China has long faced accusations of meddling in and influencing elections in key democracies through various means. The Trump administration in the US has declassified and publicised several intelligence and law enforcement documents from 2020, alleging that China acquired 200 million American voter data and exploited vulnerabilities in the US election system to influence the poll in Joe Biden’s favour.
China acquired and exploited American voter data: Trump makes explosive claims citing declassified files, orders probe
In a nationally televised address on 16th July 2026, US President Donald Trump called the disclosures vulnerabilities in America’s election infrastructure, and called for a probe into why the intelligence inputs flagging the Chinese election interference manoeuvres were allegedly withheld or suppressed during his first term.
“Tonight, I’m announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes, like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people,” President Trump said.
US President Donald Trump: Newly declassified documents show that over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history — resulting in China’s illicit…
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) July 17, 2026
In addition to accusing the US intelligence community of suppressing information on China’s alleged election interference activities aimed at ensuring Trump’s defeat, the US President directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to launch an investigation into why the information was allegedly withheld.
“But that all changes right now. The documents we will release starting tonight have been gathered by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, a great group of people, along with the staff of the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board, supported by our top intelligence agency chiefs who have all personally reviewed the findings we are presenting this evening and fully confirmed their authenticity,” Trump stated.
Trump claimed that the declassified and publicised documents cover five key areas of concern. He claimed that during the 2020 election cycle, China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files.
This data included names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive data that “would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities…”
Calling the supposed data loss an “unprecedented election security nightmare”, Trump cited intelligence to claim that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project.
The second set of documents released on Thursday is reported to reveal that members of the Deep State in the American intelligence agency “worked to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the president and the American people as nobody thought was possible.”
Citing the declassified memos, Trump alleged that in 2020, tens of millions of voter data across 18 states were bought, stolen or hacked by China.
“They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else. And to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is, this is the most secure election in the history of our country — a standard, very pat line that was divvied out to say,” he said.
The declassified files indicate that Chinese intelligence officials analysed multiple datasets related to the US states registration from around April 2020 onward. A zip file released by the White House includes several declassified memos referencing access or compromise of voter registration files.
One of the released documents mentions that in August 2020, the Chinese government had produced massive fake US drivers’ licenses and had them exported secretly to the US. These counterfeit driving licenses allowed “tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party to vote for US Presidential Candidate USPER Joe ((Biden)), despite not being eligible to vote in the United States.”
“China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts, to include name, ID and address, which would allow the Chinese government to use real US persons’ information to create the fraudulent driver’s license. The fraudulent driver’s licenses were to include true ID number and true address of US citizens, making them difficult to detect. China planned to use the fraudulent driver’s licenses to account for tens of thousands of mail-in votes,” a declassified document reads.
The declassified documents reveal that China had allegedly developed capabilities to push its own narrative on various mainstream issues, including fuelling anti-government discontentment among immigrants in the US and inciting the Black Lives Matter Movement, through social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others, in addition to mainstream media via influencers and journalists and other CCP-cultivated assets.
“The Chinese government sought to identify US journalists who had reported negatively on the US president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him,” President Trump said, although he did not name any such ‘compromised’ journalists.
The CCP analysed and picked America’s internal issues that could be exploited to sow divisions or widen existing fissures. The documents indicate that China used its assets in the US and social media propaganda to incite migrant community dissatisfaction with the US government, instigate anti-government protests over alleged human rights violations, inflame resentment between anti-immigrant and pro-immigrant communities, and instigate anti-immigration demonstrations.
China also allegedly incited racial tensions by peddling a narrative that the White House under Trump hated black people. The CCP instigated demonstrations and marches as evidence of racial divides. China also floated a narrative that the US government and law enforcement establishment had fundamental disagreements.
The files also cover other key topics like non-citizen registrations identified in some state rolls. As per the White House, the declassified documents indicate that the Department of Homeland Security opines that at least 250,000 non-citizens were on the voter rolls in several key states.
Overall, the Trump administration believes that declassified and publicised documents indicate that China may not have directly altered ballots (although Trump cited the FBI’s 2020 “raw intelligence” to claim that China attempted to manufacture ballots for Joe Biden), changed vote totals, or interfered with tabulation in a way that flipped the 2020 election outcome, China did meddle in the American elections to ensure Trump’s defeat and Biden’s triumph.
While Trump’s critics, including the American legacy media, are framing the US President’s presentation as an overstretching of the data-access findings for his own political gains, China’s broader pattern of attempting to influence foreign domestic politics and elections makes his claims plausible.
OpIndia reported about how the CCP created a transnational network of non-profits, activist groups, think tanks, and media outlets, operating as its propaganda machinery. The CCP orchestrated a pro-China information laundering network helmed by Neville Roy Singham, the US-born tech tycoon who sold his IT consulting firm Thoughtworks for about $785 million in 2017 before relocating to Shanghai.
This information laundering network modifies raw activism into polished propaganda, which is then amplified by the Roy-Singham-funded network to sow discord in the US and other democracies while burnishing China’s image as a ‘benevolent’ counterweight to ‘imperialism’, particularly American imperialism, with the ongoing left-wing activism in Cuba being a textbook case of this.
From pro-Palestine activism in the US, influx of far-left activists in Cuba amidst President Trump’s rising interest in the country, to ‘No War’ activism over the Iran war, these seemingly spontaneous and genuine anti-war protests are in reality, a part of well-organised, well-funded, and politically-motivated campaign, orchestrated by organisations and activists all finding their roots in the Neville Roy Singham’s network of philanthropic organisations, think thanks, media, and activists, intellectuals, celebrities, political organisers and comrades.
Neville Roy Singham funnelled over $278 million directly into his pro-China propaganda network since 2017, with total money flows exceeding $591 million across 223 transactions spanning five continents through the year 2025. The massive amount was pumped into over a thousand interconnected organisations, of which around 200 are directly involved in generating and propagating pro-China and anti-America messaging at the behest of the CCP.
China meddles in internal politics and elections of other countries: The ‘United Front’ strategy
For China, narrative is the key to power and self-interest not only within the country but also on foreign soil. From suppressing the truth of the Tiananmen Square massacre to firewalling anti-government criticism, the CCP regime believes that its survival and unquestioned rule is contingent on narrative control.
In fact, the CCP has a political strategy called “United Front”, which is designed to isolate enemies and co-opt allies from business groups, non-communist and minority populations.
The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) is a well-funded unit that operates through several front organisations in foreign nations to serve China’s interests and expand its influence. These front organisations do not overtly declare their affiliation to the CCP. Front organisations tasked state-owned enterprises, Chinese-registered private companies, Chinese student organisations, foreign cultural organisations, foreign media, members of Chinese ethnocultural communities, and prominent businesspeople and political figures to support the CCP’s goals through democratic institutions and processes.
Under the “United Front” strategy Mao Zedong used to call his “magic weapon”, the CCP influences operations, manufactures and disseminates disinformation, traps elites, uses economic coercion, cyber espionage, and erects proxy networks to shape narratives, policies and opinions to advance CCP interests in foreign countries.
This tactic involves funding or influencing media, think tanks, academia, and diaspora organisations, exploiting the systemic vulnerabilities in foreign government and democratic infrastructure, sometimes even inciting unrest. China leverages United Front Work for intelligence collection and repression.
Though countries interfering in or attempting to influence election results in other countries is not unique to China, no country attempts to execute such regime change operations at scale by the CCP’s centralised apparatus.
Chinese interference in Canadian federal elections
Before the US, China faced accusations of meddling in Canadian elections as well. In June 2024, a Canadian intelligence watchdog, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), released a report titled: Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions. It uncovered the extensive interference of China in Canada’s electoral and legislative affairs. The redacted report mentions how certain Canadian MPs colluded with China.
The report revealed that some Chinese nationals, supported by the Chinese Communist Party, had and continue to engage in sophisticated efforts to break into and influence all levels of Canadian governance and economy.
It highlighted the CCP’s illegal attempts to intervene in Canadian elections, bribing Canadian officials, and using covert techniques to exploit Canada’s indigenous people for resource extraction, as mentioned in the non-redacted 2019 version of the report.
China had even set up Overseas Police Stations in Canada and other countries. Akin to the allegations levelled by Trump regarding Chinese influence in American elections, the NSICOP report stated that China used social media alongside the legacy media to influence the opinions of Canadian voters, ethnocultural groups and parliamentarians.
During the 2021 federal election in Canada, the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE) noted that mainstream media and social media activities aimed at discouraging voters from supporting the Conservative Party. While a direct link to the Chinese government did not emerge, the pattern indicated a coordinated campaign orchestrated by China.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessments and the public Hogue Commission inquiry (2024) indicated that Beijing clandestinely and deceptively interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections. China backed the then Justin Trudeau-led liberals, through favourable social media propaganda, proxy agents in the Chinese-Canadian community, funding the campaign of favourable nominees, etc.
The CCP influence over Canadian parliamentarians expanded to such an extent that it was rewarding and punishing Canadian MPs based on their pro or anti-China opinions expressed in the House.
China’s election interference goes as far as the US and Canada to ‘rival’ neighbour India.
Chinese interference in Indian politics: The NewsClick saga
The fresh allegations of CCP interference in American elections warrant recalling China’s continued meddling in India’s electoral politics. For years, Chinese-linked influence operations, be it media outlets, politicians, dubious NGOs, etc, have been shaping narratives against the Modi government with the ultimate aim of regime change.
None exemplifies this better than the NewsClick scandal. The pro-China propaganda portal first made headlines when it came under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate in 2021. The portal was reportedly accused of fraudulently receiving foreign funds amounting to around Rs. 38 crores.
In 2023, the Delhi Police Special Cell filed an FIR and later an extensive chargesheet under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha, HR head Amit Chakraborty, among others.
The same Neville Roy Singham, who ran a pro-China information laundering network in the US, has also expanded his tentacles to India. Roy Singham’s Justice and Education Fund donated $10.5 million to Delhi-based pro-China propaganda outlet, NewsClick.
One of the most prominent members of Roy Singham’s evil empire is Vijay Prashad. He has contributed several propaganda anti-India articles to NewsClick. Prashad is the nephew of Brinda Karat, a CPI(M) leader and wife of Prakash Karat, also a senior CPI(M) leader, whose email exchanges with Neville Roy Singham earlier revealed their close ties in the NewsClick Chinese funding scandal.
Vijay Prashad has also been a council member of the Progressive International, an international organisation that mobilises leftist activists and groups globally. OpIndia earlier highlighted how this outfit persistently publishes propaganda articles and statements peddling the insidious Muslim victimhood narrative to slander the Modi government. It regularly platforms notorious anti-Hindu and Islamist apologists like Harsh Mander, and has Islamo-leftist cheerleaders like Jayati Ghosh and former Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn as its council members.
Roy Singham’s propaganda network has a connection with pro-Hamas Tides Foundation. Tides Foundation is notorious for funding several anti-Hindu, anti-India organisations and elements. The Foundation gave grants to Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), which has links to Islamists and Khalistanis, and was formed in 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) athe nd Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Tides also funded AMAN Public Charitable Trust (AMAN). This trust is connected to the NewsClick-China funding scandal, where it is alleged that Chinese entities funded NewsClick to disrupt Indian sovereignty.
Among Indians introduced by Neville Roy Singham to his larger team, who worked with Tricontinental, one of the nonprofits that the New York Times said was involved in pushing Chinese talking points, were Prabir Purkayastha, Srujana, Prasanth, and Vijay Prashad.
Prashad also has close ties with Urban Naxal P Sainath, whose propaganda portal PARI recently removed references to Singham after his connection with the Chinese propaganda arm had come to light.
OpIndia has regularly called out Newsclick’s anti-Hindu propaganda. Moreover, Newsclick has also faced scrutiny for its alleged connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2023, an investigation by the New York Times uncovered an ecosystem of activist organisations, non-profits, shell corporations, and their intimate ties to China and Chinese propaganda, with Neville Roy Singham at its helm. A Delhi Police chargesheet filed in 2024 called the Chinese state the “ultimate paymaster”, with funds routed to stoke anti-India narratives, especially regarding Kashmir, and farmers’ protests. The case is ongoing in the court.
Back in 2021, OpIndia conducted a detailed investigation into the links of NewsClick and uncovered how it was linked to several individuals who regularly spew venom against India, from Urban Naxals to those like Teesta Setalvad, Abhisar Sharma and several others.
That investigation by OpIndia can be read here.
There are many Roy Singham network-backed pro-China propaganda factories actively peddling anti-India and anti-government narratives. OpIndia has reported about such entities, including People’s Dispatch, TriContinental, People’s Forum, among others.
From Kashmiri separatism, anti-Hindu tropes, glorification of Kerala’s ‘communist’ model, to Muslim victimhood, and propaganda maligning India’s global image, these CCP asset Roy Singham-backed entities are dedicated to weaponising issues, nonprofit laws, digital media, and every other resource at hand to undermine rival states, influence policy decisions, weaken India, and deliver a geopolitical edge to China.
In February this year, the Enforcement Directorate fined NewsClick and its founder-editor Prabir Purkayastha Rs 184 crore under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for violating foreign funding regulations.
The NewsClick founder faced allegations of conspiring with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member Neville Roy Singham to defame the Indian government and its efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and cast aspersions about the efficacy of Indian vaccine ‘Covaxin’ developed by Bharat Biotech.
China-funded NewsClick platformed anti-India voices, gave funds to Islamist rioters behind 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots
NewsClick has been accused of having obtained funds from China to provoke disturbances in India, especially amid the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests to topple the Modi government, and has links to anti-India voices like Gautam Navlakha.
Its founder faced allegations of having ties to LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) terrorists, giving money to anti-Hindu 2020 Delhi riots accused Sharjeel Imam and Naxals in Delhi Police’s chargesheet.
On the 17th, an email marked ‘Share Notes on CAA docs’ was sent by Rajamanikam P, AIPSN (All India Peoples Science Network). AIPSN was founded by Prabir Pukayastha. The email content spread disinformation and fearmongered against CAA and NRC. It said that NRC was bound to persecute Muslims, even as there was not even a draft of NRC and the CAA had nothing to do with any Indian citizen at all.
OpIndia reported about how Teesta Setalvad, Harsh Mander, Prabir Purkayastha, Githa Hariharan and others strategised about instigating violence and stone pelting as well as arranging funding for ‘protestors’ during anti-CAA protests.
The 8000-page chargesheet also noted that NewsClick deliberately distorted the map of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to show that these territories belong to China.
NewsClick founder and Neville Roy Singham discussed how they could ally with separatist movements in India and other countries.
The chargesheet traced the beginning of the conspiracy from an email dump that ED shared with the Special Cell. One email from the 29th of June 2016 sent by Prabir Purkayastha to Neville Roy Singham marks the beginning of the conspiracy according to the Special Cell.
The subject of the email recovered by ED was “Social Media Group in India”. In the email, Prabir tells Neville that a group in ‘their’ media project should focus only on tools – which is collating and analysing data. Second, he suggests a dedicated team for social media campaigns. The budget he allocates for the social media campaigns is anywhere between $60,000 and $80,000.
Soon after, a NewsClick article was shared over email on the 17th of September 2016, which spoke of creating mass movements in the typical Maoist style.
The email exchanges between Roy Singham and Purkayastha showed that they discussed how to effectively ally with ‘separatist’ or identity movements.
SIR is a necessity to protect election integrity against domestic irregularities and foreign interference
From the case of Chinese interference and/or influence in electoral politics and outcomes in the US, Canada and India, it is evident that the CCP prefers liberals in power in rival or adversarial countries for a smooth advancement of its geopolitical and economic interests.
It is also interesting how the pro-China propagandists and politicians, be it in India, the US, or Canada, almost always dub the unfavourable government (from China’s perspective) as fascist, authoritarian, regressive, intolerant, racist, religious supremacist, and whatnot.
For India, the recent US allegations against China that it acquired and exploited 200 million American voter data to influence 2020 election results, and growing threats of adversarial foreign entities attempting to influence elections, point to the necessity of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
In the recent past, the Election Commission of India conducted the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls across various states ahead of elections, including Bihar and West Bengal. Under this exercise, the ECI officials conducted door-to-door enumeration, cross-checking, removal of duplicate voters, removal of names of deceased persons and migrants who have shifted, and illegal voters.
While the SIR exercise aimed to clean and update electoral rolls, it triggered a political storm in India after lakhs of illegal or fake voters were weeded out from voters’ lists. The opposition parties alleged targeted disenfranchisement of Muslims, the ECI denied any religious targeting while numerous illegal immigrants, mainly Muslims from Bangladesh went into panic.
The US allegations show that voter data is a high-value target, and compromised or manipulated rolls enable fake voter entries. At the same time, proxy influence through media and social media propaganda consolidates votes against the unfavourable government a foreign government or entity wants to oust from power.
The SIR exercise, stricter implementation of FCRA rules, and thorough investigation into the anti-India activities of so-called ‘intellectuals’ and ‘activists’ regularly pushing anti-India and pro-China propaganda need to be conducted to protect Indian democracy and territorial integrity against foreign narrative warfare and regime change operations.
The Special Intensive Revision may not be a silver bullet against foreign electoral interference; however, it directly addresses and fixes vulnerabilities in the electoral infrastructure.
