Since late 2014, Russian authorities have signed dozens of content sharing agreements between Russian-state-controlled media outlets such as RT and Sputnik and media outlets in other countries, including China, India, Iran, Indonesia, and many others.  Similarly, China runs a broad range of media forums, journalist exchanges and content sharing agreements with countries around the world.  

(Image: Dmitry Kiselyov, the director general of Rossiya Segodnya news agency, and Shen Haixiong, president of the China Media Group, sign an international strategic cooperation agreement, witnessed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Vladivostok, Russia in September 2018.  (credit: China Global Television Network)

“China and Russia have elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era, opening a new epoch of relations,” said Xu Lin, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and director of China’s State Council Information Office.  Xu was speaking at the fifth annual China-Russia Media Forum, held in Vladivostok, Russia in September 2019.

While the public content sharing agreements are visible to all, this Dispatch examines a more covert type of media cooperation pursued by Russia and China since the early 2010s, well hidden from the public.  It draws heavily on the GEC’s recent Special Report Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem.

In 2010, Russia began building a global disinformation website network, using the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), which is ostensibly independent but actually "directed" by the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR.  (Image: SVR headquarters outside of Moscow)

The SCF formed explicit partnerships with Global Research, a Canadian website that carries conspiracy theorist and anti-American allegations, and The 4th Media, an obscure Chinese website with a minimal following that claimed to be “an independent media organization based in Beijing.” 

As discussed in GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatches #6, the Strategic Culture Foundation online journal began to appear in English in September 2010.  On its homepage, it listed as its “partners:”

• Global Research
• Eurasia: Rivista di Studi Geopolitici, an Italian quarterly journal
• International Affairs, the journal of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

By August 2011, The 4th Media had been added as a “partner.”

By September 2011, Eurasia had been dropped and as of April 9, 2013 International Affairs was no longer mentioned as a partner, although it continued to be one, as described in GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatches #6.  Global Research and The 4th Media were the only SCF partners that continued to be featured on the SCF homepage, although they were no longer explicitly identified as partner websites.

The Centre for Research on Globalisation, which publishes the Global Research website, was launched by Michel Chossudovsky in late August 2001.  It has been a steady source of anti-U.S. and anti-Western disinformation and propaganda ever since. The Economist referred to it as “a hub for conspiracy theories and fake stories.”  Internet watchdog NewsGuard noted, “[t]his website severely violates basic standards of credibility and transparency.”  (Image: Chossudovsky appearing on RT; credit: Captura)

A 2006 article in the Western Standard titled “Canada’s Nuttiest Professors” highlighted Global Research’s head Michel Chossudovsky:

Chossudovsky has manufactured a long list of eyebrow-raising accusations that often read more like wild-eyed conspiracy theories than serious political discourse: the U.S. had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks ...; “Washington’s New World Order weapons have the ability to trigger climate change”; the U.S. knew in advance about the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but kept it to themselves (apparently so they could ride to the rescue of devastated coastal regions); big banking orchestrates the collapse of national economies.

As an example of Global Research’s work, its 9/11 Reader, edited by Chossudovsky, relies heavily on 9/11 “truther” claims, including those of French conspiracy theorist Thierry Meyssan.  The French newspaper Liberation called Meyssan’s 2002 book 9/11: The Big Lie “a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation.” 

Although the content featured on the site is fringe, Global Research has substantial reach. A 2017 article in Canada’s The Globe and Mail reported:

The site has posted more than 40,000 of its own pieces since it was launched in 2001, according to one long-time contributor. But it does more: It picks up reports from other, often obscure websites, thus giving them a Global Research link. Those reports often get cross-posted on a series of other sites or aggressively spread across Facebook and Twitter by followers who actively share or retweet them, including a number of social botnets, or bots – automated accounts programmed to spread certain globalresearch.ca content.

Global Research founder and head Michel Chossudovsky is a retired professor who runs the website from his “upscale condo in Old Montreal.”  Chossudovsky has backed and embraced anti-Western world leaders.  In 2004, he volunteered to serve as a witness for former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at his trial for war crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity.  In 2011, he and the Global Research team extended warm birthday greetings to “Comandante Fidel” Castro of Cuba, saying, “You are the source of tremendous inspiration.”  (Image: photo of Chossudovsky and Fidel Castro at Castro's home, credit: Global Research)

After Chossudovsky met Castro in 2010, he said:

I discovered a man of tremendous integrity, with an acute mind and sense of humor, committed in the minute detail of his speech to social progress and the advancement of humankind ….

On a daily basis, Fidel spends several hours reading a large number of detailed international press reports (As he mentioned to me with a smile, “I frequently consult articles from the Global Research website” …)

Chossudovsky used to be a regular contributor to the Russian state-funded outlet RT, and Global Research often republishes RT’s content.

Chossudovsky is the son of a Russian diplomat who has displayed a fondness for Maoism.  In 1986, he lamented Deng Xiaoping’s turn away from Maoist policies, writing, in his book Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism After Mao:

the post-Mao political project signified the abandonment of socialist construction, at the same time it rehabilitated or 'restored' many features of the 'old' social and political order in existence prior to 1949 during the Kuomintang period.

Global Research has the dubious distinction of publishing seven authors attributed by Facebook to be false online personas created by the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the GRU. 

Sophie Mangal, Anna Jaunger, Milko Pejovic, Adomas Abromaitis, Mariam al-Jijab, Said al-Khalaki and Mehmet Ersoy were identified by Facebook as phony online personas created by the GRU, as noted in Potemkin Pages & Personas: Assessing GRU Online Operations, 2014-2019 by Renee DiResta and Shelby Grossman, published by the Stanford Internet Observatory Cyber Policy Center in November 2019.  (Image: Purported photo of Sophie Mangal from her social media profile)

Together, these seven authors wrote 108 articles for Global Research, with Mangal authoring 62.

On March 11, 2011, Global Research began to link to The 4th Media on its homepage, although without identifying it as a partner.  In September 2011, it began to list the Strategic Culture Foundation and four non-state websites as “partner websites.”  In September 2012, it started to also identify The 4th Media along with the Strategic Culture Foundation and other websites as its “partner websites.”  The network was solidifying.

Global Research frequently publishes articles from other websites in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem as well.  It has published more than 1,200 articles from SouthFront, beginning in April 2015 when SouthFront was officially formed.  In May 2015, SouthFront began to list Global Research as one of its partners.

The 4th Media was a website that claimed to be “an independent media organization based in Beijing, China” providing “‘Just Another Voice’ in the progressive media global landscape.”  (Screenshot of The 4th Media homepage)

On July 20, 2011, The 4th Media displayed the logos of 20 websites, including the Strategic Culture Foundation and Global Research, on its homepage.  Over the following years, many websites were dropped and others added, but the Strategic Culture Foundation and Global Research remained the first two listed through late 2017, when the website stopped being updated.

In 2012, not long after The 4th Media had been formed, Chossudovsky was named as a member of its international advisory board, becoming its chair in 2015.

In the fall of 2017, The 4th Media stopped updating its website.  At that time, it displayed the logos of the following websites, among others:

• Global Research
• Strategic Culture Foundation
• PressTV (Iran)
• RT
• New Eastern Outlook
• Syrian Arab News Agency
• Veterans Today

On February 18, 2018, The 21st Century replaced The 4th Media on the Global Research website as its “partner.”  The 21st Century is the successor website to The 4th Media.  Past articles from The 4th Media were retitled as The 21st Century articles.  (Image: screenshot of The 21st Century hompage)

Both sites feature the writings of dozens of the same extremists and conspiracy theorists.  On October 12, 2017, The 4th Media website had 96 “opinion leaders.”  When it was reincarnated as The 21st Century, it had 62 opinion leaders. All of them had been “opinion leaders” on The 4th Media site.  In the transition, 34 were dropped, but the continuity between the two sites is plain to see. 

Unlike The 4th Media, The 21st Century has no "About Us" page – a strong indication they are very reluctant to reveal who runs the site.  Substituting The 21st Century for The 4th Media obscured the Chinese links of Global Research’s new “partner,” as it did not reveal anything about itself.

These three websites – Strategic Culture Foundation, Global Research, and The 4th Media – appear to have formed the first embryonic skeleton of an international disinformation network.

In February and March 2018, the longstanding links among the Strategic Culture Foundation, Global Research, and The 4th Media were suddenly obscured on each website:

• Strategic Culture Foundation: from September 2010 through March 8, 2018, Global Research and The 4th Media were listed as its partners or highlighted at the bottom of its homepage.  On March 14, 2018, no websites are listed.
• Global Research: From September 22, 2012 through February 17, 2018, its “Partner Websites” included the Strategic Culture Foundation and The 4th Media.  On February 18, 2018, The 21st Century replaced The 4th Media on the Global Research website as its only online journal “partner.”
• The 4th Media: From July 20, 2011 through October 2017, when The 4th Media stopped being updated, Global Research and the Strategic Culture Foundation were among the highlighted websites listed on its website.  But The 21st Century, which is a successor website to The 4th Media, has no links to other websites.

The 4th Media and The 21st Century are largely derivative websites, with much of their content being reprints from other websites.  A great deal of The 21st Century’s material comes from RT, the Strategic Culture Foundation, New Eastern Outlook, and fringe authors in the West.  One of its authors is Sophie Mangal, who, as noted above, has been identified as a GRU-created false persona. (Image: A photograph of The 4th Media co-founder Rao Jin, at his Anti-CNN organization; credit: rconversation.blogs.com)

A key question is: who sponsors these websites? 

In its early years, The 4th Media stated that April Media was its “mother,” or parent organization.  The April Media, known originally as the Anti-CNN, is a website said to have been created by Rao Jin, at the time a 23-year-old recent college graduate from state-funded Tsinghua University in Beijing, the top-ranked university in China. 

In April 2008, shortly after the website was created, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported suspicions that it might be a “semi-government-made website”:

The website's harsh criticism of the foreign media corresponds exactly with the Chinese government's assertions ….  This website was reportedly created in a short time by a 23-year-old Chinese man with money out of his own pocket. However, foreign correspondents stationed in Beijing are voicing the suspicion that anti-CNN.com may be a semi-government-made website, because it is ‘made too nicely’ for a website created in such a way.

Later, in 2016, Rao Jin was reported to be “working with the Communist Youth League and a rap group known as CD REV to produce music videos that denounce negative foreign media coverage of China and present the country as peace-loving and prosperous.”  At the same year, he was said to be working closely with the Communist Youth League to “produce a series of TED Talk-like propaganda pieces” aimed at appealing to Chinese youth.  The first one was on “How to Resist Western Cultural Colonization.”  The objective of the talks was “to spread party principles and socialist values in a language and format that the country’s young generation can understand.” 

Rao is said to have teamed in July 2010 with a visiting professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication to create The 4th Media. 

The 21st Century and The 4th Media adopted the Strategic Culture Foundation’s tactic of providing a platform for Western fringe voices and conspiracy theorists, as described in GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatches #6.  The 4th Media portrayed itself as “‘Just Another Voice’ in the progressive media global landscape,” while the SVR-directed Strategic Culture Foundation said the aim of its “independent contributors” was to “spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.”

Global Research gained widespread notice on March 12, 2020 when Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian drew attention in two tweets to two articles (now removed) from the Global Research website, which falsely blamed the United States for the outbreak of COVID-19.  Given Global Research’s longstanding, openly proclaimed partnership with Chinese websites, it is perhaps no accident that two of their articles were selected by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

While these three websites appear to have formed the first embryonic skeleton of an international disinformation network, many other organizations are involved, as partially described in the August 2020 GEC special report Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem. (Image: Screenshot of the OneWorld Global Think Tank website)

In 2019, a new online publication called OneWorld Global Think Tank appeared, with its first recorded appearance on the Web in August 2019.  It says it is a “new analytical and non-profit start-up” that doesn’t have “any ‘political correctness’ or agenda,” but merely seeks to “connect people from all across the world who share the same interest in international events.”  But the European Union’s counter-disinformation website EUvsDisinfo quickly spotted it as a “new addition to the pantheon of Moscow-based disinformation outlets,” noting that it is “registered and managed from Russia” and “loyally follows the Kremlin line on issues like MH17, Syria or Greta Thunberg.”  In July 2020, it was said by U.S. officials to have “ties to the G.R.U.,” Russia’s military intelligence agency

OneWorld lists more than 30 websites as its partners, including several Russian organizations that spread disinformation or those with close ties to Russian organizations:

• InfoRus, which has links to Russian military intelligence
• News Front, discussed in the Global Engagement Center (GEC) Special Report: Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem
• Oriental Review, another Russia-based pseudo-academic online journal, which also published the GRU-created “Sophie Mangal”
• Global Research
• Insider Paper, discussed below
• Veterans Today, mentioned in the GEC Pillars report.

OneWorld features authors like Sonja van den Ende, who has written numerous articles for them.  She has referred to the Dutch-led joint investigation of the shootdown of MH17 as a “sham” and called the trial of four Russians for the shootdown a “political show trial.”  In 2015, she went to Ukraine on a trip funded by an organization called the Global Rights of Peaceful People (registered in Russia), which has been active in trying to discredit the findings of the MH17 investigation.  She has also embraced conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks, trying to blame them on Israel.

Another new online publication, Insider Paper, also lists van der Ende as one of its main writers.  It appears to be aimed at youth, with sections on technology, video games, viral videos, top ten lists, and world affairs, but it also carries political articles with strong anti-U.S. government opinions.  It launched on April 4, 2020  and is part of the OneWorld network.

The connections can seem endless.  Anis H. Bajrektarevic, an “opinion maker” at The 21st Century, is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Modern Diplomacy.  Another 21st Century writer, Murray Hunter is a Vice-Chairman. 

Partners of Modern Diplomacy include:

• The Russian International Affairs Council
• International Affairs, the flagship publication of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1922
• National Defense Research University in Armenia
• PICREADI, which describes itself as “a Moscow-based non-governmental organization founded in 2010 by a group of new generation experts committed to developing and supporting civil initiatives in public diplomacy and foreign affairs.”

The network carrying Russian disinformation and propaganda has grown enormously from its early days, evolving into an ecosystem that includes Western fringe voices and conspiracy theorists.  This appears to have been the Russian intent from the beginning – to conceal and disguise their involvement, and coopt foreigners and their ideas, in order to penetrate Western and other foreign media spaces and manipulate these audiences. 

There is a great deal still to explore in the ecosystem.  Tracking where authors like Finian Cunningham, Pepe Escobar, Peter Koenig, Brian Cloughley, Sonja van der Ende and others appear and the publications that carry them is one way to map the system, its targets, and its reach.

For more, see:

• Global Engagement Center Special Report: Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem
• “Facebook takes down assets linked to Russian disinformation outlet,” Digital Forensic Research Lab, September 24, 2020
• “Russian Intelligence Agencies Push Disinformation on Pandemic,” The New York Times, July 28, 2020
• “#FakeNews: Made in China,” Digital Forensic Research Lab, November 25, 2017
• ONE WORLD, ONE AUTHOR, ONE CHAIN OF COMMAND, EUvsDisinfo, December 2, 2019
• The Kremlin’s Expanding Media Conglomerate, Institute for the Study of War, January 15, 2020

Next issue: “What We Can Learn from the Active Measures Working Group"

Past issues:

• #1: A Counter-Disinformation System That Works, January 8, 2020
• #2: Three Ways to Counter Disinformation, February 11, 2020
• #3: The Myth that Debunking Doesn’t Work, March 25, 2020
• #4: What Works in Debunking, April 14, 2020
• #5: The Coronavirus and Disinformation: Russia Remains True to Form, May 27, 2020
• #6: Using Pseudo-Academic Online Journals to Amplify Fringe Voices, September 28, 2020

To contact us, email: GECDisinfoDispatches@state.gov