Much of the social media trove appears to be scraped from public accounts accessible to anyone. A U.S. official said it was “not a surprise” that a Chinese company was scraping information for strategic gain. ADADNavy vessels such as the USS Dwight Eisenhower and Nimitz carriers are tagged with ID numbers, against which relevant social media posts and websites are catalogued. Zhenhua maintains a company blog on WeChat with a possibly tongue-in-cheek name — “Bureau 99” — that is reminiscent of the numbered divisions within the Chinese military. On the blog, an unnamed author posts takes on intelligence, U.S.-China relations and how social media influences U.S. presidential campaigns.

Source: Washington Post September 14, 2020 10:20 UTC