U.S. officials are cautioning that China has stepped up election meddling activities to alter the policy climate and counter condemnation of the Communist Party leadership still grappling with the fallout of the coronavirus, which spawned from the country late last year to cripple almost every pocket of the planet.
But how exactly does a government some 7,000 miles away meddle in the democratic process of arguably the world’s most advanced country?
“China has been involved in election interference this cycle, both the presidential race and all the way down the ballot,” Christopher Whyte, an assistant professor in the homeland security and emergency preparedness program at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Fox News. “There are direct ‘election hacking’ efforts that attempt to either directly or indirectly target the vote, by hacking into polling locations, registration databases, etc. Then, there are broader influence efforts that are intended to shape the context of the election itself – the issues, the mindset of voters.”