Narrative Warfare Polishes the Image of Chinese Fighter Jets
As many as 14 English-language accounts on the X platform claimed that Indonesia had signed an agreement to purchase 42 J-10 fighter jets from China. The transaction is claimed to be worth US$9 billion.
The information, which has been circulating since May 2, 2026, has garnered approximately 13,500 user interactions. Several accounts assessed that the decision was appropriate because the J-10’s performance was considered superior when used by Pakistan against India a year ago.
“The decision was made after the J-10C’s performance proved satisfactory in air battles involving the Pakistan Air Force in May 2025 against India,” wrote the Border Watch Pakistan account on Sunday, May 3, 2026.
The government denied the claim. The Head of the Defense Information Bureau of the Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General TNI Rico Ricardo Sirait, stated that the government is still exploring various fighter aircraft options available on the market.
“Indonesia has not decided to purchase the J-10 from China,” said Rico via WhatsApp message on Thursday, May 8, 2026.
Intense air battles marked the India-Pakistan war in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on May 7-10, 2025. India deployed Dassault Rafales from France, and Pakistan relied on Chinese-made J-10Cs. On the first day, Pakistan’s success in shooting down an Indian Rafale drew widespread attention on social media.
Indonesia signed a contract to procure 42 Rafale units between 2022 and 2024. However, in October 2025, the Ministry of Defense announced plans to purchase Chengdu J-10s. The aircraft is manufactured by AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC), a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).
Tempo identified a suspected information operation to polish the image of the Chengdu J-10 since the war broke out. Collaboration with ThinkFI revealed the involvement of pro-China and pro-Pakistan actors in manipulating this information.
Origin of Disinformation on the J-10 Agreement
The China Pulse account on the X platform initiated the spread of claims about Indonesia’s purchase of 42 J-10 fighter jets on May 2, 2026. In its post, the account included a photo of the J-10 along with a narrative in English. The post went viral, being shared more than two thousand times and liked by 11,000 accounts.
The China Pulse account claims to focus on Chinese news and the dynamics of international competition since its establishment in Xihui, Beijing, in April 2022. However, Tempo found traces of the account’s name being changed six times.
Using the Twxpicker tracking tool, Tempo traced the permanent identification (ID) number of the China Pulse account. The account has the ID 1517523151219044353. The Yandex search engine then showed that the same number was attached to TZ00G before changing to China Pulse.
Further investigation on X revealed that the TZ00G account routinely uploaded content in Arabic from 2022 to 2024. The China Pulse account only switched to using English in 2025.
From the beginning, this account has been actively spreading positive information about China. In 2026, the account began spreading narratives of closeness between China and Pakistan. Tempo has sent a confirmation request to the China Pulse account via X, but has not received a response as of Friday afternoon, May 15, 2026.
Involving Bot Accounts, Pro-China, and Pro-Pakistan Accounts
Tempo collaborated with ThinkFI, an Indian data research company that often detects information manipulation and cyber propaganda, to analyze 1,733 accounts that spread China Pulse’s posts on the X platform. The team extracted data from the description, name, location, and political affiliation in the user profile to identify the groups of accounts.
The results of the analysis show that approximately 1,300 accounts are organic or controlled by humans. However, the collaborative team found 52 accounts that are strongly suspected of being run by robots or bots with very high activity.
Bot accounts are controlled by computer programs automatically or semi-automatically and not by humans. Bots are designed to mimic behaviors such as liking, following, commenting, or uploading content.
One indicator of a bot account is that the number of posts can reach more than 200 per day. “Behavior that is impossible for a human to do,” said ThinkFI Director Rohit Sharma to Tempo via email on Tuesday, May 12, 2026.
The @bilim8888 account, for example, averages 705 tweets per day, or one tweet every two minutes. The same analysis also identified 77 authentic accounts affiliated with Pakistan, including links to political parties in the country such as the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), or the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
As many as 38 other accounts were also detected as being related to China. Some of them even state an ideological connection with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Disinformation Targeting Rafale in 2025
The involvement of accounts from Pakistan and China stems from the war between India and Pakistan on May 7, 2025. Pakistan, the only country outside of China that operates the J-10 as well as the PL-15 missile made in the Bamboo Curtain country, claimed to have shot down five Indian jets. The details are three Rafales, one MiG-29, and one Su-30.
India acknowledged the loss of fighter planes, but did not specify the number. A Reuters investigation said that only one Rafale unit was disabled.
Citing several Indian and Pakistani officials, Reuters reported that the performance of the Rafale was not the main issue. Instead, it was the failure of Indian intelligence to map the range of the PL-15 missile fired by the J-10C.
The narrative of the J-10’s victory over the Rafale triggered a wave of disinformation in Indonesia. Tempo identified 475 posts on Facebook from May 7-31, 2025, claiming that the Pakistani J-10 shot down three to five Indian Rafale aircraft. Some posts were accompanied by visuals from mock-ups or parts of a game.
Analysis of the volume of posts on Facebook from May 7 to May 31, 2025, with the narrative that the Pakistani J-10C shot down three to five Indian Rafale aircraft. (Data processed with Claude.ai)
Tempo has previously analyzed a series of disinformation.