“Making the Most of It, Part II: Xi Jinping Leverages Coronavirus ‘War Without Smoke’ to Spur Digital Transformation, Test National Defense Mobilization” is a new paper authored by Dr. David Dorman for Security Nexus.

In this paper, Dorman states that “Despite being tied to the pandemic or “economic restart,” current Chinese domestic propaganda efforts on topics ranging from “crisis management” to “digital transformation” and “defense mobilization” did not originate with the coronavirus. Instead, each represents an agile repackaging of Communist Party guidance and propaganda messaging that was already months or years old. Facing a crisis of confidence following its muddled response to the coronavirus outbreak, domestic propaganda efforts were initiated within days or weeks to remold the Party image. Instead of starting from scratch, existing campaigns were repackaged to highlight a Party that was not only in control and leading the crisis response, but even taking advantage of the crisis to accelerate China’s domestic and international goals.”

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Security Nexus is a peer-reviewed, online journal published by the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.