which
04:19they had in 2003, the PLA, Chinese People's Liberation Army formally adopted this strategy
04:28as it is one of its policies. And this three warfare strategy is actually a combination of
04:37psychological or public opinion shaping operations, media offensive, Yannicki using the media for
04:47public perception, managing public perception and also legal warfare, which is also called as law
04:54fair in technical terms to propel the enemy from within. So, for the purpose, what they usually do
05:03is to identify people within the enemy state or state against which they want to do these three
05:11warfare operations and try to get them on their side and to write opinion pieces in newspapers
05:22or do research work, which is favourable to China, showing China in a much more brighter
05:31light than actually what it is all about. So, these are some of the strategies that they do,
05:35which is essentially capturing the mind space of the people of the enemy nation or the rival nation
05:41and weakening their will to wage a war, to fight a war or to pursue policies that are actually
05:51not in the interest of China. So, these are the strategies that they do. Essentially,
05:56they try to create public opinion and also influence policy through that public opinion
06:01by various means including using the media, including using the social media, think tanks,
06:07they even use the entertainment industry, they also use technology industries, including say
06:16the mobile operators in India. So, they try to influence those associations, trade bodies. As
06:24we all rightly know, in fact, Colonel Anil Bhatt had shared an article with me, which actually
06:30points out towards how the Chinese trade has been increasing with India in the last even four years
06:39since the 2020 Galwan incident. Probably this year, 2024 alone, it has sort of crossed about
06:46120 billion dollars at this point in time. And also, whereas it is purely 100 billion dollars
06:56of export and the other 20 billion is imports by China from India. So, that is the kind of
07:04dichotomous trade relationship that India shares with China. This is also one sort of a warfare,
07:13actually crippling India through economic means. This is another sort of warfare that they indulge
07:19in. So, these are some of the efforts that China has been putting in. So, if you ask more questions
07:25then I will answer or if you want me to continue, I can still continue to make my presentation.
07:29I thought that let us try to particularize them a little more. I see cyber, espionage,
07:43psychological warfare, covert operations which include sabotage, also artificial
07:57intelligence and propaganda. In your article, you touched on covering a little bit of this,
08:18but I think we need to be clear that these are particularly the categories,
08:27the particular ways that cyber is one, they are very active in cyber warfare. Espionage,
08:37they have always been. Psychological warfare, covert operations where you don't get involved
08:51in. These can, let us for instance, controlling the water, controlling the water of rivers,
09:08that is one covert way of creating war. That is what we have been seeing that in
09:21Brahmaputra where they have created these flow through dams, which they easily control and if
09:28they want they can actually flood the entire northeastern region using the dams that they
09:33have releasing water through the dams. So, on the cyber aspect that you pointed out,
09:38I just want to direct your readers to the latest April development that has happened,
09:44how the strategic support force of the PLA, which had existed since 2013. In 2014 or 15,
10:01they started it and in about 9 years, they have actually changed the face of that strategic
10:08support force, which was dealing essentially with two aspects. One is the aerospace warfare
10:14and the other is the network warfare or cyber warfare as we call it. So, they have reworked
10:21on that particular, Xi Jinping has reworked on that particular force and has broken it up into
10:27three different forces currently. Now, it is actually called as the information support force,
10:36which essentially is dealing with both overt and covert operations in the cyber space and
10:43also opinion influencing space. Espionage, as you rightly pointed out, these are some of the
10:51stuff that they do. Online espionage is also one of the work that they do. And the other force is
10:57the air force, aerospace force as they call it, which deals with essentially their satellites,
11:06missile launching, spacecraft launching and all that sort of a system that they do. So,
11:13there are now there is also a cyber force specifically, cyber space force specifically,
11:21which does these cyber attacks and the cyber operations that we have been talking about.
11:28India is a victim of a lot of cyber attacks that have happened in the recent places. We have heard
11:33of how DRDO systems have been targeted, how naval systems, particularly the Eastern Naval Command
11:38systems have been targeted over the last few years. So, now, the cyber space force will
11:45completely focus on these kind of both covert and overt operations in the cyber domain completely.
11:52So, now, the essentially two roles that were being played by the strategic support force
11:59has been divided into three forces and they have been brought directly under the Central Military
12:04Commission of which Xi Jinping is the head or the chairman. So, they have been given a much
12:11bigger status. Of course, the reason for doing that and all that is as our internal politics
12:16that have happened within China, including the threat that Xi Jinping faced from the leaders
12:23of the heads of the aerospace and the information network systems force that they had earlier under
12:32the strategic support force. Because those people had a lot of information that were
12:39detrimental to Xi Jinping s survival. So, that is a politics, internal politics because of which
12:44the strategic support force was entirely reworked and three new forces have been created. But that
12:51apart, we are looking at the influence operation things that they do in India. Of course, you
12:57rightly point out that the three warfare strategies also including the water warfare that they do by
13:04blocking rivers and all that and also releasing at the time, controlling the release of water.
13:10Controlling the flow of water. Vipin sir, would you like to elaborate on, you know,
13:20we are unfortunate enough to have some section of politically motivated Indians for whom,
13:38call them leftists or pseudo secularists, I mean, or the Tukde Tukde gang, you know, we have our
13:51share of, who make the aims of a country like China very easy to achieve. Unfortunately,
14:07we have a whole political party which the leaders of which have been, you know, they
14:19have been conniving or call it whatever, they have had secret meetings and secret deals.
14:26Would you like to throw some light on this? Absolutely. You rightly pointed out the
14:34influence operation that China does within India. Let us talk specifically about India
14:39because they are doing this not only in India but also in all other democratic nations around
14:43the world including the US, Canada, UK and all the other places. But we will deal with India
14:48specifically. India, what they do is that they target for their influence operation people with
14:56Marxist tendencies essentially, people with leftist ideas. So they are the most easiest to target and
15:03to bring them into the fold of the Chinese influence operation. So they involve a lot of
15:09money, underhand dealings and also overt funding like what happened with Newsclick, you know,
15:18Neville Roy Singham was funding that Newsclick operations through whom they were giving money
15:26to several activists with whom you rightly pointed out including Sitalwad and others
15:33who have been receiving money which is under investigation currently. So since it is a legal
15:38matter, I will not go dwell deeper into it. But it is an example of how people with Marxist
15:44tendencies, people with leftist ideology are easier and I won't call them gullible. They are,
15:51you know, as you rightly pointed out, conniving personalities in this sort of an operation.
15:58They are the most easiest to fall for the influence operation that China does. So they
16:03are using all that. Political parties, there are two especially types of political parties whom
16:09they target. Essentially if you look the communist parties in India, there are umpteen number of them,
16:15communist party Marxist, communist party of India, then communist party Marxist-Leninist,
16:21you know, Maoist centre, you name them. There are Susi, there are plenty of them,
16:26umpteen number of them operating in India. So they are all the easiest target. After the
16:32USSR broke down, it is only China which is the most powerful communist country, at least in
16:39namesake, they are communist country. So for the communist's own survival, for their own funding,
16:45they need to be in cohorts with China. So they have all been forced to be in cohorts with China.
16:52Earlier USSR used to fund one aspect of the communist's divide. The other communist party
17:01used to be taken care of by China. But today it is only China which is taking care of these
17:06parties. So this is one type of the party. The other type of party is the left of centre party,
17:12like the, you know, I mean, I have to take the name. The Congress party is what,
17:20the Indian National Congress party is what which went and did a, signed a deal in 2008 with,
17:27with signed an MOU with the Communist Party of China. So you rightly pointed out. But let me,
17:34one, so it is not just these parties on the left of the centre which are, or the extreme left which
17:43are being targeted for influence operation. It is also other parties on the right. Let me just
17:49give you an example. The ruling party of India was being influenced by the Chinese Communist
17:56Party for a very long time since the, since at least the time when Vajpayee came to power in
18:031998 for a full 5 year term. 98, one and half years and then again 99 full 5 year term. So
18:10since then they, the Communist Party of China understood that the BJP is going to be a major
18:16political power in India and since for that reason they have been targeting BJP. Even till
18:252020 Galwan incident or the March-April intrusion that happened or the military force that were
18:37deployed on the LAC in Ladakh happened. This influence operation had continued. In fact,
18:43both the BJP and the Communist Party of China, they invited each other to their respective
18:49Congress or their National Conferences as you call them and they have been visiting delegations
18:57to either party. There have been interactions with party leaders of both the sides. There have
19:02been groups of people from the party invited by Communist Party of China to China to show
19:10them about the greatness of Communist China and all that. So this kind of an activity happens.
19:16The left is the most easiest but the right is also a target of influence operation for the
19:22simple reason that they knew BJP if not today, tomorrow. So in 2014 obviously that came to be
19:31true and I mean now it is going to be for another 5 year term or till this coalition lasts. So they
19:38understood the importance and they started targeting even those parties. So if you find
19:46the statements of leaders from say the Communist Parties, you will frequently see the Communist
19:57Chief Minister of Kerala frequently tweeting about China. This is essentially to put out a
20:06favourable opinion on China in the social media space. So if you look at the Communist Party's
20:13leaders, they will regularly keep meeting and having a dialogue with the embassy staff in
20:19Delhi, Chinese embassy staff in Delhi. So these are all coordination work and all that. So the
20:25frequent foreign visits of some of the opposition party leaders is believed to be an engagement
20:32with Chinese agents across the world, if not for covert meetings to discuss politics.
20:42Even the current elections that happened in 2024 have come under influence operations by
20:48China and several other nations. I think recently there was a report of Open AI which is a chat
20:54GPT founder which talked about an Israeli firm being used for putting out political opinions,
21:05political social media posts essentially to influence the Indian election aspect. But
21:13there is a significant Chinese hand behind that operation. So we have also found that
21:20one of my associate organizations with whom we jointly do some research work on these influence
21:27operations by China, Tingfai which is a private startup actually in the technology OS in space.
21:36So their research work based on their observations have found that when the IPL finals happened in
21:45India which was won by the Kolkata Knight Riders, there were lot of tweets by Twitter handles,
21:55the X handles which were putting in hashtags on the IPL. But if you track that particular handle,
22:05you find that there are actually bots which are working behind the scenes and those same bots
22:13were also used for putting out the election related tweets and material before the IPL
22:20match. Why the IPL match tweets were done? Because these bots were trying to gain legitimacy that
22:28they were focusing on various subjects in the context of the tweets that they were making.
22:34But what they were essentially doing was they were trying to influence the opinion of Indians
22:41through their bots and the Chinese were owning all these bots. So there are companies today
22:47which enable thousands of bots to be created in a click of a button. And usually what happens
22:55is the algorithms in Twitter or X weeds out those bots at some point of time. But in the case of
23:03bots which survive that weeding out by X algorithm, those bots are sold to the Chinese
23:10for a huge sum and those bots have already gained legitimacy actually as an organic handle sort of
23:17a legitimacy and they are used for this kind of political propaganda work that we were talking
23:24about currently. I thought let me just before we end let me mention one more modus of on the
23:36borders you know on the line of actual control many locations you install loudspeakers. Loud
23:50speakers on which you know speak whatever you want to try and
24:01to irritate yeah to all kinds of this has been a Chinese tactic for quite some
24:10for very long. But once in 1986-87 when they made you know certain moves in Sundaram too
24:24our chief then was General Krishna Swami Sundarji who gave you know first of all we
24:34we outwitted them by surrounding them wherever they were and then we used this tactic
24:40with very aggressively which made Chinese troops it disturbed them a lot.
24:49It disturbed them a lot and I trust that our intelligence agencies are doing the needful to
25:00to deny first of all whatever information needs to be denied and to also jam this
25:14you know in whichever way to protect the country from all these various modes of
25:26non-firearms warfare by China. Thank you very much Mr. Bindra for
25:38for it was you know a lot of very useful and important aspect which you brought out. Thank you.
25:48Thank you very much sir for this opportunity. It's been a pleasure.