China’s creeping influence on Georgia’s information space

It sounds like a segment from Chinese state television: a 50-minute programme devoted to China's achievements, hosted by two presenters standing in front of a map of the country topped with the communist flag, followed by a long sequence broadcasting official images. Instead, this was broadcast in Georgia on the television channel Obiektivi. "Chinese Panorama" describes itself as a weekly news programme devoted to current affairs in China.

Produced using content provided by China Media Group - China's largest State-owned broadcasting company - each programme amounts to nearly an hour of praise of Beijing's economic, cultural and diplomatic successes. Sensitive topics, like the repression of Uyghurs in the autonomous region of Xinjiang or the protests in Hong Kong, are carefully avoided. This format is illustrative of Beijing's foreign influence strategy, which seeks to shape international perceptions of China by concealing damaging information and promoting a positive image of the country.

The Georgian authorities' double standards

The Chinese embassy in Georgia fundsObiektivi for this programme, as shown by the 2025 datapublished on the website of the Communications Commission (ComCom), the country's media regulator. The 2026 data is not yet available. However, since 1 April 2025, amendments to Georgia's Law on Broadcasting have prohibited broadcastersfrom receiving funds from foreign powers, with the exception of commercial advertising. The Georgian authorities have not taken any measures in response to Obiektivi's apparent breaches of this law. The Anti-Corruption Bureau - which was absorbed on 2 March by the State Audit Office - opened investigations last autumn into several entities managing independent media outlets on suspicion of accepting foreign funding, including RealPolitikaand iFact.

Often described as pro-Kremlin, Obiektivi was founded in 2010 by Irma Inashvili, a former MP and co-founder of the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia party, a political group known for its Eurosceptic positions and support for closer ties with Russia.

China and Russia's intertwined propaganda

While Vladimir Putin's Russia remains by far the most influential foreign power in Georgia, China has significantly strengthened the presence of its narratives in the country's information space since 2022, amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the rise of sovereigntist and anti-Western discourse in Georgian public debate. The signing of a strategic partnershipbetween Tbilisi and Beijing in July 2023 - covering political, economic, technological and cultural cooperation - marked a new stage in the spread of China's narrative in Georgia.

During that period, reprints of articles from the Global Times - an English-language daily editorially aligned with the Communist Party of China - multiplied across several Georgian outlets. Content from the Global Times is now regularly translated and relayed locally. The headlines set the tone: "Ukraine has become a testing ground for Western weapons" (Georgia and the World), "Wagner mutiny: the West is mistaking wishful thinking for reality" (Tbilisi Post), "Europe has realised the cost of the conflict in Ukraine" (Publicist.ge), and "The drone attack on the Kremlin is a provocation aimed at intensifying the conflict in Ukraine" (Georgia and the World). In reality, all of these articles are simply part of the media machine spreading Chinese propaganda.

These reshared articles illustrate the emergence of an information ecosystem in which Chinese and Russian narratives overlap and mutually reinforce one another. "Georgia First News is a good example of this," says Salome Giunashvili, research project coordinator at the Media Development Foundation (MDF), an NGO founded by journalists. This online outlet is linked to Vakhtang (Vato) Shakarishvili, a former member of the ruling Georgian Dream party, who later founded the civic movement Georgia First as well as the public movement United Neutral Georgia, which opposes Georgia's integration into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). "More broadly, Global Times content is used in an anti-Western context by several pro-Kremlin and pro-government Georgian-language media outlets," the researcher explains. "The promoted positions closely mirror Kremlin narratives, yet circulate without going through Russian sources."

The Georgian echo of Beijing's narratives

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs regularly publishes texts on its platforms criticising United States international aidor accusingorganisations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of seeking to destabilise foreign states. These positions resonate with certain local political narratives, which present China as an alternative partner to Western actors. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has thus saidthat China is "the only peaceful superpower in global politics," while the Speaker of Parliament has arguedthat Beijing's abstention on a United Nations resolution concerning displaced persons from the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia amounted to support for Georgia.

More broadly, an analysisby the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) from the US think tank The Atlantic Council identifies three recurring narratives promoted in Georgia. First, in contrast with the United States and the West, China is presented as a major power that respects Georgia's sovereignty. Second, China's status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council is highlighted as a potential asset for mediation on Georgia's territorial issues, with some actors presenting it as an alternative to Western influence in international forums. Third, the rapprochement is sometimes framed using a more symbolic lens that frames Georgia as a historic "bridge" between East and West.

China's influence is growing as Georgia's media landscape becomes increasingly fragile. Amid political pressure, restrictive legislation and funding difficulties, many independent media outlets are struggling to survive. More than 600 violationstargeting journalists and media outlets were recorded between October 2024 and November 2025. In this context, Georgia's information space has provided particularly fertile ground for foreign influence to take hold.