Paris, Oct 3 — A leading international press freedom organisation warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is quietly cultivating a network of influencers to amplify its narrative on Greek social media.
Warning of Beijing’s growing dissemination of propaganda in Greece, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on Greek authorities to investigate the financial flows linking these influencers to Chinese propaganda networks to determine whether they are part of a broader foreign interference campaign.
According to Thanos Sitistas, founder of Greece Fact Check, some of these political messages appeared shortly after the Chinese Embassy in Athens released a statement on November 19, 2025, criticising US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle for her remark that Beijing’s influence over Greece’s largest port, Piraeus, was unfortunate.
“Much of the material we examined did not rely on outright falsehoods. Instead, these social media accounts do not disclose their affiliations and advertising arrangements with CCP institutions. Subjects that are politically sensitive for Beijing are generally handled through omission and selective presentation rather than direct arguments,” Sitistas told RSF.
“For example, posts by all three influencers on East Turkestan — a territory known as Xinjiang Autonomous Region that is the epicentre of human rights violations against the Uyghur minority — highlighted cultural imagery and portrayed Uyghur residents as happy and prosperous, while well-documented allegations of their mass detention and coercive assimilation were omitted,” he added.
Sitistas said that the apparent objective of these accounts is to build a favourable image of China as modern, peaceful, safe and technologically advanced.
“In my assessment, this can make audiences less receptive to criticism of Beijing and more supportive of Chinese interests around Piraeus, the Belt and Road Initiative and relations with the EU,” he noted.
The RSF noted that China sought to deepen its engagement with Greek media as its economic presence in the country expanded.
Highlighting Beijing’s growing influence in Greek media, the press group noted that Chinese state news agency Xinhua signed a cooperation agreement with Greece’s state news agency, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA), in 2016. A second agreement with the China Economic Information Service (CEIS), a Xinhua affiliate, followed in 2017.
That same year, Kathimerini, one of Greece’s leading newspapers, signed a cooperation agreement with Xinhua. Although the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, a study found that Kathimerini republished at least one Xinhua report per week in 2020, for a total of 66 articles.
According to the RSF, some major Greek media outlets engaging in such agreements have ownership or business ties to sectors with significant links to China.
“That’s why there is almost no reporting on what these Chinese investments actually mean for our country’s independence,” an Athens-based independent journalist told RSF on condition of anonymity.