As China pursues water diplomacy with countries along the Lower Mekong, seeking to strike a benevolent tone and downplay environmental and livelihood impacts that have concerned local communities, another big tool in its toolbox is media diplomacy.

A training session for Southeast Asian journalists hosted by the foreign affairs office in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang is a reminder that China’s state agendas are being actively pushed not just from the top, but from the local and regional levels as well.

Over the past few days, a strange apparition has haunted the sidebar of an English-language news site in Cambodia — an eery and unexplained echo of a long-abandoned policy that China’s leaders once staunchly defended.

At a recent journalism forum in Phnom Penh, the head of an organization claiming to represent local Chinese-language media spoke out against fake news — as he spread false narratives directly from China’s foreign ministry and state media outlets.