If propaganda was the purpose of that investment then it would have been a terrible one. Major subreddits are very often plastered with anti china stuff. It doesn't even have to be factual.
Meanwhile back when i modded a major subreddit with somewhat of a politics focus around the time when the whole situation in Ukraine kicked of russian propaganda accounts were very obvious and common. (relatively new accounts with certain formats of usernames posting short stuff that was found verbatim on similar accounts, etc)
It reminds me of an American study someone once commented here on HN where they looked into this and whilst they found Russian "shilling" substantial they there were surprised to find actually more anti china bots (mainly posting in simple chinese) across platforms like twitter than pro china ones. Pro-china propaganda efforts were found and measured but were largely amateurish, quickly banned and ineffective.
It reminds me of an American study someone once commented here on HN where they looked into this and whilst they found Russian "shilling" substantial they there were surprised to find actually more anti china bots (mainly posting in simple chinese) across platforms like twitter than pro china ones. Pro-china propaganda efforts were found and measured but were largely amateurish, quickly banned and ineffective.