By Rohit Sharma
ThinkFi.net
THE latest Indo-Pakistan conflict, which originated in response to the Pahalgam attack, commenced with Operation Sindoor and Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos between the 7th and 10th of May, with a ceasefire coming into effect only by the 10th of May, 2025. The conflict was one that was not only fought on the ground but saw a play into a narrative game.
A third country outside the scope of the confrontation seemed to have seized this opportunity for its own interest. China used the conflict between India and Pakistan with the hope to achieve financial gains for itself.
China not only provided Pakistan with military equipment, but, along with the argument of partnership, taking advantage of Pakistan’s bandwagoning, disseminated various narratives against the Indian military systems. A sudden circulation of negative reporting around the Indian aircraft and missile performance was noticed. A thorough Twitter analysis reflected that the creation of posts with the keywords “Rafale and BrahMos” peaked on May 10th after the ceasefire was announced. Chinese-linked accounts not only criticized Indian used equipment like the French Rafale, Indo-Russian BrahMos, S-400, along with India’s defense partners, but praised the Chinese-built systems like J-10C, JF-17, and PL-15.
The aim of securing a financial gain from this clash was also observable through the stock market behavior. An evident parallel could be drawn between the dissemination of narrative against the Rafale and BrahMos and the sharp share price fluctuation of the Chinese defense manufacturers — Chengdu Aircraft Corporation and Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. The share prices reached its peak on the 11th-12th of May after the negative reporting against Indian aircraft and missile performances between the 8th and 11th May. These deliberate efforts by China were even documented in official reports by the French military and the U.S.
The peaks of the earlier two aspects, along with the open source analysis of the two famous Chinese applications TikTok and Weibo, with the peak on 10th and 11th respectively, suggests that although Chinese state media were involved in the dissemination of narratives early on, a large-scale amplification began only after China identified potential economic benefits at the expense of other nations.
Concerns for the Philippines
China’s efforts to target nations and their countries’ military through cyber attacks are not new, but an old tactic used across various incidents. Similar attacks were even noticed during the 2024
Indian elections, where the BrahMos missile was targeted to create a sense of disbelief among international communities against India through a set of false beliefs about India’s degrading technological advancements. An example of this was the narrative that the BrahMos missile sales from India to the Philippines have been discredited by alleging that the missiles were found to be vulnerable to explosion during the test stages, missing targets, and similar disinformation campaigns. While the fact remains that none of the India-exported artillery has ever malfunctioned, fake videos and memes were widely shared on X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, which remain in use in the Philippines to portray that India cheated the Philippines. Other similar narratives were aimed at pre-emptively harming future cooperation, such as the possible sale of the BrahMos to Vietnam.
With the emerging exports to the Philippines, along with ongoing negotiations with Vietnam and Indonesia, this media strategy became more visible following the recent India-Pakistan conflict, as it brought renewed international attention to India’s military capabilities. Subsequently, there was a noticeable increase in interest and procurement related to the BrahMos missile, especially from countries like the Philippines, which had already placed an initial order and has since received its second delivery. Other nations like Vietnam and even Saudi Arabia have shown potential interest as well. This growing popularity of the BrahMos missile is perceived as a direct challenge to China’s weapons/defense export market.
Presumably, that is why this campaign was majorly propagated by Chinese associated media outlets and social media accounts, aiming to downplay and undermine the global reputation of Indian military weaponry, the BrahMos missile, which had been ordered by the Philippines between 2022 and 2025. The timing of these efforts, closely following the Philippines’ initial order of the missile, suggests that Chinese media have been systematically attempting to counter India’s growing presence in the global defense market, especially as Indian weaponry becomes more appealing to countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Parallel efforts by pro-China accounts have also been seen to be involved in the spread of one-sided news and manipulated media for the Rafale aircraft during the recent Indo-Pak confrontation. Several such influencers and anonymous X accounts circulated false reports of Dassault’s stock crashing. Meanwhile, AI-generated images, videos, and old footage falsely depicting the Rafale crashes during the India-Pakistan conflict went viral, with several Chinese news articles supporting an unfair number of Rafale crashes as facts. In China, a TikTok video mocking the performance of Rafale with various humorous edits and nationalistic overtones was widely shared. This approach replicates the disinformation efforts aimed at India’s BrahMos missile exports to the Philippines, where Chinese narratives sought to undermine Indian technological success, and could also be detected for French exports to Indonesia.
These attempts at targeting military equipment of states and their capacities can have rather two types of consequences. Primarily an impact on specific recent developments, and the other one affecting the broader strategic landscape. The initial short-term consequences could be a disruption of public trust in the governments of the countries importing the military equipment, possibly leading to a conflict between the states importing and supplying the equipment. In the long run, this may further lead to the cancellation of the military deal and affect the foreign relations of the countries. Therefore, these third-party cyber manipulation efforts targeting the military require close and sustained monitoring.
Chinese involvement of a similar nature in trying to benefit from information space beyond conventional military operations was also observed in an incident between China and the Philippines. Coinciding with the harassment of Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, Beijing also started an elaborate influence operation in mid-May 2024 against the Philippines, targeting the Philippine audience. The Chinese propaganda machinery engaged across social media platforms from X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, covering all digital platforms in the Philippines to create a plethora of fake news and deception to peddle their propaganda. Multiple fake accounts were created at the time of the incident itself, posting anti-Philippine content. The social media accounts masqueraded as ‘Filipinos’ and peddled Beijing’s claim over the island.
These influence operations against the Philippines, with China’s role in information manipulation, have not been limited to conventional strategic positioning but also aimed at targeting the 2025 Philippines elections. Before the election, there was a large number of pro-Duterte posts circulating across social media platforms used in the Philippines. A frequent mention of “China” was noticed in several of these active X accounts, with 88% of the tweets having either a positive or neutral stance towards China with many posts also citing content of Chinese newspapers. Posts that further stirred controversy, especially involving Duterte and South China Sea sovereignty, were generated in high volumes. These events portray potential efforts at interference through perception formation.
It warrants urgent attention that China, in an effort to prove or demonstrate its weaponry and technological superiority, may be strategically seeking to place itself in various conflicts across Asia. The 2024 Indo-Pak confrontation displays a more sophisticated form of Chinese involvement in cyberspace. This approach is not new but is rather consistent with previously observed incidents. This development reflects on the similarities in how the Chinese Communist Party-sponsored actors have operated across different events in Asia. It illustrates how modern conflict now extends beyond conventional military operations into the domain of perception warfare. This approach blurs the lines between physical and virtual combat, bringing the gap between military coordination and media manipulation to harm the other country both psychologically and strategically. These events indicate an evolving security environment where wars are not restricted to battle fields but travel even at the level of media, cyberspace, digital technologies, and public opinion. This type of third-party involvement has not always proven effective in subsiding conflicts, which highlights an irony to China’s attempts in positioning itself as a peacemaker in all hostilities in South and Southeast Asia.
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