Lintao Zhang/Pool/Getty Images
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) with Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the Roundtable Summit Phase One Sessions of Belt and Road Forum at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake on May 15, 2017 in Beijing, China.
- The key difference between China and Russia's influence campaigns is that China is better at it, according to a former Australian government adviser.
- China is patient and plays the long game, while Russia tends to commit to "focused, sharp strikes."
- Australia has been grappling with how to handle apparent attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to influence its
politics and society at large.
The key difference between the global influence campaigns of China and Russia is that Beijing is just better at it, according to John Garnaut, a former adviser on China to Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Speaking to the US House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Garnaut was giving national-security advice on influence operations when Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard asked him to compare China's influence methods to Russia's.
"Why is it that all we hear about is Russia's actions, whereas there are countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other countries that purchase TV ads, fund think tanks here in Washington, that fund institutions in our universities seeking to achieve that same objective. Why is it that Russia's actions stand out?" Gabbard asked.
Garnaut was short and to the point: "I think one answer may be because China is very good at it," he said.
Part of this reason is the very different approaches the two countries take.
"Unlike Russia, which seems to be as much for a good time rather than a long time, the Chinese are strategic, patient, and they set down foundations of organizations and very consistent narratives over a long period of time."
"So, often its quite incremental in the way that China behaves, whereas Russia tends to do these focused, sharp strikes," Garnaut said, stressing that the distinction doesn't mean that China's methods are less important.
"They put an enormous amount of effort into making sure we don't talk about what it's doing," he said, referring to world's second-largest economy.
"I think we've just failed to recognize a lot of the activity that has been going on and that needs to change and its starting to change, certainly in Australia, and starting to change in the US."
While the US has largely been focused on Russia's meddling in its 2016 presidential election, Australia has been grappling with how to handle apparent attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to subtly influence its politics and society at large.
In response, Australia's government last year introduced a new law to target and broaden the definition of foreign interference.