Understanding the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘political warfare’

OPINION:

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to build China into the world’s preeminent economic and military power and replace the U.S.-led liberal world order established after World War II with one more amenable to authoritarian states.

Central to this goal is the annexation of the island state of Taiwan — which the People’s Republic of China (PRC), founded in 1949, has never controlled. This “reunification” would go far beyond placing a PRC flag over Taiwan; it would, by necessity, involve the destruction of Taiwan’s democratic society and the subjugation of its 23 million citizens.

Political warfare is a fundamental toolkit employed by the CCP to pursue its goals, including the annexation of Taiwan. Poorly understood in Western societies, political warfare has a long history in the international Communist movement — dating back to the theoretical writings of Lenin — and was central to the CCP’s rise to power in China. Political warfare remains fundamental to CCP statecraft today.

What Is Political Warfare?

Many terms have been used to describe the subversive efforts of authoritarian states — including “hybrid warfare,” “information warfare” and “psychological warfare” — but “political warfare” best captures the scope and purpose of these efforts.

As defined in an internal State Department document from April 1948, “Political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both covert and overt… We have been handicapped by a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference between peace and war… and by a reluctance to recognize the realities of international relations — the perpetual rhythm of struggle, in and out of war.”

Such a conception best aligns with the approach of the CCP — which depicts itself as being in a state of constant “struggle” against U.S. “hegemonism,” with no clear dividing line between peace and war. Accordingly, the CCP engages in political warfare against targeted countries across six domains:

• Information manipulation: The manipulation of the target’s information environment, with intent to impact the perceptions and attitudes of the targeted population. This involves efforts to assert influence over traditional media organizations (such as newspapers and television news) and online platforms to advance the CCP’s preferred narratives.

• “Lawfare”: The process of actively and systematically promoting the PRC’s official interpretations of international law and diplomatic practice — even when those positions contradict longstanding norms or logical coherence.

• “Gray zone” operations: A range of activities — including military operations and infrastructure sabotage, such as cutting undersea telecommunications cables — intended to erode the target state’s sovereignty and the sense of security held by its citizens, and potentially to prepare for future conflict.

• Economic coercion: The employment of targeted trade measures — including measures such as import bans, denial of market access and politically oriented trade and investment incentives — to pressure countries and international companies to conform to Beijing’s preferred policies.

• United front subversion: A range of measures — including financial and psychological cooptation, the use of front organizations and political subversion — intended to allow the CCP to influence and control persons and groups outside the ranks of the party. Such measures are particularly directed to coopting businesses, political elites, academics and media influencers.

• Intelligence operations: Measures to acquire for the CCP, often through clandestine methods, classified or insider information that could benefit current policy or assist in a future conflict.

U.S. policymakers and the public must gain a greater understanding of the political warfare measures used by powerful authoritarian states against free societies. American academia and media have often avoided examining the CCP’s political warfare. This is perhaps due in part to concerns of appearing xenophobic — a narrative itself promoted by the CCP and which ignores the fact that Chinese-American communities are themselves the ones most targeted by the CCP’s transnational repression. Institutional interests such as business relationships, reliance on foreign student tuition and hesitation to risk antagonizing the Chinese government — may be additional factors.

Public- and private-sector institutions should take more vigorous steps to counter CCP political warfare. To this end, the U.S. national security community should prudently declassify and publicize more of its insights into the subversive efforts of China, Russia and other authoritarian states to influence U.S. policy, and more vigorously enforce the provisions of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. And academic, media and non-profit institutions should work more proactively to promote greater public awareness of the issue.

Political warfare is central to the CCP’s statecraft. We must better understand it in order to more effectively counter it.

• John Dotson is the director of the Global Taiwan Institute.