Examining Chinese Propaganda
A peak into China's strategy.
This case study will examine Cyrus Janssen and his activism as a Chinese agent. That may sound harsh or conspiratorial, but bear with me as we analyze the facts.
Biography.
Mr. Janssen is a dual German-American1 citizen who lives in Canada and works on behalf of China. Specifically, he lives in Vancouver, which is the Chinese capital of North America.
However, in most of his videos, he calls himself a proud and patriotic American. However, as any child of immigrants will recognize, growing up in a multi-cultural household, and then choosing to live your entire adult life abroad, does not lend itself to patriotism.
Hong Kong.
“I am 100% against the protests in Hong Kong. [..] This issue really ticks me off.”2
Let’s say you really like China. You have a Chinese wife;3 you study Chinese; your kids are half Chinese;4 you love Chinese culture. All of that is fine and good. Millions of overseas Chinese people live and work in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and intermarry with other peoples.
If you enjoyed Chinese literature, the Chinese language, or were a student of Chinese history, you might have an affinity for China on a cultural level. However, when one group of Chinese people stage a political protest against their government, what dog do you have in that fight? Why do you systematically censor anti-China comments, if you’re just a neutral observer giving their amateur opinion?
For example, imagine if a Chinese person came to America, and immediately started putting out videos in the Chinese language to a Chinese audience: “I am 100% against Black Lives Matter. This issue really ticks me off. Chinese people should stop speaking out about Black Lives Matter. It’s very culturally insensitive.” What would you make of this? Is this just an immigrant giving their opinion? If they are so interested in American politics, why direct their propaganda toward Chinese people?
If a Chinese person was telling other Chinese people why it’s not ok for them to have bad opinions about America, wouldn’t you suspect that person of working for the American government in some capacity? What if they had an entire Youtube channel dedicated to that effort, which paid for their hair transplant surgery?
Here’s Mr. Janssen on June 30th.
Here he is on February 9th.
I’m not shaming a man for getting plastic surgery. But Mr. Janssen has been balding for years. I’m not hating — he’s a handsome guy. If he was comfortable with balding for so long before, why the sudden change? Did the Chinese government pressure him? “Hey, we need our agents to look young and sexy. Get this procedure — on us.”
Funding.
When anti-communist Chinese speakers find Mr. Janssen, they call him a cheap shill of the Chinese government. Mr. Janssen calls that slur a “badge of honor” — he doesn’t deny it. He also doesn’t deny the term itself, “50 cents,” which implies that China’s propaganda efforts are vast and go far beyond a handful of Youtube influencers.
In his video on “The Truth About Joe Biden and China,” at 10:20, Mr. Janssen thanks the sponsor of the video, a Chinese company. Normally, with a sponsorship, a Youtuber could expect to earn $0.01 per view. For a video with 150k views, that would come out to around $1.5k in advertising revenue.
But every company in China is directly controlled by the government. Chinese companies are allowed to randomly select German-Americans living in Canada to give them toothbrush sponsorships. Instead, due to the international relations aspect of such a sponsorship, the CCP would have to approve the decision.
However, in this case, it is not likely that the company found Mr. Janssen independently, and then went to the CCP to ask for permission. Instead, it is likely that the CCP went directly to the company and instructed them to sponsor Mr. Janssen. Why would the CCP pay him in this round-about way, and not just directly give him money?
One of the reasons is for safety and plausible deniability. As a Chinese asset, Mr. Janssen would, under American law, be forced to register as a foreign agent. America does not apply this law uniformly — Israelis, for example, are exempt. But China can avoid the limitations of the foreign registry by paying him through a “private company” for a “toothbrush advertisement.” This doesn’t mean that Mr. Janssen is very important or in danger of being charged with espionage. Instead, it represents the typical way in which foreign governments seek to obscure the extent of their operations in the United States, especially since the legal status of a “foreign agent” presents legal liability for China. If Mr. Janssen is a “private citizen,” and comes under investigation, China can maintain the legal fiction that they are not liable for his actions, which creates additional hoops for the American government to jump through in order to monitor his behavior and track Chinese propaganda.
One of the other companies that funds Mr. Janssen is CDS Global Cloud, which "helps foreign companies enter into China." Given CDS's close relationship with the Chinese government, it would be relatively easier for the Chinese government to ask for a favor: "Could you sponsor Mr. Janssen (and a list of others), as a gift to keep our relationship in good standing?" CDS trades under code "SHE: 300846," and has a yearly revenue of $323 million. For multi-million dollar government contracts, paying off a few Youtubers a few thousand dollars is the equivalent of bringing flowers to a date.
Furthermore, Mr. Janssen is directly boosted by Chinese state media to Chinese viewers, and he directs his Chinese supporters to fund him via WeChat, a Chinese payment processor. It is unclear how many Chinese viewers he has — Youtube is banned in China, so his 150k subscribers do not include any Chinese viewers. However, patriotic Chinese citizens, convinced that it is their patriotic duty to support propagandists overseas, may contribute substantially to his income.
“Private citizens” like Mr. Janssen are agents hiding in plain sight. So why doesn’t the government close this obvious loophole and start prosecuting foreign agents who fail to register? There are two possible answers:
The American government is incompetent and has no clue what is going on;
Just as in the case of Israel, the Chinese lobby takes advantage of our corrupt government in order to better manipulate America. Pliable factions within the American government are responsible for deliberately obfuscating and blocking the swift prosecution of unregistered foreign agents. They are on the same payroll as Mr. Janssen.
Mr. Janssen is so committed to the bit that he is not being “paid by China,” that he produced a series of screenshots claiming that China had offered him money for the copyright to his videos, but he decided to turn it down, because he values his honor and integrity as an independent journalist! He only wants to heal the world, and does it from the kindness of his heart.
China has a few ways of getting around this:
Funneling money through “private Chinese citizens” via Bitcoin, Paypal, or CashApp;
Directing “private companies” to grant him sponsorships;
Artificially boosting his videos.
The Youtube algorithm works in the following way: if Youtube notices that your videos are getting a lot of positive attention (likes, comments, high watch time / viewer retention), they will advertise your video to more “organic” users. If China uses bot farms to promote Mr. Janssen, Youtube will be fooled into thinking his content is “organically good,” and promote him further. This will result in Mr. Janssen amassing a much larger audience than he could on his own; the bots will also result in greater ad revenue.
These three methods could be used to pay Mr. Janssen without his knowledge, which is a key asset in preventing legal liability. If the Canadian or American Congress passed a bill requiring stricter regulation on Chinese agents, Mr. Janssen has plausible deniability to avoid penalties that he might otherwise occur. This plausible deniability places him lower on the chain of “suspects” that might be detained on day one of a new anti-China policy. It would give him time to escape to China if necessary.
Americans in China are Chinese Agents.
Immigrants are allowed to criticize America, for better or worse. Trump has highlighted the fact that Muslim immigrants on student visas have participated in protests for Palestine. This makes America, like most western countries, extremely tolerant of foreigners, even when they are actively undermining the government.
Or, if you feel this example is unfair to Palestinians, consider the role of AIPAC. AIPAC isn’t alone: Yoram Hazony claims to be the leader of “National Conservatism” in America, but was born in Israel and lives in Israel and is an Israeli.
Or, if you really love Israel and this example offends you, then consider the fact that we continually invite British people into this country to spout off their opinions on us: Piers Morgan and Milo Yiannopoulos being recent examples. Other countries don’t do this. You won’t find a single American in British, German, or French political commentary.5
Since 1965, America has begun to identify itself as a nation of immigrants, and since everyone is defined as an immigrant, anyone fresh off the boat has as much of a right to speak out as someone whose family arrived 400 years ago.
Even if you support this form of liberalism, and you think it is sustainable, it should be acknowledged that outside of countries historically dominated by Europeans, this is not usually tolerated. South Africans have engaged in vicious violence not just against whites, but other blacks trying to migrate for a better life. In the last 30 years, at least 669 blacks were killed for not being “native South Africans.” This is ironic, since 75% of the population of South Africa is Bantu, who are recent immigrants arriving in 1600.
Chinese people are more similar to Africans than Europeans in this respect. They do not believe in the rights of foreigners to enter into a country and to criticize it. On the contrary, the Chinese require all foreigners to be pro-China. Anti-Chinese sentiment will result in deportation or jail.
Because of this, Americans who live in China are all pro-Chinese. What does that mean? It means that they believe that Chinese authoritarian communism is good. That sounds fairly strange to a European or American, but there is an increasing group of “dissidents,” including the MAGA communists like Jackson Hinkle, as well as neo-Orthodox Christians, Duginists, third-worldists, and far leftists who believe that this Chinese authoritarian communism is a good thing.
There have always been apologists for communism in America, even during the reign of Stalin. During the Wilson administration, the Democratic Party was captured by pro-communist sympathizers, who ran the party until the death of FDR in 1945.
The narrative that America was influenced by communists sounds like McCarthyism. The ironic truth about Joseph McCarthy is that he was funded and backed by communist labor unions to destroy the political career of Robert Follette Jr., who was a strong anti-communist Republican. While it is clear that McCarthy was funded by communists, it is not entirely clear for what reason he later changed his tune
There is some evidence Joseph McCarthy was a war profiteer who made $739,523 in the stock market during the war. It is also alleged that he was a homosexual who was blackmailed by his communist lovers into spying for the Soviet Union. If this is true, what do we make of his attacks on the CIA, claiming that they were run by communists? The only possible conclusion, if these things were true, is to suggest that, as a communist agent, his job was to spread misinformation and misdirect public attention. The CIA, which was the most anti-communist institution in America, was a frequent target of his attacks. McCarthy was so offensive, so buffoonish, so outlandish, that he did more damage to the cause of anti-communist than he helped it.
Whether this was intentional or not is up for debate. The CIA ultimately won and managed to systematically rid the government of spies and Soviet sympathizers. One of its tactics was to recruit Trotskyites and Jews who fled the Soviet Union into its ranks. These elements were bitterly opposed to Stalin’s antisemitism, and formed the vanguard of America’s turn against communism under JFK.
None of this is to judge whether or not communism is good or bad, but it is simply to say that America has always been full of spies trying to subvert our government for the purposes of foreign governments. Because of this, it is very easy for Mr. Janssen, and other Chinese propagandists, to claim, “I’m not a Chinese agent! I’m just a patriotic American citizen who happens to live in China!” No. If you weren’t an agent, you wouldn’t be allowed to live in China and comment on Chinese internal Hong Kong policy, or act as a “cultural ambassador” on Youtube. You would be deported or jailed.
Mr. Janssen has been groomed for this position over the last 14 years. If at any point he felt reluctance for being an agent, he could have refused further assignments and he would have been promptly relieved of his residency rights.
Of course, many innocent Americans visit China, visit the Great Wall, take some pictures, and leave. Some even live there and genuinely disagree with communism, but have mixed families that tie them to China, so they shut up. Any American who lives in China and comments on China is, as a matter of legal necessity, doing so with the permission of the Chinese government.
It’s very difficult to explain this to Americans, because they project America’s level of tolerance and open mindedness onto the rest of the world.
Chinese in America are Chinese Agents.
Mr. Janssen speaks with a college student, Tim. In the interview, Tim stated his intention to remain in America for years following his graduation from Cornell University in order to get the most out of America’s opportunities. Then, eventually, he planned to return to China. What this means is that all of the education, opportunities, and assistance that America gives to Chinese students gets sucked up, stolen, and taken back to China.
Tim and Mr. Janssen give identical, robotic answers to every question posed. This kind of uniformity, without any self-awareness of how stilted and manufactured it sounds, is typical of the Chinese mindset. Sadly, this is partially because this kind of “phony salesman” approach does work on a percentage of gullible Americans, who will believe anything if it is repeated consistently and with confidence.
COVID.
The most prominent conspiracy on COVID is that it was made in a lab. On May 7th 2024, the Congressional Oversight Committee issued a statement confirming this scientific possibility. Mr. Janssen denies this possibility, and calls this American propaganda.
Rather than contradict Mr. Janssen, I will accept the “bat soup” explanation, or even the “Italian” or “Ukrainian lab leak” theories as possible. I will focus on what happened next.
After COVID broke out, China did two things:
It created a global panic by fueling conspiracy theories (see Alex Jones);
It influenced the WHO to support lockdowns.
Both of these were unnecessary and malicious. Lockdowns were never a part of American pandemic protocol prior to COVID. Americans, like Swedes, understood that lockdowns cause more death than they prevent. For example, you can lock everyone in their houses for 23 hours a day, but if every single person in the neighborhood goes into the exact same neighborhood, wearing ineffective masks, breathing the exact same air as everyone else, then the supermarket becomes a super spreader. The only thing accomplished is limiting exercise, sunlight, and socialization, which are crucial for a healthy immune system — as well as massive economic damages to small businesses.
Big business in America seized the opportunity to crush the opposition, and corporate interests in America are ultimately responsible for the damage, as well as the rushed vaccine which may result in side effects over the next 75 years, as the children who were forced to take it risk potential disabilities such as infertility, heart problems, low energy, and other symptoms associated with “long COVID.” Hopefully not, but we simply don’t know. The vaccine had little positive effect anyway, since within 6 months the virus had entirely mutated to avoid the defensive mechanism of “spike proteins.”
Even if American companies are ultimately responsible for all of this, China knew what it was doing when it allowed videos to “leak” of “doors being welded shut to apartments.” This served three purposes:
Create a panic around COVID to damage America;
Justify a new level of political control in China.
Create an excuse for China’s coming recession.
Points 2 and 3 are connected since the Chinese economic slowdown was feared by China’s political elite as potentially causing protests, uprisings, or revolts, as were forecasted in the Hong Kong protests of 2019. One could even speculate that China over-reacted to COVID specifically as a pretext to crack down on the protests. That’s a pretty big hoax — lying about a virus in order to destroy political dissent. Again, I am not denying that this happens in the west, but China demonstrates that the shift toward authoritarianism, as advocated by the dissident right, doesn’t always result in better governance.
Conclusion.
I highly recommend watching Mr. Janssen’s content with his motives in mind. This is not to say that Mr. Janssen’s talking points are factually incorrect or illogical. His criticism of Israel, his criticism of the Republican party, and his support for Russia are all, independently, views held by many Americans unaffiliated by China. But consider the combination of the three.
Is there a single Democrat in America who supports Russia? RFK Jr is critical of Ukraine, but does he actively defend Putin as a heroic leader of the Russian people?
America can generally be split into four camps: MAGA, the dissident right, centrists, and the far left.
MAGA has the support of anywhere between 8% to 40% of the country, and supports both Russia and Israel. This number increases if we consider all potential Trump supporters, but shrinks depending on how we define “support for Russia.” Some Americans outright support Putin (less than 8%), while others are neutral. Many of Trump’s “40%” actually support Ukraine, and are disappointed with his policy, but feel forced to choose him over Biden for other reasons. Support for Russia spans a spectrum ranging between full support for Putin to non-support for Ukraine.
Next is the dissident right, which constitutes less than 4% of Americans, who support both Russia and Palestine.
Thirdly are the centrists among Republicans and Democrats who support both Israel and Ukraine. These form a majority of voting members of congress, but among voters, this bloc totals less than 15% of Republicans, but maybe 60% of Democrats, for a total of around 40% of Americans.
Last but not least is the left, which is about 14% of the country, who support both Palestine and Ukraine.6 This doesn’t add up exactly to 100%, but these numbers refer to four camps which often have amorphous or shifting levels of support depending on the political winds of party leadership. This is especially true in the case of Trump, who inspires cult-like devotion and rationalization of his sometimes contradictory statements.
Of these four camps, MAGA is the most oppositional to China. There is some support for China in the dissident right (Dailystormer, MAGA communists), some support on the far left, and some support among centrists. Bill Gates and Howard Schultz have been generally supportive of China, while George Soros has taken a more aggressive stance.
Most of Mr. Janssen’s guests tend to come from the dissident right: Douglas Macgregor and David Pyne. It is not entirely clear that Macgregor or Pyne understand that they are speaking with a Chinese agent. Macgregor is generally supportive of Trump, who takes a firm line against China. Pyne was on the Vivek campaign, who was even more hawkish on China. Janssen doesn’t seem to mind boosting anti-Chinese activists as long as it serves other more pressing goals, like humiliating America for its support for Ukraine and Israel.
What does this type of propaganda indicate for China’s strategy? It is possible that China is moving toward the dissident right because it realizes that its biggest threat is MAGA. While the left, centrists, and dissident right are all capable of sympathizing with China, MAGA is the implacable enemy of China. Instead of attacking MAGA from the left, accusing them of being too “hardcore” or “anti-immigrant,” the dissident right attacks MAGA from the right, accusing them of being “paid off,” or “hypocritical.”
The dissident right shares this characteristic with the paleoconservative-libertarian movement as represented by Ron Paul. Again, whether these ideologies are good or true in themselves is not the point. China is not offended by the truth, as long as it serves their interests.
China hopes that by boosting the dissident right, it can fracture or demoralize MAGA. With or without China’s intervention, this already seems to be the case, with Nick Fuentes blasting Trump for not being “hardcore” enough on Project 2025. The isolationism of Fuentes, opposing Ukraine and Israel, is in line with Macgregor and Pyne.
It seems that China believes “America First” isolationism to be the best way to undermine its greatest enemy, MAGA. The dissident right complains that MAGA has become co-opted, and they are simply attempting to return to the paleo-MAGA platform of 2015. China is wisely amplifying purity spiraling in order to string a thread between Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. If right-wingers can be convinced to abandon Ukraine and Israel, how can they possibly defend Taiwan?
None of this means that China is embracing the Republican party, or abandoning its connections to Democrats, centrists, or the far left. It simply means that China is capable of pursuing multiple strategies at once: supporting the campus protests, working with centrists like Schultz and Gates, attempting to forge connections with moderate Democrats, but also amplifying the purity-spiral of the dissident right.
From the dissident right perspective, if China wants to boost them, so what? The truth is the truth — the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In this case, Mr. Janssen can be seen as a true patriot, through-and-through. Working for China is not inconsistent with an “America First” position on foreign policy.
On trade, however, the situation becomes more complicated. America cannot resurrect its manufacturing base without imposing tariffs on China. On the issue of immigration, Chinese immigration is much more threatening to the American middle class than Mexican immigration, because Chinese overseas students are filling H1B positions and undercutting the middle class.
Whether or not propagandists like Mr. Janssen will have a large effect on the dissident right remains to be seen. Furthermore, the effect of the dissident right, which is only 4% of the population, is questionable in itself. Will dissident righters stay home November 6th? Is it smart to amplify a movement associated with China hawks like Candace Owens and Steve Bannon?
While the success of such a strategy is questionable, the cost is so low (perhaps a few $100k per influencer), that it might as well be done anyway, whether or not it ends up working. China is attempting to replicate the success of the Soviet Union, which infiltrated the Democratic and Republican parties to achieve full spectrum influence within the American political system throughout the 1940s.
3:50, “I have a Chinese wife.” (Chinese Student shares thoughts on America, Democracy, and Freedom!)
The Europeans have their own foreigners: Pakistani, Indian, and black in Britain, Turkish and Serbian in Germany. French politics is dominated by foreigners:
CENTRIST: Gabriel Attal's mother is Jewish, his father is Russian Orthodox.
CENTER RIGHT: Bardella is Italian.
FAR RIGHT: Zemmour is an Arabic speaking Berber-Jew from Algeria.
FAR LEFT: Mélenchon is Spanish-Sicilian.
This is the case in American-centric politics, however, in Eurocentric politics, it is not uncommon for people on the Identitarian right to support both Palestine and Ukraine. “Far right” supporters of Ukraine and Palestine probably make up less than 1% of the American population.
“neo-Orthodox” - I’m taking this