As a Communist State China can be far more overt and heavy handed when it comes to internal censorship and political control than either Russia or the West. However, more subtle measures of social control are also used. For example, where Russian trolls debate, promote, and detract on-line, China’s troll army prefers to simply de-rail any meaningful discussion into harmless discussions on irrelevant topics or general praise for China and its leaders.
This is apparently done by public servants as part of their day jobs.
When it comes to the West China’s policy appears to be more about making strategic investments in media and academia on the one hand, and on the other stealing military and industrial secrets via its cyber espionage units and a vast network of ex patriot Chinese. Chinese strategy towards the West is discussed elsewhere in this course.
