Time to counter an army of Chinese trolls

We cannot let our cyberspace turn into a playground for Chinese trolls.

Kim Jung-haThe author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo. It is an open secret to diplomatic and security authorities that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its proxies have been tampering with news and information flows in other countries. Influence operations central to Beijing’s strategic tool kit leverage on disinformation and propaganda spread in hopes to build opinions favorable to China and cause internal division to slowly eat away the national resource of a target country.

In a security context, South Korea is a headache for China. It sits within its greater border line, is heavily armed, and hosts the nearest U.S. military base. On the economic front, Korea and China vie in many core industries. South Korea is naturally one of the primary targets for influence. Lately, the country’s covert operatives and designs have been exposed.

According to investigative research led by Kim Eun-young, a professor at Catholic Kwandong University, Chinese internet trolls have been systematically writing comments on articles related to areas like electric vehicles, batteries and e-commerce — fields where Korea and China fiercely compete — for online manipulation. Their analysis on 77 Naver accounts suspected to be Chinese over the last year uncovered that the trolls worked in two groups, posting comments on industrial articles under a certain command. Most praised China and fount fault with Korean companies. They extolled Chinese brands and hammered Korea’s, such as Hyundai Motor. One post read “I’ll put money on Hyundai Motor going under within 10 years.” Another scorned an article critical of AliExpress, recommending others to use the Chinese platform or Temu over Korean e-commerce platforms if they want to make a bang for their buck.

Chinese trolls also hounded political, social and international sections. They were mostly critical of conservative politicians and fanned division or negative sentiment towards America and Japan. Some called Korea “America’s pet dog” or a “slave.” Others trashed the Yoon Suk Yeol government as an extreme “war maniac.”

A team led by Yoon Min-woo, a professor at Gachon University, also uncovered a Chinese troll organization last year. They produced more than 30,000 comments between September and November last year, all elevating what’s Chinese and bashing anything from Korea. They inflamed regionalism, slamming the people from the Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces, and hurled sexist comments, calling Korean women “gluttons.” They rubbed salt into the delicate spots of Korean society.

The Yoon team discovered the fleet of trolls was led by someone using the ID nickname Cheng Yang. After the report was published, the nickname was changed to 123456789. The Kim team also identified 123456789 as the commander of the troll units. The series of studies imply that Chinese internet trolls operate under a systematic order as in an army. Researchers believe their findings are just the tip of the iceberg with the trolls’ influence being more extensive than the scandalous opinion-rigging ring run by Druking uncovered in 2018.

In the report, Kim pointed out that Beijing set a strategic goal to revive the past glory of sinocentrism by uprooting Western and Japanese influence in Asia and the West Pacific region. Under the vision, South Korea must come under the Greater China influence, which explains the propaganda operation, she warned.

The Kim team advised the government to build a database on Chinese internet operatives and profile accounts to identify and follow their activities. People Power Party (PPP) Rep. Na Kyung-won’s proposal of mandating displaying nationality in online posts may be controversial, but worthy of consideration. We cannot let our cyberspace turn into a playground for Chinese trolls.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.