LIU Zongyi
At present, the global situation is changing in an unprecedented way. International struggle is going on fiercely in various fields, including the field of media and communication. Cognitive warfare has become one of major battlefields of international struggle. Cognitive warfare is a form of warfare that targets human perceptions, which is significantly different from previous psychological warfare and information warfare. This kind of war is being carried out in three modes: the ideological engine, the transformation of the accepted discourse, and the cognitive offensive. These activities, conducted in synchronization with other Instruments of Power, can affect attitudes and behavior by influencing, protecting, or disrupting individual and group cognition to gain advantage over an adversary. Cognitive Warfare integrates cyber, information, psychological, and social engineering capabilities. With the accelerated development of technologies such as the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence, cognitive warfare has gradually developed into a combat style supported by reliable data, computing power, and algorithms.
The cognitive war against China and Pakistan has been going on for many years, In December 2020, the EU DisinfoLab, an independent European think tank, released an investigation report entitled “ Indian Chronicles “, which revealed the fact that Indian intelligence agencies have made and disseminated false information around the world to discredit Pakistan and China since 2005, attracting the attention of the international community. Especially in terms of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and China-Pakistan relations, India and many Western states are making a lot of false information. For example, the so-called “debt trap” was originally created by Indian scholar Brahma Chellaney, which was widely publicized by the American and Western media. They try to mislead the people of China and Pakistan and create contradictions and differences in the relations between the two countries. In fact, the propaganda of India, the United States and Western countries has been successful to some extent, which has indeed affected the smooth advancement of China-Pakistan relations and the CPEC. Especially after the air battle in May this year, India was unable to defeat Pakistan in a real war, so it used proxy war more madly and launched a Mader cognitive war. This situation highlights the necessity of strengthening media cooperation between China and Pakistan.
China and Pakistan are “iron brothers”, and the two peoples enjoy profound friendship. The Pakistani government has a supervisory role on the media in Pakistan. Pakistan’s media also have a high degree of “self-discipline”. In terms of China-Pakistan friendship and China’s national image, Pakistan’s media have taken a more consistent and positive attitude to cooperate with the political circles. Even if there are doubts or objections, it is difficult to stir up trouble in Pakistan.
However, Pakistan’s domestic media environment is more westernized, with private media in the majority, and their positions are more or less affected by the funding side. The capital operation environment of the media is open. Some media supported by Western funds tend to release content close to the West due to the influence of the investor’s position. Many Pakistani media practitioners are educated in the Western countries, and they will also be influenced imperceptibly by Western rhetoric. Topics are restricted by Western topic selection settings. News reports are mostly copied from Western media, and sometimes information distortion is unavoidable.In the era of social media and we media, this trend is more serious.
So, I think both China and Pakistan should take importance of mass media cooperation and anti-cognitive war. Firstly, I believe that China and Pakistan should establish a strategic collaborative relationship specifically targeting states such as India and other countries in anti-cognitive warfare. Dis-information targeting China and Pakistan mainly comes from India, the United States, and Europe. Since it is a cognitive warfare, it should not only include the media and publicity departments, but also the military. In dealing with the cognitive war against China and Pakistan, mutual trust between our two countries is crucial. As long as both parties are full of mutual trust, we are not afraid of dis-information attacks.
Secondly, China and Pakistan should extend the strategic coordination of this anti-cognitive war to the Islamic world and other regions of the world. Especially in the current context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where states such as Western countries and India continue to smear Islam and the justice Islamic resistance movement, this strategic coordination is particularly significant.
Thirdly, media and information technology cooperation need to be strengthened.The governments of both states should strengthen their guidance and governance of media and social media. The two governments should promote news exchange, mutual training and exchange of media personnel. Strengthen the infrastructure construction of information technology management.
Finally, we should further strengthen think tank and people to people and cultural exchanges, and strengthen mutual trust.
[The author is the director and senior fellow of Center for South Asia Studies at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies]
