CIA bid to 'get Beijing chasing ghosts'

Two years into office, then president Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in the mainland against its government, according to three former officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation.

They said the CIA created a small team of operatives in 2019 who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about President Xi Jinping's government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets.

It promoted allegations that Communist Party members were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful the Belt and Road Initiative.

They said the disparaging narratives were based in fact despite being secretly released under false covers. The efforts were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing's tightly controlled internet, two former officials said.

"We wanted them chasing ghosts," one of these former officials said.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official in Beijing said the initiative shows the US government uses"public opinion space and media platforms as weapons to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion."

The CIA operation came in response to years of aggressive covert efforts by China aimed at increasing its global influence, the sources said.

As president, Trump pushed a tougher response to China than had his predecessors. The CIA's campaign signaled a return to methods that marked Washington's Cold War struggle.

The impact of the secret operations is not known, or whether President Joe Biden has maintained the CIA program.

Two historians said that when the White House grants the CIA covert action authority, through an order known as a presidential finding, it often remains in place across administrations.