China adopted ‘three-warfare’ strategy aiming to expand global influence: French MoD think tank

The report titled ‘Chinese Influence Operations A Machiavellian Moment’ claims that a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy that consists in eliminating internal and external enemies, controlling groups that could defy its authority, constructing a coalition around the Party to serve its interests, and projecting its influence abroad – and the “Three warfares,” which represent the core of China’s “political warfare,” i.e. a form of non-kinetic proneness to conflict aimed at overcoming an opponent without a fight through the creation of an environment favorable to China. A wartime and peacetime undertaking, it encompasses public opinion, psychological, and legal warfare (the latter being close to what is called “lawfare” in English), according to the report.

The main actors implementing Chinese influence operations are emanations from the Party, the State, the Army, and the companies, report claimed. “Within the Party, this includes the Propaganda Department, which oversees ideology, controls the entire media spectrum and all the cultural production in the country; the United Front Work Department (UFWD), with its twelve offices reflecting its main targets; the International Liaison Department (ILD), which maintains relations with foreign political parties; the 610 Office, which has agents across the world acting outside any legal framework to eliminate the Falun Gong movement. The Chinese Communist Youth League (CYL) should also be included in this group, serving at once as a link toward young people, as an incubator for future Party executives, and as a force that can be mobilized when needed – even if it is not a formal structure of the Party but rather a mass organization.”

Within the state, two bodies in particular are involved in influence operations: The Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is the main civilian intelligence agency, and the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), in charge of the propaganda aimed at Taiwan, claimed the report.

“Within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Strategic Support Force (SSF) is at the forefront, especially through its Network Systems Department. It has the resources and is entrusted with missions in the informational domain. More precisely, the principal actor identified in this domain is Base 311, headquartered in Fuzhou, which is dedicated to the implementation of the “Three Warfares” strategy. It also operates media companies as civilian covers and a fake hotel to hide a training center.”

The report further alleged that the public and private companies play an important role in collecting the data needed to decide who should be targeted by influence operations, when, and how. “Infrastructures are particularly useful in data collection – buildings and submarine cables for instance – as are new technologies: digital platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and TikTok, companies like Beidou and Huawei, and databases that provide insight into what researchers call China’s “techno-authoritarianism” or “digital authoritarianism” are all used to prepare and feed influence operations abroad. The Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, which has apparently inherited intelligence missions previously entrusted to the former 2APL, should also be included in this list.”

“The actions carried out by Beijing in its influence operations abroad pertain to two main and non-mutually exclusive objectives: first, to seduce and captivate foreign audiences by crafting a positive representation of China, which can be illustrated by four specific narratives (the Chinese “model,” its tradition, benevolence, and strength); and then, and above all, to infiltrate and coerce. Infiltration aims at slowly penetrating the opposing societies to hamper the very possibility of an action contrary to the Party’s interests. Coercion corresponds to the progressive enlargement of the Chinese “punitive” or “coercive” diplomacy toward a policy of systematic sanctions against any state, organization, company, or individual that threatens the Party’s interests. Both are generally carried out via a web of intermediaries. Overall, these practices target the following categories – Diasporas, with the dual objective of controlling them – so that they do not represent a threat for the Chinese power (Beijing carries out a transnational campaign of repression which, according to the NGO Freedom House, is the “most sophisticated, global, and complete in the world”) – and mobilizing them to serve its interests,” according to the report.

“The media, as Beijing’s explicit goal is to establish “a new world media order.” Indeed, the government has invested €1.3 billion annually since 2008 to impose a tighter control over its global image. The major Chinese media outlets have a global presence, in several languages, on several continents, and on all social networks, including those blocked in China (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram), and they invest large amounts of money to augment their digital audience artificially. Beijing also seeks to control the Chinese-language outlets abroad, which has proven so successful that the CCP now effectively enjoys a near-monopoly among them, and it also seeks to control the mainstream media.”

The report concludes that while Chinese strategy has brought certain tactical successes, it has been a strategic failure overall, China being its own worst enemy in terms of influence. The abrupt degradation of Beijing’s reputation since the arrival of Xi Jinping, particularly in the last couple of years, confronts China with a growing unpopularity problem that may indirectly come to weaken the Party, including vis-à-vis its own population, the report claimed.