Stop China from Winning Without Fighting

China hopes to win without fighting in the South China Sea (SCS).¹ Instead, China has deftly managed disputes over the SCS below the threshold of armed conflict, thereby dodging the cost in blood and reputation of a conventional war.² This is no mean feat. China’s illegal claims in the SCS undermine the 400-year legal tradition of treating oceans as international waters.³ Chinese coercion in the region also defies the principle of nonuse of force in dispute resolution.⁴ Instead, China’s actions are an affront to the globally accepted rules-based order and an attempt to normalize “might makes right” dispute resolution, bending others to its will with orchestrated actions without armed conflict.

China’s theory of victory depends on coercion through the weaponization of information. In particular, China’s Three Warfares concept—employing psychological, media, and legal warfare—leverages information operations to compete and ultimately prevail in the SCS.⁵ Psychological warfare is “pre-conflict posturing of military/paramilitary forces or . . . other national capabilities,” using diplomatic, economic, and cultural levers, for example, to “intimidate adversaries and [encourage] acquiescence.”⁶ Media manipulation reinforces the Chinese narrative.⁷ Chinese lawfare exploits legal frameworks to “constrain adversary behavior, contest disadvantageous circumstances, confuse legal precedent, and maximize advantage.”⁸ If uncontested, this concept will challenge international norms in the physical, cognitive, and informational dimensions of the information environment. But once identified and understood, Chinese information operations can be successfully countered.

Chinese Three Warfares and Coercion

China now exercises de facto control over contested features in the SCS after massive land reclamation projects, the militarization of these features, and aggressive enforcement of its territorial claims. According to former Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell, “Beijing” uses “coercion, empty promises, disinformation, contempt for rules, bad-faith diplomacy, and other underhanded tactics.”⁹ Key to their success, Chinese information operations are coordinated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and executed by a wide range of actors.¹⁰ China achieves its strategic objectives by targeting cultural institutions, media organizations, and business, academic, legal, policy, and international institutions.¹¹ These outcomes are achieved through the operational concept of China’s Three Warfares and complementary coercion.

Psychological Warfare

China has made great inroads into foreign cultural frameworks by leveraging its Confucius Institutes (CIs) in SCS claimant nations to silence criticism and promote Chinese narratives. Critics in the Philippines have advocated for closing these institutes because of concerns they “propagate their historical falsehoods about the nine-dash line.”¹² CIs in Vietnam have also been characterized as a tool for China “to show its hegemony,” akin to China’s use of movies and drama to dominate Vietnamese TV screens and spread its culture.¹³

China also targets Western academia. In 2009, North Carolina State University, host to a CI, canceled a Dalai Lama appearance because of concerns China would disapprove.¹⁴ The United States officially designated CIs as foreign missions, citing studies and reports indicating CIs pressure faculty and students to self-censor and potentially financially incentivize universities to not criticize China, thus threatening “the independence and integrity of academic institutions.”¹⁵

Media Warfare

In 2014, Chinese spokeswoman Hua Chunying claimed SCS reclamation was to improve conditions for on-island personnel to “better fulfill their international obligations . . . in search and rescue.”¹⁶ Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter countered that China had “intensified the militarization . . . and escalated regional tension,” as satellite reclamation photos illustrated a disconnect with the previous nonmilitary use narrative.¹⁷ In response, Hua assured the world that China’s activities were primarily for civilian purposes but also would support “necessary military defense requirements.”¹⁸ Such attempts at media manipulation propagate false narratives and may have helped lull competing claimants into inaction while China tightened its grip.

Lawfare

China aggressively engages in SCS lawfare as part of its information operations strategy. China declared its maritime claims to be “undisputable” and said construction of man-made islands was “fair, reasonable and lawful.”¹⁹ Yet, it disregards the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by improperly drawing straight baselines, impeding freedom of overflight, and constraining noneconomic activities in claimed exclusive economic zones, despite being an UNCLOS signatory.²⁰ A 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration special arbitral tribunal ruled there was no legal or historical basis for China’s nine-dash line claim, as well as other disputed issues. China, however, continues to “delegitimize and ignore the verdict,” declaring it “nothing more than a piece of paper.”²¹

China’s lawfare can undermine SCS claimants’ ability to defend themselves—and their allies’ ability to defend them—against Chinese aggression. China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to cooperate with China’s national intelligence work wherever they operate.²² Consequently, Chinese private companies in overseas markets are legally compelled, if asked, to give the CCP facial-recognition data gathered for commercial purposes, in addition to other data and technologies not intended for surveillance purposes. The tech industry may be swapping monetary gain in exchange for information that can be weaponized to China’s advantage.

Complementary Economic, Diplomatic, and Military Coercion

China has exerted significant economic influence through programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project composed of a “vast collection of development and investment initiatives . . . from East Asia to Europe,” meant to expand its economic and political influence.²³

The United States has been vocal about Chinese economic coercion in the Pacific and the Belt and Road Initiative. Stilwell condemned the “numerous Chinese state-owned tourism, telecom, fisheries, and banking firms [that] invest in ways to enable Beijing’s unlawful claims and bullying” and the use of “gangster tactics” to forcefully push out the non-Chinese competition in the SCS.²⁴ Former Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Phil Davidson, noted, “Beijing could leverage Belt and Road projects to pressure nations to deny U.S. forces basing, transit, or operational and logistical support, thereby making it more challenging for the [United States] to preserve international orders and norms.”²⁵

China employs other forms of economic/diplomatic coercion to increase access and influence as well.²⁶ After the Dalai Lama visited Mongolia, for example, China suspended major assistance loan talks, increased import fees on mining products, and temporarily closed a key border crossing in 2016.²⁷ China’s carrot-and-stick tactics seek to increase influence and compel behavior globally.

The Effects of China’s Three Warfares and Complementary Coercion

China’s coordinated employment of information operations against those who challenge its hegemony is gradually decaying the United States’ ability to detect, deter, and counter Chinese coercion. Left unchallenged, U.S. institutions will not even realize they are self-censoring to appease China. Worldwide, the CCP conditions academia, think tanks, media, Hollywood, and even foreign government power brokers by leveraging CIs, economic coercion, carrot-and stick-diplomacy, media manipulation, and lawfare.²⁸

Chinese economic pressure has been an effective tool to shape the behavior of U.S. industries and institutions and to silence its critics. For example, in October 2019, Chinese media censored NBA Houston Rockets games after its manager tweeted support of pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.²⁹ The manager quickly deleted the tweet and the NBA stated that it was “regrettable” that the manager offended many in China.³⁰ Like the NBA, other U.S. culture-making industries, such as Hollywood, have been susceptible to Chinese coercion because they rely too heavily on Chinese markets and investments.³¹

China’s Three Warfares imposes tools of “violent state coercion.”³² The intended effect is to undermine competing claimants’ will to contest Chinese actions, despite China’s narrative to the contrary. Information manipulations have weakened resiliency, sowed dissent, and created confusion. Intimidation in the SCS has generated tangible results without a fight: “China is now capable of controlling the [SCS] in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”³³ Its pattern of coercion in the physical, cognitive, and informational dimensions of the IE, however, is now apparent.

Countering China

Chinese information operations and coercion have not gone uncontested. No substantial land reclamation has occurred in the SCS since 2015, and China has not resumed major military infrastructure construction.³⁴ However, it has continued to send advanced military capabilities to the SCS and has deployed naval, coast guard, and civilian ships in response to Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Filipino fishing, drilling operations, and construction.³⁵ Contesting ongoing aggression and de facto territorial control requires more deliberate information operations efforts.

To change China’s behavior, U.S. allies and partners must be willing to impose costs in the IE every time Beijing defies norms and breaks the law. Now that China has militarized contested SCS features, competing claimants are unlikely to reclaim those features without escalation. Persistent U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) and diplomatic statements rejecting the validity of China’s claims should continue.³⁶ But more is needed. These physical actions must also be supported in the information environment.

During recent FONOPs, China’s propaganda and misinformation machine alleged it was the victim of U.S. aggression. The United States and its partners and allies must become more adept at detecting, deterring, and countering these information operations in kind. At the very least, this means mapping the information environment before, during, and after FONOPs in support of U.S. information operations, reinforced with formal statements of U.S. commitment to partners and allies, particularly treaty allies.

Partners and allies have questioned U.S. commitment to preventing China from taking the SCS without a fight.³⁷ However, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 2020 statement supported the Philippines’ claim, affirming the applicability of U.S. obligations in the SCS under the Mutual Defense Treaty, and warning against “Beijing’s harassment of Philippine fisheries and offshore development within those areas,” as well as “any unilateral [Chinese] actions to exploit those resources.”³⁸ This diplomatic statement articulates U.S. intent to uphold norms and counter those who violate them. It supports the effectiveness of FONOPs in the SCS and strengthens resiliency to coercion by clarifying U.S. resolve. The current Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John C. Aquilino, has said he views “with concern [China’s] unlawful claim to the entire South China Sea—directly and negatively impacting all of the countries in the region, from their livelihood, whether it be with fishing or access to natural resources,” adding that U.S. “execution of integrated deterrence has to occur now, and with a sense of urgency.”³⁹ More recently, Daniel Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, stated the security aspect of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Southeast Asia in December 2021 would focus on strengthening regional security infrastructure in response to Chinese “bullying” in the SCS.⁴⁰

The United States has begun engaging in whole-of-government competition efforts to counter China. For example, the Department of Justice’s China Initiative is countering Chinese national security threats.⁴¹ U.S. legislation seeks to protect free speech at U.S. colleges and universities from Confucius Institutes.⁴² In addition, the U.S. Department of Commerce is imposing sanctions on Chinese state-owned entities that contributed to SCS militarization.⁴³ Similarly, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines hit Hollywood’s pocketbook after banning the movie Abominable over an image critics alleged tried to normalize China’s illegal claims.⁴⁴

Some critics argue it is too little too late. Some say U.S. institutions now beholden to China will continue to self-censor when it comes to denouncing Chinese malign activities and will continue to be vulnerable to theft and espionage.⁴⁵ Others argue it is unreasonable to ask allies and partners, who do not have the option of choosing their neighborhood, to challenge China. Nevertheless, increasing Chinese aggression suggests the risk of inaction in countering Chinese coercion is greater than the risk of action.

David Stilwell, however, assessed nations’ growing willingness to impose costs when China behaves badly in the physical, cognitive, and informational dimensions.⁴⁶ For example, “At the United Nations . . . [declarations by] Southeast Asian coastal states show clear resolve to uphold international law and reject pressure to accept Beijing’s unlawful claims.”⁴⁷ He also noted that the United States and others have “raised concerns for the first time in the United Nations . . . over the dangers of PRC actions,” in the SCS.⁴⁸ He affirmed Australia, Britain, France, Germany, and India have “issued statements of unprecedented concern over South China Sea activities by Beijing that put regional stability and international law at risk.”⁴⁹ Discourse to ease the concerns that allies and partners have to “choose” between the United States and China is critical. China and other revisionist state and nonstate actors remain poised to exploit vulnerabilities, sow discord and discontent, weaken alliances, and find new ways to flout the rules. Persistent challenges to Chinese coercion and information operations, even if achieved gradually, will impose costs over time. Awareness of the problem is the first step to counter China’s approach, but the United States needs to act now.