According to secret Chinese military journals found in Peter Schweizer’s new book Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using TikTok as a “modern-day Trojan Horse” to instill its propaganda in the minds of America’s youth.
Schweizer, a prominent contributor to Breitbart News and the President of the Government Accountability Institute, exposes Chinese strategists’ claims that they are employing TikTok for “information-driven mental warfare” against the United States in his book Blood Money.
According to Schweizer, the business ByteDance, which is “married to the Chinese Communist Party military-intelligence-industrial complex,” is in charge of running TikTok. He claims that despite the fact that the app has “penetrated the core of America’s culture, becoming a vital part of our children’s and young adults’ lives,” the Chinese government forbids its citizens from using it. Rather, the CCP declares TikTok’s potent algorithm a top-secret “national security asset” and uses the app’s addictive nature to target and mold the minds of young Americans for its own ends.
Professor Dai Xu of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) National Defense University (PLA-NDU), China’s premier military academy, wrote in one of the restricted journals that the true conflict between the US and China is “information-driven mental warfare” and likened social media and apps like TikTok to a “modern-day Trojan Horse.”
Zeng Huafeng, a prominent Chinese PLA strategist from the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), described psychological warfare against the United States and offered strategies for defeating the country without using force.
Schweizer says in his writing:
The “cognitive space” is defined by Zeng as “the place in which feelings, perception, understanding, beliefs, and values occur,” and he contends that this is the area where victory lies. Using “information and popular spiritual and cultural items as weapons to affect people’s psyche, will, attitude, conduct, and even transform the ideology, values, cultural traditions, and social structures,” he stated, Beijing must achieve this goal. Apps, video games, and movies are examples of these cultural instruments, and Zeng says they should be used to “target individuals, groups, nations, and even people throughout the world.”
Zeng went on to say that Beijing may achieve “mental dominance” in a number of ways, such as:
“Perception manipulation” through disinformation alters people’s perspectives of the current
“Cutting off historical memory” by perverting the past of their own nation in order to make people more receptive to shifting their morals
“Changing the paradigm of thinking” refers to persuading individuals to adopt a different perspective on issues, which in turn alters their views.
“Deconstructing symbols,” or persuading people to reject specific customary symbols in order to change the identity of a country
Zeng went on, “The ultimate aim is to achieve strategic goals and control a country’s ideals without really engaging in overt military combat.”
Chinese disinformation efforts on social media referenced strategists who promoted “subconscious messaging” as an alternative to openly political propaganda and suggested employing a gentle approach to sway young people in the West.
