The enemy behind the scenes: How China’s propaganda shores up support for Russia’s war in Ukraine

How can authoritarian propaganda effectively shape people’s foreign policy attitudes? In this article, we assess a method of information manipulation that autocrats often use: exploiting the heuristic of an archenemy nation to influence the public’s views of specific foreign policy issues. In particular, we argue that autocracies can manipulate public opinion by providing citizens with cues – even if fabricated – about the involvement of their main adversary in an international crisis. To test the argument, we examine the propaganda campaign in China during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Using a unique two-wave longitudinal survey collected from the very beginning of the Ukraine war, we find observational evidence that propagandists successfully persuaded Chinese people to support Russia’s invasion, specifically by blaming the war on China’s main adversary, the U.S. We also document that this tactic was more effective in persuading the less-nationalist citizens to adopt pro-Russian attitudes.