China Introduction The disinformation landscape in China is particularly complex. A wide range of state, statesponsored, and volunteer actors actively use computational propaganda as a tool for censorship and control. The Chinese government has been involved in multiple disinformation campaigns with international reach, typically to either improve its public image, or to achieve blunt political goals, such as to influence election results in foreign countries. In the past year alone, there have been at least three notable cases of such activity: the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, where the government launched extensive disinformation campaigns in order to undermine the legitimacy of the protesters (Borak 2019); the 2020 elections in Taiwan, during which the government attempted to sway the public opinion towards the pro-Chinese candidate (Kurlantzick 2019); and more recently, the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, in which the government has attempted to clear itself of responsibility, often by spreading disinformation about the pandemic’s origin, or depicting China as a saviour-nation (Kao and Li 2020). An internal EU report on COVID-19 related disinformation, released on April 20, found the Chinese government to be highly involved in the spread of disinformation regarding the virus. The report identified use of both overt and covert tactics, utilizing high levels of coordination between official representatives and departments of the Chinese government and system at large. It also found manipulative Chinese involvement in multiple countries unrelated to COVID-19, indicating a somewhat global strategy and reach. While places like the U.S. and Taiwan were obvious targets for these activities, the report also found pro-China disinformation to appear in less obvious places, like Iran, Italy, and Serbia. Moreover, government propaganda has significantly increased its Arabic content. The report also acknowledged the existence of a “trilateral convergence” of anti-western disinformation narratives between Iran, China, and Russia in regards to the handling and spread of the coronavirus (and how these countries are doing much better than those in the West) (European External Action Service 2020). An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity in China Organizational Form In 2019, the Chinese government launched an extensive disinformation campaign against the democracy protestors in Hong Kong by utilizing Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, platforms that are blocked in China, to spread disinformation, sow discord, and undermine the legitimacy of the activists (Stewart 2019). In June 2020 Twitter took down 23,750 core accounts that have been connected to the Chinese government. They also found around 150,000 accounts designed to boost and amplify content from these core accounts. This network was involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities. The accounts tweeted mostly in Chinese and spread geopolitical narratives in favour of the Chinese Communist Party, while also spreading misleading narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong (Twitter 2020). Furthermore, Facebook identified seven pages, three groups and five accounts involved in “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” related to the protests. YouTube also removed 210 channels that were actively spreading disinformation about the protest (Ibid). Taiwan has also been a key target for disinformation campaigns coming from mainland China. Despite its relative size, Taiwan is thought to be the country facing the single largest amount 70