October Chinese Disinformation Trends: AI-Generated Influencer Videos and the "Imminent Korean War"
October Chinese Disinformation Trends: AI-Generated Influencer Videos and the "Imminent Korean War"
Several crucial military events took place in Eastern Asia in October 2024. China once again surrounded Taiwan with a large military drill called "Joint-Sword 2024B" on October 14, following a test of its military ballistic missiles on September 25. Meanwhile, North Korea destroyed the now-defunct South-North Korean railway as retribution for South Korea's drone flying into Pyongyang. These events triggered the latest wave of Chinese disinformation, which propagated messages discouraging Taiwanese resistance against China by promoting AI videos of Taiwanese influencers praising the Chinese drill and fake images showing the "imminent war" between North and South Korea.
We pointed out in a September Disinfo Detector article, "Old Wine in a New China Disinformation about Military Activities in Asia during the Summer of 2024," that during this summer, China exploited several events, including the military exercises surrounding Taiwan and the South China Sea conflicts between China and the Philippines, to disseminate disinformation. These false pieces highlighted the Chinese propaganda themes that:
1. Chinese military and weapons are so powerful that even American forces were intimidated;
2. Taiwanese military was so weak that they could not confront their Chinese counterparts.
In the disinformation circulated in October during the drill, we also observed several themes that compared the "formidable Chinese military force" with "the weak Taiwanese soldiers." However, new videos used AI tools to alter clips of Taiwanese anti-Chinese government influencers, inserting fabricated statements into the influencers' mouths, such as applauding the Chinese military's performance in the drill and urging the Taiwanese to surrender once the Chinese military landed on the island of Taiwan.
The AI-generated videos manipulating footage of Taiwanese influencers
Information manipulators have used AI-generated materials to influence Taiwanese politics and society. During the previous Taiwanese presidential election, there were fake AI videos and audios of presidential candidates making absurd comments. This time, one of the fake footage posted during the October Chinese military drill took advantage of a Taiwanese influencer, a retired general who was frequently invited to Taiwanese TV talk shows. Some of his earlier comments, albeit contentious, were interpreted as pro-Taiwan and anti-China. However, in a recent video circulated online, this former general stated that he was "shocked" by the People's Liberation Army exercise and believed that they could land in Taiwan in minutes. At the end of the video, the retired general stated, "If the People's Liberation Army lands in Taiwan, I will just surrender."
This video was widely shared on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Douyin by accounts using traditional and simplified Chinese characters. Some captions on the videos stated that "He [the general] eventually spoke about the truth."
Screenshots from a Facebook video purporting to show a Taiwanese influencer and retired general praising a Chinese drill. The video was actually manipulated from an old clip and is not authentic
The Taiwan FactCheck Center concluded that this video was an AI-manipulated piece based on an old clip from the general's previous appearance on a Taiwanese talk show. The original clip is unrelated to the October Chinese drill. Although the voice in the video resembled the general's real voice and the lip movements were synchronized, the "general"'s body movements in the AI video were unnatural and revealed traces of AI manipulation. After learning about the spread of this problematic video, the retired general also issued a statement, explaining that he had never said the comment displayed in the AI video.
Interestingly, this is not the only instance in which earlier footage of this retired general has been exploited for information manipulation. Instead, there are multiple AI videos aimed toward the former general and other TV talk show guests or influencers. However, this one, in which the general said he would surrender when facing the Chinese army, gained more traction. This was most likely because Taiwanese viewers were initially taken aback by the anti-Chinese government general's calls for Taiwanese submission to China, while Chinese audiences got the opportunity to mock the former Taiwanese general for changing his anti-Chinese government stance.
An imagined imminent Korean war
The day after China flexed its military muscle in the waters surrounding Taiwan, North Korea blew up the northern part of a railroad that used to connect South and North Korea as a gesture to display its discontent toward the South Korean government. However, the incident has been exaggerated by Chinese information manipulators and online users. Multiple texts, videos, and images spread on Chinese-language social media, giving the impression that the Korean peninsula was on the brink of war.
Two major narratives arose from the false information pieces. One of the narratives claimed that both South and North Korea were sending their forces to the borders. Meanwhile, the other narrative asserted that massive crowds were on the streets of South Korea, protesting against the potential conflict and refusing "to be the second Ukraine."
The false pieces promoting the first narratives included videos to show that weapons and soldiers were heading toward the borders. One of the most prevalent videos said, "The situation in Korea has worsened. The sky near the borders are all helicopters." The Taiwan FactCheck Center found that the video had already appeared on TikTok as early as September 2024, which was actually a recording of South Korea commemorating Armed Forces Day.
Another claim disseminated on X demonstrated multiple pictures of tanks lined up on the field. In one of the images, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was inspecting soldiers in front of tanks. The accompanying text read: "North Korea is deploying its military and could start a conflict with South Korea." Fact-checking results indicate that these were old images circulated online for months or years before being hijacked by manipulators to augment the false claim that the North and South Korean governments were preparing for the war. However, not only social media users were fooled by the false claim. A Taiwanese news outlet also relayed the false information to its readers.
Taiwanese media used old images and false information spread on X, claiming that North Korea has transported large amounts of weapons and soldiers to the borders, preparing for the war with South Korea.
Building on the first narrative's "scenes of the preparation for the war" theme, the second narrative told the story of a demonstration in South Korea.
Videos of people protesting in the streets were shared on Facebook, Douyin, and TikTok, claiming that millions of South Koreans were out to protest the looming war with North Korea. "Videos" show South Koreans calling for peace and refusing to become "the second Ukraine." The videos' Chinese subtitles highlighted that the South Korean demonstrators were "levelheaded" and noted that "ordinary people always yearn for peace."
The fake videos' message further supported conspiracy theories that the Americans were starting the proxy war and that Koreans didn't want to make sacrifices for Americans.
Screenshots of TikTok videos falsely claimed that South Koreans protested against a war with North Korea. The title read: "Millions of Koreans took to the streets to oppose the war. They didn't want to be the second Ukraine." The red characters say, "Still, Korean people were more levelheaded."
Chinese media also boosted the false assertion that there were protests in South Korea. Asia Fact Check Lab found that Chongqing Morning News (重慶晨報), a news outlet affiliated with the Chongqing City government, propagated one of the protest videos through its Douyin account. A Chinese diplomat then shared the false video through his X account.
According to the Taiwan FactCheck Center, the videos that went viral on social media misappropriated old videos. For example, the original event of one of the videos was a protest that happened in early October against the opposition party's attempt to impeach the current President of South Korea. The investigation by the Asia Fact Check Lab also found that the video published by Chongqing Morning News's Douyin account was another protest for the impeachment of the South Korean president in September, but the Chinese news outlet removed captions describing the original event.
There were no demonstrations against the "imminent war with North Korea" in South Korea this October, according to South Korean journalists who spoke to the Taiwan Factcheck Center (TFC). The South Korean journalists also told TFC fact-checkers that these fake videos were rarely seen on social media sites popular among South Koreans. However, the rumors were widely shared on Chinese social media, giving Chinese-language viewers the impression that the neighboring nations were in danger of going to war and the US was behind the scheme. The underlying message sent by the information manipulator's lies to Taiwanese audiences was, once again, "to be scared of the war and avoid conflicts with China."
Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at the Taiwan FactCheck Center.
Mary Ma (a fact-checker at the Taiwan FactCheck Center) contributed to this analysis.
