Black Mirror Statecraft: Combating PRC Hostile Social Manipulation and Sharp Power in an Era of Great Power Competition

The Netflix television hit Black Mirror postulates a world in which personal mobile devices and other forms of interconnected infosphere technology produce alarming and increasingly animalistic human behavior.  In the episode titled “Nosedive,” the main protagonist struggles to boost her social credit score – an algorithmic rating of all daily social interactions – to enhance her socio-economic status, earn special privileges, and sustain access to basic human resources through mostly contrived and inauthentic behavior.  At first, this Twilight Zone-type plot seems unbelievable until realizing that a social credit system now exists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The PRC Social Credit System integrates personal finance, online, and social media conduct in a domestic regulatory enterprise to manipulate behavior in support of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies through incentivized rewards such as internet connection and access to restaurants, travel, and jobs.[1]  The PRC Social Credit System is a thinly veiled domestic surveillance program buttressed by a sprawling closed-circuit television network integral to a “Great Firewall”[2] that is rapidly expanding authoritarian proclivities across the borderless expanse of the World Wide Web.

PRC sharp power through hostile social manipulation – what I have termed Black Mirror Statecraft – is implemented through coordinated use of “magic weapons”[3] – online censorship, social media, surveillance, and fake news – to shape the global narrative “about China that circulates overseas.”[4]  Black Mirror Statecraft systematically mutates truth from an objective element of discourse into an irrelevant and pestiferous feature of contemporary communications.  For instance, the PRC weaponized Twitter and Facebook to stoke the 2011 U.S. Occupy Wall Street protests, spreads fake news about Taiwan’s Tsai Administration, frequently pays for “hundreds of thousands of followers and retweets on Twitter” to falsify support for CCP policies and initiatives, and recently raided the Hong Kong office of Stand News online publications under the auspices of “national security.”[5]  PRC Black Mirror Statecraft shapes and alters world opinion about controversial policies and critical issues such as “indisputable sovereignty” in the South China Sea,[6] state-capitalist interdependence strategies like the Belt and Road Initiative,[7] and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.[8]

The exponential proliferation of PRC Black Mirror Statecraft is designed to channel “citizens away from behaviors the [CCP] fears” and exploits democratic ideals of free speech and press to weaken the Liberal International Order (LIO) and create an image of the PRC as a “peaceful nation, bullied by powerful adversaries and reluctantly responding by building armies and laying claim to new lands.”[9]  For example, on December 28, 2021, the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Carlos Del Toro, prohibited all members of the Department of the Navy from participating in any future Naval Attaché Association (NAA)-hosted events following strenuous PRC objection to three members of the Taiwanese military attending a recent NAA breakfast in Washington, D.C.[10]  Senior PRC military officers utilized an online and email pressure campaign to nefariously manufacture wrongdoing – “It is known that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China”[11] – and alter U.S. Government (USG) behavior.  Despite Secretary Del Toro’s complaint about “PRC coercive tactics and censorship,”[12] the ban on U.S. Navy participation in NAA-hosted events demonstrates how PRC exploitation of the infosphere through Black Mirror Statecraft is exacerbated by the lack of a synchronized and comprehensive U.S. Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications (PD-SC) strategy.

Severe weaknesses in the current U.S. PD-SC strategy are apparent as a result of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Great Power Competition, and recognized struggle “to establish an effective strategy for winning the hearts and minds or promoting democratic and liberal values since the end of the Cold War.”[13]  The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, colloquially referred to as the 9/11 Commission, presciently reported over twenty years ago that “if the United States does not act aggressively to define itself…[our enemies] will gladly do the job for us.”[14]  Similar calls to action occurred immediately in the wake of World War II (WWII) to confront global Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) aggression by informing and influencing “foreign publics in promotion of the U.S. national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions and their counterparts abroad.”[15]  Despite the similarity in mid-twentieth-century USSR and twenty-first-century PRC authoritarian enterprises, the U.S. has only responded vigorously to the former and continues to rely upon outdated legislative authorities.

Indeed, the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations (1945-1953; 1953-1961) intuitively recognized the value of a robust PD-SC strategy.  President Truman’s declaration that “propaganda can be overcome by the truth – plain, simple, unvarnished truth – presented by the newspapers, radio, newsreels, and other sources that the people trust” was echoed by President Eisenhower who stated during a San Francisco campaign speech that “the struggle for the minds and wills of men” is a pillar of American national security strategy.[16]  Consequently, President Eisenhower created the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in 1953 to streamline competing PD and SC legislative authorities and “implement U.S. government international information and exchange programs in support of U.S. foreign policy.”[17]

The USIA was an exceptionally effective organization credited with playing a key role in defeating Communist ideology through the synchronized dissemination of democratic principles, vision, and beliefs.^[18]  In fact, the USIA “was the biggest information and cultural effort ever mounted by one society to influence the attitude and actions of men and women beyond its borders.”[19]  The USIA furnished a “multispectrum global network capable of broadcasting America’s message to the world at any moment” through the coordination of complementary mediums – Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Library, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and Science, Broadcasting to Cuba, cultural exchanges, and publications, to name a few – to “make United States policy…everywhere intelligible and wherever possible palatable”[20] as stated by the legendary journalist and early USIA Director Edward Murrow.  Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War and a corresponding shift from bipolarity to unipolarity in international affairs resulted in the shuttering of USIA and subsumption of USIA duties and responsibilities into the DOS during the Clinton Administration (1993-2001).[21]

Several abortive attempts to reconstitute USIA functionality in reimagined ways have occurred in the previous two decades with a modicum of success.  The Office of Global Communications established by executive order during the Bush Administration (2001-2009) in January 2003 was a short-lived but valiant effort to “ensure consistency in messages that will promote the interests of the United States abroad, prevent misunderstanding, build support for and among coalition partners, and inform international audiences.”[22]  Equally fleeting was the Global Cultural Initiative.  Launched by First Lady Laura Bush on September 25, 2006, the Global Cultural Initiative was nestled under the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs “to coordinate, enhance and expand America’s cultural diplomacy efforts worldwide” but failed to “survive the Bush Administration.”[23]  Notwithstanding comparable efforts by the Obama and Trump Administrations (2009-2017; 2017-2021), such as the March 2016 executive order establishing the Global Engagement Center to “coordinate government-wide counterterrorism operations” and ineffectual reform of the U.S. Agency for Global Media in spring 2020,[24] some effort has been made to champion the development of a comprehensive PD-SC strategy.

The U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication issued by the Bush Administration in June 2007 conceptualized PD and SC as inextricable modalities of national security but “did not mention social media or new tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.”[25]  Similarly, the March 2010 White House National Framework for Strategic Communications underscores that the “synchronization of our words and deeds as well as deliberate efforts to communicate and engage with intended audiences…are essential to sustaining global legitimacy and supporting our policy aims”[26] but lacks operational specificity to combat twenty-first-century weaponized social media.  Along with the Obama Administration-issued strategy for Strengthening U.S. Engagement with the World, which correctly asserts “we need a foreign policy that uses tools and approaches to match a changing global landscape of engagement,”[27] the U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication and the National Framework for Strategic Communications form the current doctrinal underpinnings of U.S. PD-SC strategy.  Unfortunately, the persistent lack of a synchronized and comprehensive PD-SC strategy has led to ad hoc coordination between government agencies who have developed disconnected roles and missions.[28]  This disorganized and inefficient operational construct presents a significant risk to the LIO and American national interests vis-à-vis PRC Black Mirror Statecraft.

Combating PRC Black Mirror Statecraft to achieve American national security interests and defend the LIO in an era of Great Power Competition requires a synchronized and comprehensive PD-SC strategy.  Modern technological advancements shine a spotlight on the utilization of contemporary communication methods as an instrument of national power.  Whole-of-nation solution pathways combating PRC Black Mirror Statecraft exist but necessitate a synchronized and comprehensive U.S. PD-SC strategy “to influence public attitudes among nations…[and]…reiterate our faith in freedom.”[29]  Ultimately, to avoid losing further digital ground in the war of ideas that is currently underway, USG leadership must recognize that “change is the only constant in world affairs.”[30]  Spread across legislative, doctrinal, structural, and organizational categories, the following technical and non-technical recommendations provide an approachable menu of bi-partisan options to kick-start the development and implementation of a synchronized and comprehensive PD-SC strategy:

• Legislative: Repeal Section 501 of the Smith-Mundt Act and the 1985 Zorinskey Amendment and Reestablish USIA. Domestic communication of American values, ideas, and beliefs is an essential requirement combating PRC Black Mirror Statecraft exemplified by misinformation, fake news, propaganda, and cyberattacks.  Assigning a single agency the responsibility and budgetary resources necessary to conduct dedicated PD and SC is founded upon proven success and will overcome current organizational inefficiencies and inertia.
• Doctrinal: Adopt a Single USG Definition of Strategic Communications and Conceptualize Social Media Platforms as Elements of National Security and Instruments of Power. The weaponization of social media is a twenty-first-century reality successfully exploited by the PRC with heretofore minimal U.S. doctrinal response.  Identifying a single SC definition and incorporating social media platforms in national security strategy guidance will alleviate confusion, achieve unity of effort, and support USG interagency synergy through common understanding and clear operating concepts.
• Structural: Create a Public-Private Partnership Global Communications Commission and Establish a PD-SC Task Force to Develop Measures of Performance and Effectiveness. The current dearth of performance assessment and measurement concerning USG Tactics, Training, and Procedures in the digital commons thwarts attempts at countering PRC Black Mirror Statecraft in support of U.S. national interests.  Creating a national database and interagency apparatus leveraging government and industry partnerships will combat PRC Black Mirror Statecraft through digital communication monitoring and information sharing.
• Organizational: Revitalize Presidential Support for Implementation of Existing PD-SC Strategy Guidance and Avoid Emulating Authoritarian Actions and Activities Counter to Democratic Ideals and the LIO. Current guidance provides the governance necessary to successfully develop and implement a synchronized and comprehensive PD-SC strategy if properly implemented and enforced.  However, USG leadership must avoid adopting PRC Black Mirror Statecraft customs that are opposed to the freedoms and ideals espoused in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Adopting some or all of these recommendations will jump-start U.S. efforts to combat PRC Black Mirror Statecraft, defend the LIO, and achieve U.S. national interests. The time to act is now.  To put this declaration into alphanumeric-constrained Twitter-speak: Let’s Get Moving.

The contents of this article reflect the author’s own personal views and are not necessarily endorsed by the Naval War College or the U.S. Department of the Navy.

[1] Elizabeth C. Economy, “China’s New Revolution: The Reign of Xi Jinping,” Foreign Affairs 97, no.3 (2018): 60-74.

[2] P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), 102; Economy, “China’s New Revolution,” 60-74.

[3] Michael J.Mazarr, et al., Hostile Social Manipulation: Present Realities and Emerging Trends (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation, 2019), 114; See also Anne-Marie Brady, “Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping,” Revue Defense Nationale 812, no. 7 (2018): 188-189, available at www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping.

[4] Mazarr, et al., Hostile Social Manipulation, 162.

[5] See Mazarr, et al., Hostile Social Manipulation, 148-162 regarding Occupy Wall Street, Tsai Administration, and “hundreds of thousands….”  See Reuters, “Hong Kong leader says she cannot accept claims press freedom faces ‘extinction,’” Google News, 4 January 2021, accessed 4 January 2021, https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-01-03/hong-kong-leader-says-she-cannot-accept-claims-press-freedom-faces-extinction regarding “national security.”

[6] Hal Brands and Zack Cooper, “Getting Serious about Strategy in the South China Sea,” Naval War College Review 71, no. 1 (Winter 2018), 15.

[7] Evan S. Medeiros, “The Changing Fundamentals of US-China Relations,” 99.  See also: Lindsay P. Cohn, “Introduction to Political Economy: Part I: Comparative & II: International,” United States Naval War College, 2020; Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, no.1 (2019): 42-79, doi: https://doi-org.usnwc.idm.oclc.org/10.1162/isec_a_00351; Luis Scunigo, “China’s Global Mineral Rush: Learning From Experiences Around China’s Mining Investments,” Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen (SOMO)

Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (June 2021): 1-97.

[8] Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, “The Meaning of Sharp Power: How Authoritarian States Project Influence,” Foreign Affairs, 16 November 2017, https://www-foreignaffairs-com.usnwc.idm.oclc.org/articles/china/2017-11-16/meaning-sharp-power. Walker and Ludwig present analysis from their chapter in International Forum for Democratic Studies, “From ‘Soft Power’ to ‘Sharp Power’: Rising Authoritarian Influence in the Democratic World” (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for Democracy, 2017), https://www.ned.org/sharp-power-rising-authoritarian-influence-forum-report/.

[9] See Gabriel Collings and Andrew S. Erickson, “U.S.-China Competition Enters the Decade of Maximum Danger: Policy Ideas to Avoid Losing the 2020s,” Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy (December 2021): 20, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/us-china-competition-enters-decade-maximum-danger/ regarding “citizens away from….”  See Singer and Brooking, Like War, 184 regarding “peaceful nation….”

[10] The Honorable Secretary Carlos Del Toro, “Prohibition of Engagement with the Naval Attaché Association by Department of the Navy Personnel,” ALNAV, 28 December 2021, accessed 20 January 2022, https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Messages/ALNAV/ALN2021/ALN21091.txt?ver=8iwiStTCNHKmnifiuwRxUQ%3d%3d; Geoff Ziezulewicz and Meghann Myers, “How a Beltway Naval Breakfast Sparked China’s Ire over Taiwan,” NavyTimes, 11 January 2022, accessed 20 January 2022, https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/01/11/how-a-beltway-naval-breakfast-sparked-chinas-ire-over-taiwan/.

[11] Ziezulewicz and Myers, “How a Beltway Naval Breakfast Sparked China’s Ire over Taiwan,” 11 January 2022.

[12] Del Toro, “Prohibition of Engagement with the Naval Attaché Association by Department of the Navy Personnel,” 28 December 2021.

[13] Dan Lip, “A New Strategy for U.S. Public Diplomacy: Using Virtual Education and Incentives to Promote Understanding of American Values,” Lincolnpolicy.org, 2 June 2021, 13, accessed 19 November 2021, https://lincolnpolicy.org/2021/a-new-strategy-for-u-s-public-diplomacy-using-virtual-education-and-incentives-to-promote-understanding-of-american-values/.

[14] The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: 377.

[15] Lip, “A New Strategy,” 6.

[16] See Harry S. Truman, “Address on Foreign Policy at a Luncheon of the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” 20 April 1950, accessed 31 December 2021, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/92/address-foreign-policy-luncheon-american-society-newspaper-editors regarding “propaganda can be overcome by the truth….”  See Kenneth Alan Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006): 46 regarding “the struggle for the minds….”

[17] Kennon H. Nakamura and Matthew C. Weed, U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2009): 9.

[18] Snow and Taylor, ed., Routledge Handbook of Public, 325-333; Snyder, Challenge of Public Diplomacy, 157-158.

[19] Lip, “A New Strategy,” 7.

[20] See James Thomas Snyder, The United States and the Challenge of Public Diplomacy (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillion, 2013), 3 regarding “multispectrum global network….”  See the following for discussion of complimentary mediums: Nakamura and Weed, U.S. Public Diplomacy, 12; Lip, “A New Strategy,” 7; Snyder, Challenge of Public Diplomacy, 157; Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor, ed., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York, NY: Routledge, 2009); Robert Michael Gates, Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2020): 35-40.  See The U.S. Information Agency Alumni Association and The Public Diplomacy Foundation, “The U.S. – Warts and All: Edward R. Murrow as Director of USIA Presenting the U.S. to the World,” A Commemorative Symposium (Washington, DC: 16 October 1991): 16 regarding “make United States policy….”

[21] Nakamura and Weed, U.S. Public Diplomacy, 15: “The Foreign Affairs Agencies Consolidation Act of 1998 abolished USIA…[and]…transferred USIA’s functions to the Secretary of State”; Lip, “A New Strategy,” 12; Snyder, Challenge of Public Diplomacy, 3; Paul, Strategic Communication, 83; U.S. Government Accountability Office, U.S. Public Diplomacy, 7.

[22] George, W Bush, “Executive Order 13283: Establishing the Office of Global Communications,” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 39, no. 4 (2003): 93.

[23] See U.S. Department of State, “Global Cultural Initiative,” Archive, accessed 1 January 2022, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/partnerships/88485.htm regarding “to coordinate….”  See Snyder, Challenge of Public Diplomacy, 157 regarding “survive the Bush Administration.”

[24] Lip, “A New Strategy,” 16-17.

[25] See U.S. Public Policy Committee, U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic

Communication, U.S. Government Report (Washington, DC: Department of State, June 2007) regarding public diplomacy and strategic communications.  See Lip, “A New Strategy,” 15 regarding “did not mention….”

[26] The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 required submission of the National Framework for Strategic Communications.  See The White House, National Framework for Strategic Communication, U.S. Government Report (Washington, DC: The White House, 2009), 1; Paul, Strategic Communication, 7, 176.

[27] Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy: Strengthening U.S. Engagement with the World: A Strategic Approach for the 21^st Century (Washington, DC: Department of State, 10 February 2010), 4, accessed 1 January 2022, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=716405.

[28] U.S. Government Accountability Office, Lack of a National Communication Strategy, 23.

[29] The U.S. Information Agency Alumni Association and The Public Diplomacy Foundation, “The U.S. – Warts and All: Edward R. Murrow as Director of USIA Presenting the U.S. to the World,” A Commemorative Symposium (Washington, DC: 16 October 1991): 16-17.

[30] The U.S. Information Agency Alumni Association and The Public Diplomacy Foundation, “The U.S. – Warts and All: Edward R. Murrow as Director of USIA Presenting the U.S. to the World,” A Commemorative Symposium (Washington, DC: 16 October 1991): 17.