The constant struggle of building resilience: the case of Czechia

At a time of war and growing partnership between Moscow and Beijing, the need for a stronger and united position in the EU cannot be more urgent. Photo: Salma Bashir Motiwala / Shutterstock

Now, it is Russia that has become the new rogue state and global pariah, isolated and sanctioned by most of the civilised world.

Yet, at the same time, other countries – including prominent global powers such as the People’s Republic of China, Iran or India – have remained more ambivalent on the conflict. This is either due to their own economy, energy dependency and ties, or due to ideological reasons and hatred of the West. This has been demonstrated by some countries that have backed Russia’s position during UN resolutions and refuted the aggression against Ukraine.

Testing ground

As a reaction to the ongoing terror against the civilian population of Ukraine, the European Union has already imposed ten sanctions packages. Russia has lost its control over energy pricing and access to western markets for most of its goods. It has also been cut off from technologies and so-called “dual-use goods” that could be used in its war against Ukraine. At the same time, Russian propaganda sites have been temporarily banned in the EU information space, bringing an end to the reach of platforms like RT (Russia Today) or Sputnik.

However, these severe measures have not directly affected the Chinese malign information and influence operations that have substantially grown in number over the past year. To achieve this, China made substantial use of its embassies and diplomatic presence in the West, as well as the social media of various proxies and other like-minded groups often recruited from traditionally pro-Kremlin outlets. Beijing has also benefitted from previously established channels that it has systematically cultivated and used for shaping the narrative on China.

Czechia is a case in point in the Central and Eastern European context. Now a country with one of the highest levels of societal resilience regarding both Chinese and foreign malign influence in general, the Czech Republic was in many respects a testing ground for Moscow and Beijing’s influence operations over the past few decades.

Also thanks to elite capture, Russia and China found some prominent allies who have given them privileged access to some media sources. TV Barrandov is a prominent example of a media group which promotes certain narratives friendly to China. Naturally, it has been proven that specific investments into this group were made by China. This was even more the case when pro-Beijing narratives on sensitive topics – such as relations with Taiwan, protests in Hong Kong or the situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang – started to appear more often among fringe or less known media, primarily in the online space but also among radio stations. The Chinese intervention in the Czech media ecosystem and the localisation of friendly information coverage (so-called information laundering) have been gradual. However, they have to an extent made an impact on public attitudes towards the PRC over the last decade.

Research carried out by the Association for International Affairs’ MapInfluenCE project revealed that between 2019 and 2021 the coverage of China in traditionally more pro-Russian media sources has been highly manipulative. Despite the fact that China was in a majority of cases presented neutrally, three prominent fringe websites, including Russia’s Sputnik CZ, Aeronet and Parliamentary Post (Parlamentní listy), used a number of techniques to disguise pro-Chinese sentiments. For example, they attributed these ideas to nominally neutral speakers, Czech politicians or other public figures and media representatives.

In a number of cases, often with content from foreign language sources, changes were made to headlines based on traditional clickbait logic or misleading quotes. Czech readers can find this information hard to verify due to the dubious sources of these pro-Beijing narratives.

The fringe sites made frequent use of Chinese experts, officials and representatives of public institutions, most notably the ministries of foreign affairs and defence. They even quoted Chinese politicians directly, even if they were introduced in a neutral manner in the articles. At the same time, the local context and/or the European perspective was too often deliberately omitted.  

All of these manipulations were present in a high number of studied cases. This documents the systemic level of infiltration in fringe online media sites, which gradually incorporated topics about China and subsequently became mouthpieces for Beijing propaganda. For example, this could be seen in exclusive interviews with the Chinese ambassador to Prague over a relatively short period of time.

Similar tendencies have been visible across the wider region, not only in neighbouring Slovakia, which has a closely related language and hence also a high level of permeability in the information space. Coordinated efforts to influence certain topics, including perceptions of NATO, have been present in a number of states in the region, where official Chinese channels  have even compared NATO to “Voldemort”, the villain in the Harry Potter series. This fact illustrates the profound need to invest more in better understanding Russian and Chinese activities and these countries’ attempts to interfere in the EU’s domestic affairs. The region of Central and Eastern Europe has some first-hand experience with Chinese malign behaviour which could serve as a lesson for the western part of Europe, which has often overlooked the real impact of long-term Chinese influence.

Building up resilience

What is needed right now is a much more comprehensive and common understanding of the potential threat coming from China and how to face it, as suggested by the Strategic Compass of the EU. At a time of war and growing partnership between Moscow and Beijing, the need for a stronger and united position in the EU cannot be more urgent.

Even if Czechia has proved that its society is capable of dealing with foreign malign operations and most attempts to influence public discourse from abroad, the picture is much blurrier in the domestic realm. This is typical when it comes to a complex and diverse ecosystem of disinformation sites well known for their anti-systemic nature. Hence, there is still much to be done in terms of building up a coordinated response, closing multiple loopholes abused by those behind disinformation, and promoting trustworthy public communication and a resilient information sphere.

The challenges faced by Czech society are immense but not unique, as shown by the 2021 Disinformation Resilience Index. This study compared ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe and found that most of the CEE countries suffered from weak cooperation between the state and society, including independent media and the civil society sector. Also, the legal and institutional capacity of the state has been identified as weak or generally problematic. Overall, there appeared to be insufficient funding and manpower to run these states in an effective manner.

Thus, it is necessary to finally apply a “whole-of-society” approach and promote much closer cooperation between the state, civil society and independent media. This would not only help the response to crisis situations, but also limit the space for distorted interpretations of events that could be mutually clashing and undermine trust in the system.

While in the regional context Czechia can be considered a positive case, it has been far from perfect, especially when considering recent turbulence in the system of strategic communication. However, the government has clearly spoken out in favour of working harder to counter disinformation and promote the state’s capacity to act. Indeed, there are still a lot of positive practices, such as the demonetisation of disinformation and taking the first steps towards a coordinated state system of strategic communication. This is supported by a strong and active civil society sector, public media broadcaster and independent media, which promote trustworthy content and counter the worst cases of manipulation and disinformation both offline and online in Czech public discourse. 

Last but not least, Czechs, like other V4 societies, could benefit from their EU and NATO membership. This could help deliver an additional boost to the agenda, as well as empower cooperation and exchange with social media platforms. Such sites have been identified as a weak link in the whole information ecosystem of the region.

While there are still many problems and challenges, not only for Czechia but the wider region, the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine and the West has helped to promote the fight against disinformation and foreign malign influence. These issues have found a place higher on the agenda and allowed for more investment and new steps in closing disinformation loopholes. Even though we are still far from efficiently countering the problem, some steps have been made to create a more resilient information ecosystem not only in Czechia but in the EU and NATO as a whole.

Pavel Havlíček is a Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague. His research focuses on Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia, and the Eastern Partnership programme. He also deals with questions of strategic communication and disinformation, as well as democratisation and civil society support.

China, Czech Republic, Czechia, disinformation, Russia