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It's interesting that (as per the article) the work pumped out by this synthetic think tank does not seem to align / disfavours the official party line of the country. You'd imagine if this was propaganda, it would be supportive of the official stance. I wonder what the objective is then, reputation-building for later influence? Something else?

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> the work pumped out by this synthetic think tank does not seem to align / disfavours the official party line of the country

The article DOES NOT say this- it says that sometimes this seems to be the case, but reports exactly one example of extremely little significance. In the meanwhile,

"Piro, Inc, the firm that created the Hanover Institute, has received $900,000 from the Israeli government for its work."

Opening the linked example, one sees that the article is basically dedicated to laundering the idea that there were many "antisemitic incidents" at Columbia University.

The article doesn't say that the work disfavors the party line, just that they don't always align perfectly. Which isn't that surprising considering that governments make self-contradictory statements all the time (consider Trump, for example).

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