China is systematically broadening its influence operations across the Indo-Pacific region, targeting elections in Japan, Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, and Pacific island nations, according to an analysis published in The Diplomat by Osawa Jun, a Senior Fellow at Tokyo's Nakasone Peace Institute. The report details a pattern of coordinated disinformation campaigns spanning the better part of a decade, with operations growing in scale and geographic reach.

Japan's Election Targeted by Meme Campaigns

During Japan's House of Representatives election in February this year, posts circulated on X promoted narratives such as 'Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae is a militarist' and 'Japan cannot win in a Taiwan contingency.' Osawa noted that the Japanese-language posts contained traces of simplified Chinese script — the character set used in mainland China, not Japan — and that several meme images bore resemblance to those used by Chinese government-affiliated media. The narratives, he wrote, aligned closely with official Beijing talking points on regional security.

Taiwan and the US: A Decade of Documented Interference

The report traces Chinese influence operations in Taiwan back to local elections in 2018 and 2022. During the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election, disinformation specifically targeted members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who had been distancing themselves from China.

In the United States, US President Donald Trump on 16 July released a trove of intelligence documents, alleging that China carried out what he described as 'the largest compromise of election data in history' — the illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files during the 2020 presidential election cycle. According to Trump, the stolen data included names, addresses, phone numbers, and political party affiliations.

'This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare,' Trump said in his address. He further alleged that elements within US intelligence agencies had actively worked to suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's alleged interference, shielding both the president and the public from its full scope. US spy agencies, he said, began uncovering the voter data compromise in 2020, when it emerged that tens of millions of voter records had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China.

Philippines, Australia, and the Pacific Under Pressure

China has also been accused of conducting influence operations in Australia since the mid-2020s. In the Philippines, security authorities reported that China-backed groups ran influence operations during the 2025 midterm and local elections, prompting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to order a detailed investigation. Analysts cited in the report warn that these efforts could intensify ahead of the 2028 Philippine presidential election, with the aim of securing a win for a pro-China candidate.

In the Solomon Islands, disinformation alleged that the United States was meddling in the country's 2024 elections, and claims that the US sought to eliminate the pro-China prime minister have reportedly circulated repeatedly since 2023. The report flags the South Pacific island nations as a growing arena for Chinese information warfare.

The Broader Pattern

Taken together, the documented operations point to a structured, multi-country strategy rather than isolated incidents. This comes amid growing concern among democratic governments in the Indo-Pacific about the integrity of their electoral processes. Notably, the operations appear calibrated to local political fault lines — exploiting existing tensions over militarism in Japan, cross-strait relations in Taiwan, and US presence in the Pacific. How democracies in the region build resilience against such campaigns is expected to be a central focus of upcoming security dialogues.