The report found that 795 online seminars were offered to foreign government officials in these countries in 2021 and 2022, funded and run by the CCP.
The Chinese communist regime has been exporting communist ideology and authoritarian control systems to developing countries under the guise of “business training” programs, according to the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub’s new report, “A Global South with Chinese characteristics.”
The Global South refers to developing countries, which are mostly (but not exclusively) in the southern hemisphere, including India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and most countries in Africa and Latin America. China is included too.
The report found that 795 online seminars were offered to foreign government officials in these countries in 2021 and 2022, funded and run by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Ministry of Commerce, promoting “an autocratic approach to governance” and pushing the narrative that authoritarian control is essential for economic development.
The findings are based on 1,691 files obtained from the Academy for International Business Officials (AIBO) under the CCP’s Ministry of Commerce. The AIBO that trains CCP cadres in the ministry has been in coordination with the CCP’s embassies to promote its online seminars in the Global South. According to the report, 21,123 individuals participated in the CCP’s online seminars over the two-year period.
The report’s author, researcher Niva Yau, categorized the training programs into six groups based on their contents to analyze how they serve “China’s broader ambitions to undermine the liberal democratic norms that currently underpin the global order.”
The first two groups are labeled “clearly authoritarian” and “potentially authoritarian” and have lessons on CCP practices that violate personal freedom, including “non-democratic regime practices” such as “administrative control over the media, information, and population.”
“The programs also provide practical assistance for host countries to fast-track adaptation of Chinese practices,” the report reads.
Training programs that fall into two other groups, “information operation access” and “security access” are centered on activities that serve the CCP’s “intelligence-collection purposes” and help further the Chinese regime’s access to foreign countries’ information operations and security infrastructure.
