Outsourcing Influence

The New York Times reported in August 2025 that internal documents of GoLaxy (Zhongke Tianji), a Beijing-based technology company affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), revealed extensive artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled information operations targeting Western social media. The documents, discovered and archived by Vanderbilt University’s Institute of National Security, provide an unusually detailed view into a Chinese company focused on social media monitoring and manipulation.

This is not the only time that China’s bot networks have drawn public attention. X’s head of product recently alleged that the country controls 5 to 10 million accounts on the platform. Whether or not those figures are accurate, Chinese bot networks such as Spamouflage Dragon have been trying to discredit Hong Kong protesters on Western social media and drown out news on about protests in China. The networks have also engaged in targeted harassment of Chinese dissidents and attempted to manipulate Taiwanese elections.

Drawing on Chinese‑language open‑source materials, including company websites, media reporting, procurement records, and GoLaxy’s leaked documents, this essay examines the industry structure behind these campaigns that are based on influencing public opinion. It traces the industry’s domestic origins, integration into the party‑state, ties to military and intelligence units, global expansion, and the incorporation of generative AI and related technologies.

This analysis shows that public opinion monitoring and management, including inauthentic social-media engagement, constitutes a large and structurally embedded for-profit market in China. As such, GoLaxy is best understood not as an outlier but as an example of a broader category of firms operating in China’s “public sentiment” industry. These entities combine large-scale data analysis, AI, and information manipulation to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) security priorities.

Companies in this ecosystem are focused on managing domestic Chinese public opinion to maintain “social stability”, but some of them are increasingly extending their reach into Western social media. Understanding these firms and their capabilities is essential for exposing and disrupting online influence operations. Their impact, however, should be neither exaggerated nor underestimated.