(Minghui.org) [Editor's Note] This series is a reprint of The Epoch Times' English translation of the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World by the editorial team of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Table of Contents of the Book
Preface: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Introduction: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Chapter One: The Specter’s Strategies for Destroying Humanity
Chapter Two: Communism’s European Beginnings
Chapter Three: Tyranny in the East
Chapter Four: Exporting Revolution
Chapter Five: Infiltrating the West
Chapter Six: The Revolt Against God
Chapter Seven: The Destruction of the Family
Chapter Eight: How Communism Sows Chaos in Politics
Chapter Nine: The Communist Economic Trap
Chapter Ten: Corrupting the Legal System
Chapter Eleven: Desecrating the Arts
Chapter Twelve: Sabotaging Education
Chapter Thirteen: The Media – The Specter’s Mouthpiece
Chapter Fourteen: Popular Culture – A Decadent Indulgence
Chapter Fifteen: The Communist Roots of Terrorism
Chapter Sixteen: The Communism Behind Environmentalism
Chapter Seventeen: Globalization and Communism
Chapter Eighteen: The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions
Conclusion: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
What is Included in This Part?
Chapter Eighteen: The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions
Introduction
1. The Chinese Communist Party’s Ambition to Dominate the World
a. The CCP’s Multi-Pronged Strategy to Subvert and Contain the US
b. Inciting Anti-US Hatred in Preparation for War
c. The CCP’s Overt Intention to Defeat the US
2. Communist China’s Strategies for World Domination
a. One Belt, One Road Initiative: Territorial Expansion Under the Guise of Globalization
b. The Periphery Diplomacy Strategy to Exclude the US From the Asia-Pacific Region
c. Strategy in Europe: ‘Divide and Conquer’
d. ‘Colonizing’ Africa With the ‘Chinese Model’
e. Advancing Into Latin America
f. The CCP’s Growing Military Capabilities
3. Unrestricted Warfare With Chinese Communist Characteristics
a. The CCP’s Global Propaganda Operations
b. The Aim of United-Front Work: Disintegrating the Free World From Within
c. Economic Warfare: The CCP’s Heavy Weaponry
d. Using the Masses for Espionage
e. The Many Forms of Unrestricted Warfare
4. The Communist ‘China Model’
5. Lessons Learned and the Way Out
a. The Policy of Appeasement: A Grave Mistake
b. Why the West Got China Wrong
c. The Way Out
Conclusion: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
References
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY’S GLOBAL AMBITIONS
Introduction
The specter of communism has spent much of modern history establishing itself in our world, whether through overt totalitarian rule or covert subversion. The violent Bolshevik revolution in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century paved the way for the specter’s primary actor: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The CCP was established in 1921 by agents of the Far Eastern branch of the Soviet-led Communist International. Over the next several decades, the Soviet Union played a major role on the world stage, confronting the Western democratic camp in the Cold War, leading Westerners to believe the Soviet Union and its satellite communist regimes in Eastern Europe were the archetypal communist adversary. The CCP, meanwhile, had ample time to establish and strengthen its regime. In 1949, it defeated the Chinese Nationalist government and founded the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the PRC as the world’s major communist power. Faced with the new geopolitical situation, the Party took a new, nonconfrontational approach: It enticed the rest of the world to engage with its reformed market economy while retaining a totalitarian political system. As a result, many Western scholars, entrepreneurs, and politicians have stopped regarding the PRC as a communist regime, believing it to have turned on its founding ideological principles.
This could not be further from the truth. Despite adopting the trappings of a market system, the CCP has brought the essential characteristics of communism — deceit, malice, and struggle — to their apex, creating a regime that employs the most pernicious and insidious methods of political intrigue developed over thousands of years of human history. The CCP seduces people with profits, controls them with force, and deceives them with lies. It has cultivated its demonic technique to the point of mastery.
China is home to five thousand years of history and a splendid traditional heritage, which have earned its people respect and admiration the world over. The CCP capitalized on these positive sentiments; after seizing power and taking the Chinese people captive, it conflated the concepts of the Chinese nation and the CCP regime. It presented its ambitions under the camouflage of China’s “peaceful rise,” making it difficult for the international community to understand its true motives.
But the essential nature of the CCP has never changed. The Party’s strategy of economic engagement is simply to use the “nutrition of the capitalist body” to strengthen its own socialist body, to stabilize its rule, and to realize its ambitions, rather than to enable China to see true prosperity and strength. [1] In practice, its methods disregard basic ethics and universal values.
In order to survive and thrive, human society must follow the standards of conduct laid down by the Creator. Among these are the need to maintain high moral character, adhere to universal values, and protect people’s rights to what is theirs. The economic development of a normal society needs to be supported by corresponding moral standards.
But the Chinese communist regime has followed a diametrically opposite path, creating a fast-rising economic abomination that has encouraged severe moral degeneracy. The evil specter’s motivation for arranging China’s “economic miracle” is simple: Economic strength gives the CCP regime the persuasive influence it needs to dictate its terms to the world. These arrangements are not intended to benefit China or the Chinese people, but rather to play on people’s worship of money and wealth so that the world will align with the CCP in economic cooperation and international affairs.
Internally, the Communist Party rules through tyranny and the most ruthless aspects of the capitalist system. It rewards evil and punishes good, turning the worst individuals into society’s most successful. Its policies magnify the evil side of human nature, using atheism to create a state of utter degeneracy in which people have no moral qualms.
When operating abroad, the CCP advocates the ideology of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and offers powerful economic incentives as a lure to have people of the free world let down their guard, abandon moral principles, and turn a blind eye to the CCP’s vast abuses of human rights and persecution of religion. Many politicians and corporations in Western countries have betrayed their values and compromised themselves for profit, aligning themselves with the CCP’s practices.
Western countries hope they can help the CCP make a peaceful transformation, but while China has indeed undergone a degree of superficial modernization and westernization, the Party never changed its underlying nature. Over the past few decades, the practical result of engagement has seen the CCP successfully and peacefully undermine the moral obligations of the United States and corrupt the public will.
The CCP is the main arm of communism and thus the greatest threat to free societies everywhere. The communist specter’s aim in strengthening the global power of the CCP is to spread its poison to all corners of the earth and ultimately to have people betray tradition and the divine. Even if the Party’s efforts to establish itself as the world’s leading power are not directly successful, it will still have achieved its underlying purpose: to part people from their moral values. It does this by tempting people with economic interests, manipulating them with financial traps, infiltrating their political systems, intimidating them with military force, and confusing them with propaganda.
Faced with such great danger, we must carefully examine the CCP regime’s ambition, strategy, and tactics.
1. The Chinese Communist Party’s Ambition to Dominate the World
The Chinese communist regime is not satisfied with being a regional power. It wants to control the world. This is determined by the Communist Party’s innate characteristic of tyranny. By its very nature, the Party opposes heaven, earth, and tradition; it resorts to violence to smash the “old world” and aims to destroy all states, nations, and classes, with the feigned goal of “liberating all humanity.” Its unchanging mission is one of constant expansion until the world is united under communist ideology. Its doctrines and practices are by definition globalist.
But because traditional culture had deep roots in society, at times communism has had to adopt a gradual and roundabout approach to supplant it. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin claimed the need for “socialism in one country,” while the CCP has adopted “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Unlike the political parties that share power or hold power by rotation in Western democracies, the CCP has uncontested authority. It sets strategic goals with a scope of decades or centuries. A few years after seizing power in 1949, it rolled out the slogan “surpass Britain and catch up to America,” which prefaced the Great Leap Forward. Later, owing to unfavorable domestic and international situations, the CCP assumed a low profile for decades.
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, much of the international community boycotted the Chinese regime. In response, the Party evaluated the situation and concluded that it was still unable to compete directly with the United States. So rather than attempting to take the lead on the international stage, it took the path of hiding its strengths and biding its time. This was not because the CCP had changed its goals, but rather because it adopts different strategies based on the circumstances of the time.
It can be said that the communist specter used the ancient Chinese strategic feint of “openly repairing the plank roads while secretly advancing via the hidden route of Chencang.” The first communist superpower was the Soviet Union, but its ultimate role was to aid the rise and maturation of the CCP regime.
Since World War I, the United States has been the most powerful country on earth, serving to maintain international order. Any country that wants to overturn this order must bring down the United States, so in terms of the CCP’s overall strategic considerations, America is the Party’s main enemy. This has been the case for decades, and the CCP has never stopped preparing for an all-out offensive against the United States.
In the book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, national security expert Michael Pillsbury wrote that China has a long-term strategy to subvert the US-led world economic and political order and to replace it with communism by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party’s rise to power in China. [2] Pillsbury notes the Chinese film Silent Contest, produced by the National Defense University of China, which states that the CCP’s process of realizing its “great cause” of dominating the world “will inevitably run into constant wear-and-tear and struggle with the US hegemonic system,” and “it is a centennial contest, not to be shifted by the human will.”
The CCP’s global strategy is centered on countering the United States. Arthur Waldron, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on China, stated at a 2004 Senate hearing that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the only army in the world that is dedicated to anti-US operations. [3] Additionally, most of the CCP’s diplomatic relations and international activities target the United States directly or indirectly.
a. The CCP’s Multi-Pronged Strategy to Subvert and Contain the US
The CCP has taken a comprehensive approach in its attempt to gain world dominance. In terms of ideology, it competes with the United States and other democratic and free countries. It uses forced technology transfers and intellectual-property theft to close the tech gap and boost its economic confidence. Militarily, it engages in a silent rivalry with the United States by means of asymmetrical and “unrestricted warfare” in places like the South China Sea. It backs North Korea, Iran, and other rogue regimes to impede the United States and NATO.
In diplomacy, the CCP has promoted its periphery strategy and the One Belt, One Road plan. It has very quickly expanded its international influence with neighboring countries, as well as countries in Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, in an attempt to build an international coalition, develop a Chinese-led sphere, and isolate the United States.
The CCP is using multiple methods to accomplish these goals. The PRC established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, the “16+1” cooperation network (now called “17+1”) with Central and Eastern European countries in 2012, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015. It cooperates keenly as part of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) economic bloc and vigorously promotes the internationalization of its currency. It seeks to control the formulation of industrial standards (such as those used for the proposed 5G cellular networks) and to dominate public discourse.
The CCP has taken advantage of press freedom in the United States and other Western countries to carry out united-front operations, spread propaganda, and engage in espionage. This is its attempt to manipulate the United States as much as possible and impose change from within, without engaging in conventional warfare.
CCP agents bribe US government officials, congress members, diplomats, and retired military officers. The Party uses economic interests to guide American business owners to lobby for the Chinese communists and to influence US policy on China. It forces high-tech companies to cooperate with the CCP’s internet censorship and Great Firewall; coerces and incentivizes many in overseas Chinese communities to serve as fifth columnists; and infiltrates Western think tanks and academic departments. It manipulates these institutions into exercising self-censorship on sensitive topics, thus effectively adopting the stance of the Communist Party. Chinese companies, which are controlled or influenced by the CCP, have invested heavily in Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
On one hand, the CCP develops its influence in various countries to envelop and contain the United States, while on the other hand, it establishes hidden strongholds on American soil to undermine it from within. It has built an extensive network of agents and has fostered splits in US society, posing a serious internal threat.
b. Inciting Anti-US Hatred in Preparation for War
The CCP’s ideology runs on hatred. The patriotism it promotes entails hating Japan, hating Taiwan, hating Tibetans, hating the ethnic minorities of Xinjiang, hating religious believers, hating dissidents, and, most importantly, hating the United States. There is a saying among Chinese netizens: “For small problems, blame Japan, and for big ones, blame the United States.” By inciting hatred against foreign foes, the Party helps smooth over public outrage during a crisis.
Before the Chinese communists seized power, they repeatedly praised the United States for its friendship with China and for the American democratic system. However, after the CCP set up its regime, it immediately took advantage of the suffering China had experienced in modern history, as well as the people’s desire for a strong nation. The CCP painted itself as China’s savior by stoking hatred against the United States and other foreign nations.
In fact, the CCP does not care about whether Chinese people live or die, nor does it care about China’s territorial integrity or its sustainable long-term development. It is a challenge to describe the true evilness of how the CCP has persecuted its own people, betrayed China’s sovereignty, destroyed morality and traditional culture, and sabotaged China’s future.
By inciting hatred of foreign countries, the CCP aims, first, to paint itself as a savior to the Chinese people to help legitimize its brutal rule; second, to use nationalist sentiment to divert public attention in times of crisis; third, to build support for the Party’s expansionist ambitions and base schemes as a means of “rectifying” the humiliations of modern times; and fourth, to use hatred to create the psychological preparedness needed for future wars.
The CCP has indoctrinated the younger generation with hatred of the United States in preparation for using them as its pawns in the effort to supersede America and dominate the world. When the time comes, the CCP intends to use China’s youth to infiltrate the United States and its allied democratic states in various fashions, participate in all-out armed conflict, wage unrestricted warfare, and should the need arise, sacrifice themselves in a nuclear holocaust.
The jubilant reactions expressed by much of the Chinese public following the 9/11 terrorist attacks indicated that the CCP was making significant inroads with its propaganda. Currently, on major Chinese political and military forums, one commonly sees sentiments like “China and the United States must have a war” — yet another indication of the CCP’s success in educating people to hate the United States. This is a long-term, gradual mobilization for war, deliberately planned and systematically carried out.
The CCP’s hate propaganda is not limited to China’s borders. Internationally, it explicitly or overtly supports rogue regimes and terrorist organizations in fighting the United States, providing them with financial assistance, weapons and equipment, theoretical contributions, tactical training, and public support. The Party directs the global forces of anti-Americanism, as the PRC now leads an axis of anti-US states.
c. The CCP’s Overt Intention to Defeat the US
In 2008, while the United States was struggling with an economic crisis, Beijing hosted the most expensive Olympic Games in history. Dressed in a costume of prosperity, the regime thrust itself onto the international stage. At the time, the US manufacturing industry was in decline, and the country faced an economic crisis approaching the severity of the Great Depression. In the face of such economic difficulties, the US administration asked China to help by buying US Treasurys. The CCP’s media mouthpieces immediately began to run articles that claimed “America is surviving by borrowing money from us Chinese”; “America is going downhill, China is in position to replace it”; and so on. Virtually all of the Party-controlled media in China ran such headlines, and the ideas even became part of popular opinion among Western media and scholars.
After 2008, the United States showed signs of decline in areas such as economic standing, military strength, and political stability. On the economic front, the US administration at the time was pushing universal health care, expanding social benefits, placing climate issues at the center of policy, and placing restrictions on traditional manufacturing. Still, the green-energy industry was defeated by made-in-China products, and US manufacturing continued to be hollowed out. There was no way for these policies to counter and guard against the PRC’s illicit trade practices and massive theft of intellectual property.
In the face of these trends, many simply accepted the narrative that China was in ascendance and the United States was in decline. US military spending decreased, and the United States adopted a weak diplomatic stance. On the US political front, socialist ideology was on the rise, democratic politics were becoming a showground for partisan squabbling, and government functions were often handicapped as a result. The CCP compared this chaos unfavorably with the focused totalitarianism of its own system, depicting US democracy as a laughing stock.
In 2010, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. In 2014, according to World Bank statistics, if calculated based on purchasing power parity, China’s GDP might have surpassed that of the United States. [4] Seeing that the balance of power between China and the United States appeared to be shifting, and believing that America’s decline was irreversible, the CCP ended its old strategy of hiding its strength and biding its time. Instead, the Party openly and directly took aim at the international order led by the United States. The official stance of the CCP, the media, and experts gradually started to speak unabashedly of an expansionist “China dream.”
In 2012, during its 18th National Congress, the CCP introduced the notion of building a “community of shared future for mankind.” In 2017, at its World Political Parties Dialogue, the CCP evoked the ancient imagery of the myriad kingdoms coming to pay their respects at the Chinese imperial court. The CCP went public with its desire to export the communist “China model” to the rest of the world.
The CCP’s ambition in spreading what it calls the “China model,” the “Chinese plan,” or “Chinese wisdom” is to lead the world and establish a new world order. The CCP has been preparing for this in all respects for decades. If this new world order were established, it would present a formidable new axis of evil, an adversary more threatening to the free world than the Axis alliance during World War II.
2. Communist China’s Strategies for World Domination
a. One Belt, One Road Initiative: Territorial Expansion Under the Guise of Globalization
In 2013, Beijing officially introduced its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, also known as Belt and Road. The plan is for China to invest trillions of dollars to build critical infrastructure, such as ports, bridges, railroads, and energy facilities, in dozens of countries, with the aim of bringing them under China’s influence. It is the biggest investment project in history.
“One Belt” refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt, which consists of three land-based components: from China through Central Asia and Russia to Europe and the Baltic Sea; from northwestern China through Central and West Asia to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean; and from southwestern China through the Indochina Peninsula to the Indian Ocean.
“One Road” refers to the Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road, which is a two-pronged effort: The first route goes from Chinese ports to the South China Sea, through the Strait of Malacca and on to Europe via the Indian Ocean; the second heads to the southern Pacific Ocean.
The land-based One Belt consists of six economic corridors:
1. The China–Mongolia–Russia Economic Corridor
2. The New Eurasian Land Bridge Corridor
3. The China–Central and West Asia Economic Corridor
4. The China–Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor
5. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor
6. The Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor
The New Eurasian Land Bridge Corridor will be based on rail links between China and Europe, such as Yiwu to Madrid and Wuhan to Hamburg and Lyon. Transportation from China to Europe takes just over ten days by rail, compared to over thirty days by sea. The China Railway Express, which runs along these rail links, began its operations in 2011 and has been an important component of OBOR.
The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor is a joint plan by the two governments. It includes a highway connecting Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Province with Gwadar Port in Pakistan, on the Indian Ocean. The CCP gained the right to operate the port, Pakistan’s gateway to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, in 2013. The port occupies a critical strategic location, connecting the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s crude oil passes, to the Arabian Sea.
The general framework of the sea-based One Road is to build a number of strategic ports to gain control over global sea transportation. In financially robust countries, Chinese companies enter into equity participation or joint ventures. In financially weaker countries, the PRC invests large amounts of money locally and attempts to obtain the rights to operate the ports.
In 2013, China Merchants Port Holdings Co. Ltd. bought 49 percent equity from Terminal Link SAS in France. With this purchase, it obtained the operating rights to fifteen terminals in eight countries on four continents, including the South Florida Container Terminal in Miami and the Houston Terminal Link (now called the Terminal Link Texas). [5]
Other ports and terminals now under China’s control include the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge in Belgium; the Suez Canal Container Terminal in Egypt; Kumport (or Ambarli) in Turkey; the Port of Piraeus in Greece; Pasir Panjang Terminal in Singapore; Euromax Terminal Rotterdam, which is called “the gate of Europe,” in the Netherlands; the second-phase terminal at Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates; the Port of Vado in Italy; Kuantan Port in Malaysia; the Port of Djibouti in East Africa; and the Panama Canal.
In addition to investment, the CCP also uses the debt traps created by OBOR to obtain control of strategic locations. Sri Lanka could not pay its debt to Chinese companies, so in 2017, it signed over the use of its Hambantota Port to a Chinese company for ninety-nine years.
The CCP launched its Digital Silk Road in 2018 with the intention of reshaping the future development of internet infrastructure. The Digital Silk Road is considered an advanced stage in the OBOR project, and it mainly includes building fiber optic infrastructure, digital information services, international telecommunications, and e-commerce.
Many countries involved in OBOR do not have a complete credit system. The CCP aims to introduce its systems of e-commerce and electronic payment services, such as Alipay, to these countries, while totally shutting out Western competition. The Great Firewall, which filters internet traffic in China, is being exported to OBOR countries, as are the systems of mass surveillance already used within China.
The extent of the CCP’s strategic reach can be seen from its investment in global infrastructure. According to a November 2018 report by The New York Times, the CCP has constructed or is constructing more than forty pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure projects; more than two hundred bridges, roads, and railways; almost two hundred power plants for nuclear power, natural gas, coal, and renewables; and a series of major dams. At the time of the report, the CCP had invested in at least 112 countries, most of which belonged to the OBOR initiative. [6]
As OBOR took shape, the CCP regime’s efforts to supplant the United States on the world stage grew. It aggressively promoted the yuan as an international currency, as well as its own credit system. Chinese-made telecommunications networks (including 5G) are being pushed as the future in many countries, as are Chinese-built high-speed rail lines. The aim is to eventually establish a set of standards that is controlled by the CCP and independent of the current Western standards.
In the early stages of OBOR, the CCP focused on neighboring countries, reaching as far as Europe. Very quickly, the CCP expanded its reach to Africa, Latin America, and even the Arctic Ocean, covering the entire world. The Maritime Silk Road originally consisted of just two routes. A third route, the Polar Silk Road, was added to connect to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. Prior to OBOR, China had already invested heavily in countries in Africa and Latin America. These countries are now part of the major structure of OBOR, which has enabled the CCP to more rapidly expand its financial and military reach in those continents.
The initial goal of OBOR is to export China’s excess capacity by building up basic infrastructure such as railways and highways in other countries. These countries are rich in resources and energy. By building their infrastructure, the CCP accomplishes two secondary goals. One is to open routes to ship domestic products to Europe at low cost; the other is to secure the strategic resources of countries that participate in OBOR. The CCP’s intention is to increase mainland Chinese exports, not to help the countries along the Belt and Road to establish their own manufacturing industries — the CCP would not help create competition for its own manufacturing.
The real ambition behind OBOR is to use economic strength as a vanguard to establish control over the financial and political lifelines of other countries, transforming them into colonies of the Chinese regime and pawns on the global stage. A byproduct of participating in OBOR schemes is the importation of all pernicious aspects of communism: corruption, debt, and totalitarian repression. The project is a deceptive trap that will not bring lasting economic prosperity to its participants.
These dangers have elicited alarm from many countries, prompting their governments to halt or reduce their involvement in the OBOR scheme. On occasion, Beijing has conceded that it should be more transparent and make adjustments to the heavily criticized debt traps.
Nevertheless, the CCP’s plans can’t be underestimated. While Western enterprises operate on profit-seeking principles and won’t tough it out in unstable host countries for more than a few years, the CCP’s calculus extends into the next century. It can tolerate operations in unstable international environments over the long term without regard for immediate losses.
The CCP wants to develop pro-communist governments that will support it in the United Nations and other international organizations. It aims to assume leadership across Asia, Africa, and Latin America in its struggle against the free world, and ultimately replace the United States as the world’s number one power. Human costs are no object in pursuing these aims — for instance, the Party can force the Chinese people to pay for investment costs that privately owned Western enterprises could never handle. In this war to conquer the world, it is not about how powerful the CCP is on paper, but that the CCP has at its disposal the resources of hundreds of millions of Chinese people irrespective of their living or dying. They are its sacrificial pawns.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said that with the OBOR project, the Chinese regime had successfully integrated the Mackinder-Mahan-Spykman theses of world domination. In an article discussing this view, Andrew Sheng of the Asia Global Institute wrote:
Sir Halford Mackinder was an influential British geographer/historian who argued in 1904 that “Whoever rules the Heartland (central Asia) commands the World-Island (Eurasia); whoever rules the World-Island commands the World.” His American contemporary Alfred Mahan was a naval historian who shaped the US strategy to dominate sea power, extending the British maritime empire logic of controlling the sea lanes, choke points and canals by policing global trade. In contrast, Nicholas John Spykman argued that the Rimland (the coastal lands encircling Asia) is more important tha[n] the Heartland, thus: “Who controls the Rimland rules EuroAsia; who rules EuroAsia controls the destinies of the world.” [7]
These insights reflect the Western world’s growing vigilance against the CCP’s ambitions contained in the OBOR project.
Of course, the CCP’s ambition is not limited to the scope of OBOR. The initiative is not merely focused on obtaining the rights to land routes, sea lanes, and major ports. The CCP wants to take advantage of any weaknesses that exist around the world. In recent decades, many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America became newly independent states created by decolonization. These regions experienced a power vacuum, inviting the CCP to gain footholds. The newly independent countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites had weak sovereign control and were also easy pickings for the CCP regime. Other unstable countries, which Western investors tend to stay away from, naturally fell into the CCP’s trap. Small countries, island nations, and underdeveloped countries in strategic locations are all in the CCP’s crosshairs.
Even some states once firmly in the Western democratic camp have drifted into the CCP’s orbit after suffering from weak economies and high debt. Geopolitically, the CCP is gradually surrounding the United States by controlling the economies of other countries. The aim is to marginalize and eventually remove American influence from those countries, by which time the CCP will have established a separate world order centered on communist hegemony. This is not a new approach. It has its roots in the Party’s original strategy of occupying the countryside to surround the cities, which led it to victory in the Chinese Civil War.
b. The Periphery Diplomacy Strategy to Exclude the US From the Asia-Pacific Region
Communist Party think tanks define the regime’s “periphery diplomacy” as such: “China neighbors fourteen countries along a lengthy land border and looks across the sea at six other neighboring countries. Beyond that, to the east is the Asia-Pacific region, and to the west is Eurasia. That is, the radial extent of China’s extended neighborhood covers two-thirds of international politics, economy, and security. Thus, the framework of periphery diplomacy is more than mere regional strategy. … It is a true grand strategy.” [8]
Australia: The Weak Link of the Western World
In June 2017, Fairfax Media Ltd. and the Australian Broadcasting Corp. released the results of a five-month investigation in the documentary Power and Influence: The Hard Edge of China’s Soft Power. The documentary, which raised concern around the world, described the CCP’s widespread infiltration and control over Australian society. [9] Six months later, Sam Dastyari, a member of the Australian Labor Party, announced his resignation from the Senate. Dastyari’s resignation followed accusations that he had accepted money from CCP-linked Chinese merchants for making statements in support of Beijing regarding South China Sea territorial disputes. His statements on this critical issue clashed with the views of his own party. [10]
In June 2017, Australia’s ABC News updated a report revealing political donations by Chinese-linked entities, ostensibly intended to influence Australia–China trade policies. The report revealed more than $5.5 million in donations from Chinese-linked companies and individual donors to Liberal and Labor party war chests between 2013 and 2015. [11] Furthermore, in recent years, Australian media outlets have signed contracts with Chinese state-run media outlets, agreeing to broadcast propaganda provided by Chinese media to Australian audiences. [12]
In 2017, the book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, by author Clive Hamilton, was rejected three times by Australian publishers due to fear of Chinese repercussions. After much deliberation, a publisher agreed to print it. The censorship elicited widespread concern among Australians about China’s influence in their country. [13]
In 2015, Australia allowed a Chinese company with close ties to the PLA to secure a ninety-nine-year lease over Darwin Port — a strategic seaport and military location for guarding against attacks from the north. Former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage expressed shock at the deal, and said the United States was concerned about the development. [14]
What is the strategic value of CCP infiltration into Australia? The key aim is to weaken the US–Australia alliance. [15] In its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the Australian government said: “The United States has been the dominant power in our region throughout Australia’s post-Second World War history. Today, China is challenging America’s position.” [16] Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, also said that Beijing was trying to gain a strategic advantage in the region for the purpose of ending Australia’s alliance with the United States. [17]
Australia is the CCP’s testing ground for soft-power operations in its strategy of periphery diplomacy. [18] The recent history of Chinese communist infiltration in Australia dates back to 2005, when Zhou Wenzhong, then-vice minister of foreign affairs, arrived in Canberra and informed senior officials at the Chinese Embassy of the CCP’s new diplomatic approach. He said that the first goal of including Australia in China’s greater periphery was to ensure that Australia would serve as a trustworthy and stable supply base for China’s economic growth in the next twenty years. The mission of those present at the meeting was to understand how the CCP could broadly exert influence over Australia in the spheres of economics, politics, and culture. [19]
The CCP uses China’s economic strength to force Australia to make concessions on military and human rights issues. The standard approach adopted by the CCP to coerce others into cooperation is to cultivate personal relationships via economic interests and simultaneously create the implicit threat of blackmail. [20]
After years of investigation, Hamilton reported the following: “Australian institutions — from our schools, universities and professional associations to our media; from industries like mining, agriculture and tourism to strategic assets like ports and electricity grids; from our local councils and state governments to our political parties in Canberra — are being penetrated and shaped by a complex system of influence and control overseen by agencies serving the Chinese Communist Party.” [21]
Since the 2008 economic crisis, in practice, Australia has proven willing to serve as the PRC’s supply base, due to the common belief that China rescued Australia from recession. Hamilton says that the reason the CCP’s infiltration and influence is so effective is because Australians have been “allowing it to happen under our noses because we are mesmerised by the belief that only China can guarantee our economic prosperity and because we are afraid to stand up to Beijing’s bullying.” [22]
Despite awareness of the CCP’s infiltration and influence on Western society, and particularly its infiltration and control of overseas Chinese communities, most well-meaning Westerners naively thought that the main purpose of the Party’s strategies was “negative” — that is, to silence the voices of critics and those with different political opinions. However, Hamilton says that behind the “negative” operations are the CCP’s “positive” ambitions: to use ethnic Chinese immigrants to change the framework of Australian society, and to have Westerners sympathize with the PRC so as to allow Beijing to build up influence. In this way, Australia would be transformed into the Communist Party’s helper in the regime’s goal of becoming an Asian superpower and then a global one. [23]
Similarly, the CCP is deepening its influence over Australia’s close neighbor and ally, New Zealand. Anne-Marie Brady, an expert in Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury, wrote in the 2017 report Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping that several Chinese-born members of New Zealand’s Parliament had close links with mainland China, and that many politicians had been bribed by massive political donations from rich Chinese merchants and CCP united-front organizations, such as Chinese trade associations in New Zealand. [24] Shortly after her report was published, Brady’s office was broken into. Before the break-in, she had received an anonymous threatening letter saying, “You are the next.” [25]
The PRC is actively roping in New Zealand’s local politicians. For example, members of New Zealand political parties are treated lavishly on trips to China. Retired politicians are offered high-paying positions in Chinese enterprises, as well as other benefits to have them follow Party’s directives. [26]
Targeting Pacific Island Nations for Strategic Value
Despite their size, tiny Pacific island nations can have the critical strategic value of serving as maritime bases. Though their total land area is just 53,000 square kilometers (20,463 square miles), their exclusive economic zones over parts of the ocean total 19,000,000 square kilometers (7,335,941 square miles) — an area over six times the size of China’s exclusive economic zones. Developing greater ties with Pacific island nations is a publicly acknowledged component of the CCP’s military strategy. [27] Currently, the Pacific area can be divided into five spheres of influence: American, Japanese, Australian, New Zealander, and French.
To develop its maritime capabilities in the Pacific Ocean, the CCP must first build good relations with island nations, and then slowly push out the US presence. The CCP has been outstripping American activity in the area by investing immense amounts of money in infrastructure projects in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, as well as promoting local tourism and making e-business platforms available. [28]
Following large-scale mainland Chinese financial assistance and investment, the arrogant behavior exhibited by CCP officials reflects the regime’s mentality when it feels emboldened — it attempts to treat the people of weaker nations the way it treats the Chinese people under its totalitarian control. Naturally, the CCP cannot be expected to respect international regulations and protocol.
At the APEC summit held in late 2018 in Papua New Guinea, the rude and uncivilized behavior of Chinese officials shocked those in attendance. A high-ranking US official described the CCP officials’ behavior as “tantrum diplomacy.” Chinese officials resorted to shouting as they accused other countries of plotting against China. They bluntly stopped journalists from interviewing attendees at a forum held between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and leaders of the Pacific Island nations, demanding that all journalists refer to the news release by the Xinhua News Agency. To prevent statements condemning the CCP regime’s unfair trade behavior from being written into a joint communiqué, the officials demanded a meeting with Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister. The minister turned down the request on the basis of remaining impartial. [29]
Using Debt Traps to Seize Control of Central Asia’s Resources
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the CCP has gone to great effort to develop and cement its relationships with Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The goal of the CCP’s strategy in Central Asia can be viewed from several angles: For one, Central Asia is an unavoidable land route in China’s westward expansion. Further, when China constructs infrastructure to transport goods in and out of China, it can also expand its commercial interests in Central Asia. Second, China aims to seize the natural resources, including coal, oil, gas, and precious metals, that are abundant in these countries. Additionally, by controlling Central Asian countries that are geographically and culturally close to China’s Xinjiang Province, the regime can tighten its control over the ethnic minorities there.
The CCP has become the most influential actor in Central Asia. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, released a report in 2013 saying that China has been rapidly growing into an economically dominant power in this region by taking advantage of social unrest in Central Asia. Beijing sees Central Asia as a supply base for raw materials and resources and as a market for its low-priced, low-quality products. [30] Meanwhile, the CCP has also poured millions of US dollars into investment and aid in Central Asia in the name of maintaining stability in Xinjiang.
A huge network of highways, railways, airways, communications, and oil pipelines has closely connected China with Central Asia. The China Road and Bridge Corporation and its contractors have been responsible for the construction of highways, railways, and electricity transmission lines in Central Asia. They pave roads on some of the most dangerous and complex terrain and construct new roads to transport China’s goods to Europe and the Middle East, as well as to ports in Pakistan and Iran. From 1992 to 2012, in the two decades of diplomatic relations between China and the five Central Asian countries, the total volume of trade between China and Central Asia grew a hundredfold, according to Chinese state-run media. [31]
In Central Asia, the CCP has promoted investments in large state-run, credit-financed infrastructure projects. Some scholars have realized that such investments could form the basis of a new international order in which China would play a dominant role. Seen from this perspective, Central Asia, like Australia, is another testing ground for the CCP’s conceptual revolution in diplomatic strategy. [32]
Beijing tends to support corrupt authoritarian leaders in Central Asian countries, and its opaque investment projects are considered beneficial primarily for the local elites. The International Crisis Group’s report noted that each of the Central Asian governments is weak and corrupt, and the countries they rule fraught with social and economic unrest. [33] The large infrastructure projects promoted by Beijing are not only linked to massive loans, but also involve official approvals and permits, which are based on vested interests. This gives rise to and worsens the corruption in these regimes.
In Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, the former first secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR, served as the country’s president from the time of independence in 1991 to his death in 2016. In 2005, government forces clashed with protesters in the eastern city of Andijan, resulting in hundreds of deaths. The CCP placed itself as an ally of Karimov, rendering firm support to the regimes in Uzbekistan and other countries in the region in their efforts to safeguard the status quo. [34]
The fragile economic structures of Central Asian countries, in combination with massive PRC infrastructure loans, leave these countries especially prone to falling into China’s debt trap. Turkmenistan has suffered from a severe economic crisis, with an estimated annual inflation rate in 2018 of 300 percent, estimated unemployment at more than 50 percent, severe food shortages, and rampant corruption. In 2018, China was the only major buyer of Turkmen gas, and also the largest creditor of its foreign debt, which stood at $9 billion (estimated at 30 percent of GDP in 2018). [35] [36] Eventually, Turkmenistan may have no choice but to hand over its natural gas fields — which generate 70 percent of the country’s revenue — to the PRC to pay off its debt. [37]
In 2018, Tajikistan borrowed more than $300 million from China to build a power plant. In return, it transferred the operating license to a gold mine to PRC control for the length of time the mine produces enough gold to repay the debt. [38]
The Kyrgyzstan economy is also in danger, as large-scale infrastructure projects run by the PRC also caused it to fall into the debt trap. The country will likely have to cede part of its natural resources to pay the debt. Kyrgyzstan also cooperated with Chinese communications companies Huawei and ZTE to build digital communication tools in order to tighten governmental control over people, while also leaving the CCP regime a backdoor to extend its surveillance into these countries. [39]
Beijing took advantage of the power vacuum in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union to enter the Kazakh energy sector. The Kazakh economy depends on its crude oil production, and its oil revenue is used to buy cheap Chinese products. Apart from oil drilling, this nation’s industrial foundation is fragile. With the flow of cheap Chinese products into its market, the Kazakh manufacturing industry collapsed. [40]
Another motive for the CCP’s expansion in Central Asia is to crack down on Uyghur dissidents living in the region. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional alliance driven by China and Russia, allows for extradition between the six member countries. A member country can even send its own officials to another member country to conduct an investigation. In this way, the CCP can extend its suppression of Uyghurs abroad and arrest Uyghur dissidents who have taken refuge in nearby countries. [41]
Using Pivotal States to Secure Strategic Resources
The Communist Party’s peripheral strategy involves creating economic indebtedness in pivotal countries, which are then used as a base for achieving strategic goals in the entire region. According to the Party’s think tanks, pivotal states are countries that have considerable regional power that Beijing has the capability and resources to guide; they have no direct conflicts with the CCP in terms of strategic interests, and most don’t share close interests with the United States. [42] In addition to the aforementioned Australia, Kazakhstan, and others, examples of target countries for the Chinese regime include Iran and Burma (also known as Myanmar).
In the Middle East, Iran receives the greatest amount of Chinese investment. Iran is an important oil producer in the region and has been in ideological opposition to the West since the late 1970s, making it a natural economic and military partner for the PRC. Beijing has maintained close economic and military relations with Iran since the 1980s.
In 1991, the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered that mainland China had exported uranium to Iran and that the PRC and Iran had signed a secret nuclear agreement in 1990. [43] In 2002, when Iran’s uranium enrichment project was revealed, Western oil companies withdrew from the country, giving the CCP an opportunity to capitalize on the situation and cultivate closer relations with Iran. [44]
Bilateral trade volume between the PRC and Iran grew by more than one hundred times between 1992 and 2011, despite international sanctions on the Iranian regime. [45] Due to Chinese assistance, Iran was able to weather the international isolation imposed on it and develop a broad arsenal of short- to medium-range ballistic missiles, as well as anti-ship cruise missiles. The Chinese regime also provided anti-ship mines and fast-attack boats, and helped Iran establish a covert chemical weapons project. [46]
Another pivotal neighbor favored by the CCP is Burma, which boasts a long coastline providing strategic access to the Indian Ocean. The CCP regards the opening of a China–Burma channel as a strategic step to minimizing reliance on the Strait of Malacca. [47] The Burmese military government’s poor human rights record has caused it to be isolated by the international community. The 1988 democracy movement in Burma was ultimately crushed with military force. The following year, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, army tanks opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators.
The two authoritarian governments, both condemned by the international community, found a degree of solace in their diplomatic company and have since enjoyed close relations. In October 1989, Burma’s Than Shwe visited China, and the two sides signed a $1.4 billion arms deal. In the 1990s, there were again many arms deals signed between the two sides. Equipment the CCP has sold to Burma includes fighter planes, patrol ships, tanks and armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft guns, and rockets. The CCP’s military, political, and economic support thus became the Burmese military junta’s lifeline in its struggle for continued survival. [48]
In 2013, the Chinese invested $5 billion into the China–Burma crude oil and gas pipeline, said to be China’s fourth-largest strategic oil-and-gas import conduit. Although it met with strong popular opposition, in 2017, it went into operation with the backing of the CCP. [49] Similar investments include the Myitsone Dam (currently placed on hold due to local opposition) and the Letpadaung Copper Mine. In 2017, bilateral trade between China and Burma totaled $13.54 billion. The CCP is currently planning to create a China–Burma economic corridor with 70 percent of the share held by the Chinese side. This includes a deep-water port for trade access to the Indian Ocean, and the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone industrial park. [50] [51]
c. Strategy in Europe: ‘Divide and Conquer’
Europe was at the center of the confrontation between the free world and the communist camp during the Cold War. The United States and Western European nations maintained a close alliance via NATO. To drive a wedge between Europe and the United States, the CCP adopted a strategy of dividing and conquering European countries. Accordingly, the Party adapted its strategy to suit local conditions as it gradually penetrated and developed influence in Europe. In recent years, the differences between Europe and the United States on many major issues have become increasingly apparent. The CCP has had a hand in this.
During the 2008 financial crisis, the CCP exploited weaker European economies that were in urgent need of foreign investment. The Party injected large sums of money into these countries in exchange for compromises on issues such as international rule of law and human rights. It used this method to create and expand the divisions among European countries and then reaped the benefits. Countries targeted by the CCP include Greece, Spain, Italy, and Hungary.
The CCP invested heavily in Greece during the sovereign debt crisis, exchanging money for political influence, and using Greece as an opening for building more influence in Europe. Within a few years, the CCP obtained a thirty-five-year concession for the second and third container terminals of Piraeus Port, Greece’s largest port, and took over the main transshipment hub at the port.
In May 2017, China and Greece signed a three-year action plan covering railways, ports, airport network construction, power-energy networks, and power-plant investments. [52] The CCP’s investment has already seen political returns. Since 2016, Greece, a member of the European Union, has repeatedly opposed EU proposals that would criticize the Chinese regime’s policies and human rights record. In August 2017, a commentary published by The New York Times said, “Greece has embraced the advances of China, its most ardent and geopolitically ambitious suitor.” [53]
In 2012, when the CCP initiated what would become the “17+1” cooperation framework, Hungary was the first country to join the initiative. It was also the first European country to sign an OBOR agreement with China. In 2017, bilateral trade volume between China and Hungary exceeded $10 billion. Like Greece, Hungary has repeatedly opposed EU criticism of the CCP’s human rights abuses. The president of the Czech Republic hired a wealthy Chinese businessman to be his personal adviser and has kept his distance from the Dalai Lama. [54]
Among the sixteen countries included in the framework, eleven are EU countries, and five are non-EU. Additionally, many have a history of communist rule and have preserved ideological and organizational traces of those regimes. To some extent, conforming to the CCP’s demands comes naturally to the post-communist elites.
Europe consists of many small countries, and it’s difficult for any one country to compete with the CCP. The Party has used this to handle each government individually, intimidating them into staying silent on China’s human rights abuses and pernicious foreign policy.
The most typical example is Norway. In 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Peace Prize to an incarcerated Chinese dissident. The CCP swiftly punished Norway by preventing it from exporting salmon to China, among other difficulties. Six years later, relations between the two countries were “normalized,” but Norway has remained silent on human rights issues in the PRC. [55]
The traditional Western European powers have also felt the growing influence of the CCP. Direct Chinese investment in Germany has grown substantially since 2010. In 2019, the PRC was Germany’s largest trading partner for the fourth consecutive year. In 2016, mainland Chinese and Hong Kong investors acquired fifty-six German companies, with investment reaching a high of 11 billion euros. These mergers and acquisitions allowed Chinese companies to quickly enter the market and acquire advanced Western technology, brands, and other assets. [56] The Hoover Institution, a US think tank, labeled these tactics as “weaponized” investment. [57]
The industrial city of Duisburg in western Germany has become the European transit hub for OBOR. Eighty percent of trains from China transit through Duisburg before heading to other European countries. The city has also inked a deal with Huawei to become a “smart city.” The mayor of Duisburg has called the city Germany’s “China City.” [58]
In dealing with France, the CCP has long used a strategy of “transaction diplomacy.” For example, when then-Party leader Jiang Zemin visited France in 1999, he purchased nearly thirty Airbus aircraft, worth a combined fifteen billion francs. This massive sale led the French government to support China’s admission to the World Trade Organization.
Following the Tiananmen Square massacre, France became the first Western country to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with mainland China. The French president at the time was the first in the West to oppose criticism of the PRC at the annual conference of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, the first to advocate strongly for the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China, and the first head of a Western government to praise the CCP. [59] In addition, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the CCP established large-scale Chinese Culture Years in France to promote communist ideology under the guise of cultural exchange. [60]
The United Kingdom, traditionally a powerful European nation and an important ally of the United States, is also one of the CCP’s most prized targets. On September 15, 2016, the British government officially approved the construction of the Hinkley Point C unit nuclear power plant in Somerset, England. The government is paying for the plant through a joint venture with China and a French consortium. [61]
The project was severely criticized by experts, including engineers, physicists, environmentalists, China experts, and business analysts, who highlighted the huge hidden dangers to British national security. Nick Timothy, the ex-chief of staff to Prime Minister Theresa May, pointed out that security experts were “worried that the Chinese could use their role to build weaknesses into computer systems which will allow them to shut down Britain’s energy production at will.” [62]
As in other parts of the world, the methods the Chinese regime uses to expand its influence in Europe are pervasive and legion. They include acquiring European high-tech companies; controlling the shares of important ports; bribing retired politicians to praise the CCP’s platform; coaxing sinologists to sing the praises of the CCP; penetrating universities, think tanks, and research institutes, and so on. [63] For years, the long-established British newspaper The Daily Telegraph carried a monthly insert, China Watch, produced by the English-language edition of the CCP-controlled China Daily. Beijing paid the British newspaper up to 750,000 pounds a year to run the inserts, which featured articles glorifying the Chinese regime. [64]
The CCP’s activities in Europe have caused great misgivings among researchers. The Global Public Policy Institute and the Mercator Institute for China Studies published a research report in 2018 exposing the CCP’s infiltration activities in Europe. It states:
China commands a comprehensive and flexible influencing toolset, ranging from the overt to the covert, primarily deployed across three arenas: political and economic elites, media and public opinion, and civil society and academia. In expanding its political influence, China takes advantage of the one-sided openness of Europe. Europe’s gates are wide open whereas China seeks to tightly restrict access of foreign ideas, actors and capital.
The effects of this asymmetric political relationship are beginning to show within Europe. European states increasingly tend to adjust their policies in fits of “preemptive obedience” to curry favor with the Chinese side. Political elites within the European Union (EU) and in the European neighborhood have started to embrace Chinese rhetoric and interests, including where they contradict national and/or European interests. EU unity has suffered from Chinese divide and rule tactics, especially where the protection and projection of liberal values and human rights are concerned. Beijing also benefits from the “services” of willing enablers among European political and professional classes who are happy to promote Chinese values and interests. Rather than only China trying to actively build up political capital, there is also much influence courting on the part of those political elites in EU member states who seek to attract Chinese money or to attain greater recognition on the global plane. [65]
In addition to political, economic, and cultural infiltration in Europe, the CCP has also engaged in various forms of espionage. On October 22, 2018, the French newspaper Le Figaro carried an exclusive series of special reports that revealed the CCP’s various espionage activities in France. This included using business social-networking websites, especially LinkedIn, to recruit French people to provide information to the CCP for the purpose of infiltrating France’s political, economic, and strategic realms, and for gaining extensive insider knowledge in specific situations. The report also said that such cases were only the tip of the iceberg of the CCP’s espionage operations in France. [66] The CCP’s purpose is the large-scale plunder of sensitive information regarding the French state and its economic assets. Similar espionage activities have also taken place in Germany. [67]
d. ‘Colonizing’ Africa With the ‘Chinese Model’
After World War II, many African countries underwent decolonization and gained independence. The region gradually lost the West’s attention, and technology and capital were transferred to China. Strengthened by these resources, the CCP encroached on African countries, infiltrating their politics, economies, and societies and steadily replacing what Western sovereign powers had set up.
On one hand, the CCP has wooed African states under the banner of aiding those countries’ development, creating a united front against the United States and other free countries in the United Nations. On the other hand, through economic bribery and military aid, the CCP has relentlessly manipulated African governments and opposition groups, controlling the affairs of African countries while imposing the communist Chinese model and its values on them.
The CCP-controlled Export-Import Bank of China loaned $67.2 billion to African countries from 2001 to 2010. Superficially, the loans did not appear to come with political conditions, and the interest rates were relatively low. However, because the loan agreements used natural resources as collateral, the CCP effectively obtained the rights to extract massive amounts of resources from those countries.
In 2003, the loan provided by the Export-Import Bank of China to Angola used crude oil as collateral. The following situation developed, as outlined in Serge Michel and Michel Beuret’s book China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa:
There are Chinese to drill the oil and then pump it into the Chinese pipeline guarded by a Chinese strongman on his way to a port built by the Chinese, where it is loaded onto Chinese tankers headed for China. Chinese laborers to build the roads and bridges and the gigantic dam that has displaced tends of thousands of small [land]holders; Chinese to grow Chinese food so other Chinese need eat only Chinese vegetables with their imported Chinese staples; Chinese to arm a government committing crimes against humanity; and Chinese to protect that government and stick up for it in the UN Security Council. [68]
In 2016, China became Africa’s biggest trading partner and foreign direct investor. [69] In Africa, the CCP’s management model has been roundly criticized for its many ills: low wages, poor working conditions, shoddy products, “tofu-dreg engineering” (a term referring to the poor workmanship of buildings in China’s Sichuan Province, which led to many deaths following the 2008 earthquake), environmental pollution, bribery of government officials, and other corrupt practices. China’s mining operations in Africa also frequently meet with protests from locals.
Michael Sata, former president of Zambia, said during his presidential campaign in 2007: “We want the Chinese to leave and the old colonial rulers to return. They exploited our natural resources, too, but at least they took good care of us. They built schools, taught us their language, and brought us the British civilization. … At least Western capitalism has a human face; the Chinese are only out to exploit us.” [70] In Zambia, Chinese influence can be seen everywhere. Sata was faced with no choice but to make deals with the CCP. Upon taking office, he immediately met with the PRC ambassador, and in 2013, he visited China.
Sudan was one of the earliest bases that the CCP established in Africa, and over the past twenty years, the CCP’s investment in this northeastern nation has grown exponentially. In addition to Sudan’s abundant oil reserves, its strategic port at the Red Sea was vital to the CCP’s plans. In the 1990s, when the international community isolated Sudan because of its support for terrorism and radical Islam, the CCP took advantage and rapidly became Sudan’s largest trading partner, purchasing most of its oil exports. [71] The investment by the CCP helped Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir’s totalitarian regime survive and develop despite sanctions. The PLA even exported weapons to Sudan during this period, indirectly facilitating the Darfur genocide in Sudan beginning in 2003.
In the international community, the CCP played a two-faced role: While China sent out a peacekeeping team to the UN to mediate the conflict in Sudan, Beijing also openly invited Bashir to China, although he was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The CCP declared that no matter how the world changed, no matter what the situation was in Sudan, that China would always be Sudan’s friend. [72]
The CCP expends considerable effort on wooing developing nations. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established in 2000, with its first ministerial conference held in Beijing. During this inaugural meeting, then-CCP head Jiang announced debt relief of 10 billion yuan for poor countries in Africa. In 2006, when Beijing hosted the FOCAC summit, the CCP not only announced debt waivers for forty-four countries, but also pledged $10 billion in funding, credit, scholarships, and various aid projects. [73] During the 2015 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the PRC announced that it would provide $60 billion to work with African countries to carry out ten major cooperation plans. [74] On August 28, 2018, the PRC vice minister of commerce noted that “97 percent of products from thirty-three of the least-developed African countries have zero tariffs.” [75] On September 3, 2018, during the 2018 summit, the CCP again pledged that it would provide Africa with $60 billion of no-strings-attached aid, interest-free loans, and project-specific capital and investment. At the same time, the CCP promised that for African countries with diplomatic relations with mainland China, it would cancel their inter-government debts that matured at the end of 2018. [76]
When he was prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zanawi established a Five-Year Plan for Ethiopia following China’s example. The organization and structure of the country’s ruling party at the time, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), also bore a striking resemblance to the CCP. An anonymous source within the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that many high-level officials in the EPRDF had traveled to China to study and undergo training, and that the children of many important officials also went to China for their education. It was even more apparent at the ministerial level, where virtually every official was reading The Selected Writings of Mao Zedong. [77]
In March 2013, at the BRICS summit, the Ethiopian prime minister stated that China was both a trading partner and a development model for Ethiopia. Today, Ethiopia is called Africa’s “New China.” Its internet monitoring and censorship, the totalitarian nature of its government, its media control, and the like are all cast from the same communist mold as China’s. [78] The PRC has also held training sessions targeted at leaders and government officials from other African nations.
Yun Sun, co-director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said:
They organized this kind of political training with three objectives in mind. First, that the CCP’s regime is legitimate — it is attempting to tell the world how the CCP has successfully managed China and how this success could be replicated for developing countries. Second, the CCP seeks to promote the experience China had in its development, during the so-called “exchange of ideas on how to govern the country.” Although the CCP is not explicitly “exporting revolution,” it is certainly exporting its ideological approach. The third objective is to strengthen exchanges between China and Africa. [79]
After several decades of painstaking effort, through commerce and trade, the CCP gained a strong foothold in Africa’s economy. By using economic incentives, it has bought off a number of African governments, such that officials in those countries follow Beijing’s every instruction. A scholar in the PRC establishment declared: “China’s progress over the past forty years has proven that it doesn’t need to do what the West did to achieve success. … The impact of this on Africa is beyond what you can imagine.” [80]
e. Advancing Into Latin America
Being geographically close to the United States, Latin America has historically been within the United States’ sphere of influence. Although a number of socialist regimes appeared in Latin America when the tide of communism swept over the world during the mid-twentieth century, those influences ultimately did not amount to a significant threat to the United States’ role in the region.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CCP began to target Latin America. Under the banner of “South to South cooperation,” it started to infiltrate all areas of society in the region, penetrating areas like economy, trade, military, diplomacy, culture, and the like. The governments of many Latin American countries, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia, were already hostile toward the United States, and the CCP made full use of this when it extended its influence across the Pacific, further aggravating the tensions these nations had with the United States and heightening their anti-American stance.
The CCP could now freely operate in America’s backyard, support the socialist regimes in Latin America, and thus lay the groundwork for long-term confrontation with the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that the CCP’s infiltration and influence in Latin America have far exceeded what the Soviet Union had achieved.
First, the CCP used foreign trade and investment to expand its influence in Latin America. According to a report from the US-based think tank Brookings Institution, in 2000, mainland Chinese trade with Latin America was $12 billion, but by 2013, it had ballooned to more than $260 billion, an increase of more than twenty times. Prior to 2008, Chinese loan commitments didn’t exceed $1 billion, but in 2010, they had increased to $37 billion. [81] From 2005 to 2016, the PRC pledged to loan $141 billion to Latin American countries. Today, Chinese loans have exceeded those from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank combined. The CCP also promised in 2015 that it would provide Latin America with $250 billion in direct investment by 2025 and that bilateral trade between China and Latin America would reach $500 billion.
Latin America is currently the PRC’s second-largest investment target, after Asia. [82] China is the top trading partner to the three largest economies in Latin America — Brazil, Chile, and Peru — and the second-largest for Argentina, Costa Rica, and Cuba. With highway construction in Ecuador, port projects in Panama, and a planned fiber-optic cable running from China to Chile, the CCP’s influence throughout Latin America is clear. [83]
All the while, the CCP has deployed its state companies to turn Latin America into its resource base, including Baosteel’s vast investment in Brazil and Shougang’s control over iron mines in Peru. The CCP also has shown great interest in Ecuador’s oil and Venezuela’s oil and gold mines.
In the military domain, the CCP has been stepping up its infiltration of Latin America in both scope and depth. Jordan Wilson, a researcher with the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission, found that since the mid-2000s, the CCP had progressed from low-level military sales to high-end military sales, reaching nearly $100 million in exports by 2010. Starting in the 2000s, the CCP substantially increased its military exports to Latin American countries. The recipients of these arms sales were anti-US regimes, most notably Venezuela. At the same time, there has been an increase in military training exchanges and joint military exercises. [84]
The CCP is rapidly developing ties with Latin America across diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military dimensions. In 2015, new requirements outlined in a defense white paper by the CCP “specifically assign the PLA to ‘actively participate in both regional and international security cooperation and effectively secure China’s overseas interests.’”
On the diplomatic front, due to the CCP’s incentives and threats, a number of countries have chosen to sever diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and instead embrace the communist PRC. In June 2017, Panama announced that it had ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan and now recognized “only one China.” Three years earlier, the CCP had started actively planning to invest in Panama’s infrastructure, such as ports, railways, and highways, with the total amount of investment reaching about $24 billion. [85] China has already acquired control over both ends of the Panama Canal, which is of great international strategic importance.
The CCP has also invested close to $30 billion in El Salvador’s La Union port. In July 2018, the US Ambassador to El Salvador warned in El Salvador’s El Diario De Hoy newspaper that Chinese investment in the port had a military objective and deserved close attention. [86]
On the cultural front, by the beginning of 2018, the CCP had established thirty-nine Confucius Institutes and eleven Confucius Classrooms in Latin America and the Caribbean, with total enrollment exceeding 50,000. [87] Confucius Institutes have been identified as institutions used by the CCP for spying, as well as transmitting Communist Party culture and ideology under the guise of traditional Chinese culture.
The CCP’s expansion and infiltration into Latin America is a serious threat to the United States. By using access to the Chinese market and dependence on economic investment and military aid to sway the policies of Latin American governments, China is able to pull them into its own sphere of influence and pit them against the United States. The canals, ports, railways, and communications facilities the CCP builds are all important tools that will be used to expand and establish its global hegemony.
f. The CCP’s Growing Military Capabilities
As China’s military power has developed, it has become more aggressive in areas such as the South China Sea. In 2009, Chinese vessels followed and harassed a US surveillance ship (the USNS Impeccable) while the latter was conducting routine operations in international waters there. [88] A similar incident took place in international waters in the Yellow Sea when Chinese vessels repeatedly came within thirty yards of the USNS Victorious, forcing it to make a dangerous sudden stop. [89] In September 2018, a Chinese warship conducted aggressive maneuvers warning the USS Decatur to depart the area. The Chinese ship approached within forty-five yards of the bow of the Decatur, forcing the American vessel to maneuver to prevent a collision. [90]
The CCP revealed its military ambitions long ago. Its strategy is to move from being a land power to being a maritime superpower and eventually establishing hegemony over both. In 1980, Beijing’s strategy was to perform active defense, and its focus was mainly on defending its own borders. At the time, its main adversary was the Soviet Army. In 2013, Beijing’s frontline defense turned into active offense for the purpose of expanding its frontline. It proposed “strategic offense as an important type of active defense.” [91]
The US Department of Defense stated in an annual report to Congress in 2018:
China’s maritime emphasis and attention to missions guarding its overseas interests have increasingly propelled the PLA beyond China’s borders and its immediate periphery. The PLAN’s [the Chinese navy’s] evolving focus — from “offshore waters defense” to a mix of “offshore waters defense” and “open seas protection” — reflects the high command’s expanding interest in a wider operational reach. China’s military strategy and ongoing PLA reform reflect the abandonment of its historically land-centric mentality. Similarly, doctrinal references to “forward edge defense” that would move potential conflicts far from China’s territory suggest PLA strategists envision an increasingly global role. [92]
The PRC has built islands and militarized reef islets in the South China Sea, equipping them with airports, shore-based aircraft, and missiles. It fortified three strategically important islets, namely Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef, with anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and airfields. The islands essentially serve as stationary aircraft carriers that can be used in the event of military conflict. At the strategic level, the PLA navy is capable of breaking through the boundaries of the island chain that stretches from the Kuril Islands in the north to the islands of Taiwan and Borneo in the south, giving it the capability to fight in the open ocean.
Lawrence Sellin, retired US Army colonel and military commentator, wrote in 2018: “China is now attempting to extend its international influence beyond the South China Sea by linking to a similar framework for dominance in the northern Indian Ocean. If permitted to complete the link, China could be in an unassailable position to exert authority over roughly one-half of the global GDP.” [93]
The dominance of the South China Sea isn’t an issue of territory, but of global strategy. Each year, close to $5 trillion in merchandise moves through the South China Sea. [94] For China, its Maritime Silk Road begins with the South China Sea, and an estimated 80 percent of its oil imports will travel by sea. [95] Peacekeeping in the South China Sea following World War II fell to the United States and its allies, which poses a big threat to the Chinese regime.
M. Taylor Fravel, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that since 1949, China has engaged in twenty-three territorial disputes with its neighbors. It settled seventeen of these disputes. In fifteen of these settlements, Beijing offered substantial compromises on the allocation of disputed territory. But when it comes to issues in the South China Sea, since the 1950s, even when the Chinese navy was militarily insignificant, it has taken an uncompromising approach and has claimed indisputable sovereignty over the region. China has never used such absolute language in other territorial disputes.
Fravel listed several reasons for China’s strong stance on South China Sea issues. “China views offshore islands such as the [Spratly Islands] as strategic. From these islands, China can claim jurisdiction over adjacent waters that might contain significant natural resources and even jurisdiction over some activities of foreign naval vessels,” he said. “South China Sea outcrops can also be developed into forward outposts for projecting military power. … They might also aid China’s submarine force by preventing other states from tracking Chinese submarines that seek to enter the Western Pacific from the South China Sea.” [96]
The Chinese regime’s aggressive and expansionary actions in the South China Sea, especially the steps it has taken in recent years to change the status quo, have heightened military tensions in the greater region. In reaction, “Japan, of course, has reversed a decade of declining military outlays, while India has revived stalled naval modernization,” wrote author and geostrategist Brahma Chellaney in 2018. [97] Masking its efforts with the excuse of safe passage for energy and freight, China’s active expansion in the South China Sea has tipped the balance of power in the region and increases the possibility of military conflict. Geoscientist Scott Montgomery of the University of Washington pointed out that “Chinese perception of the [South China Sea] as a security concern has led to an erosion of security in the region.” [98] Western scholars believe that Chinese military officials are looking at how to project power ever farther abroad. In 2017, the PLA established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. [99]
The CCP regime maintains the largest army in the world, with two million active personnel, according to a 2019 International Institute for Strategic Studies report. [100] The PLA also has the largest ground force in the world, the largest number of warships, the third-most naval tonnage, and a massive air force. It has a nuclear strike capability consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic-missile submarines, and strategic bombers.
Communist China’s military expansion is not limited to the traditional divisions of land, sea, and air; it is also making advances in the realms of space and electromagnetic warfare.
The Chinese regime also has 1.7 million personnel in the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary organization primarily tasked with maintaining internal order. Like the PLA, the organization is under the unified leadership of the CCP Central Military Commission; in addition to this the CCP also maintains a large number of reserve and militia units. The Party’s military doctrine has always stressed the importance of “people’s war.” Under the CCP’s totalitarian system, it can quickly redirect all available resources for military use in the event of war. This means that the CCP has a pool of over a billion people from which it can draft huge numbers of people. Even overseas Chinese factor into the CCP’s military and intelligence strategy; in 2017, the PRC passed a “national intelligence law” demanding all Chinese citizens assist the Communist Party, no matter where they reside.
China’s GDP increased rapidly between 1997 and 2007. The PLA ground forces now have thousands of modern main battle tanks. The PLA Navy has two aircraft carriers in its fleet and is building more. Ninety percent of PLA Air Force fighters are of the fourth generation, and the CCP has begun to introduce fifth-generation fighters.
In early 2017, the PRC announced a 6.5 percent inflation-adjusted increase in its annual military budget to $154.3 billion. Analysis of data from 2008 through 2017 indicates Beijing’s official military budget grew at an annual average of 8 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over that period. [101] Observers estimate that the CCP’s actual military spending is twice as much as what is officially acknowledged. Aside from this, the military strength of the regime is not fully reflected in military spending because its actual military expenditure is higher than the public figures, and the CCP can requisition many civilian resources and manpower at its discretion. The entire industrial system can serve the needs of war, which means its true military capabilities far exceed official data and the usual estimates.
The CCP uses a broad range of espionage to catch up with the United States in technology. According to some estimates, more than 90 percent of espionage against the United States conducted via hacking comes from the PRC, and the CCP’s networks infiltrate large American companies and the military, stealing technology and knowledge that the Chinese cannot develop independently. [102]
The CCP has built a global system consisting of more than thirty Beidou (Big Dipper) navigation satellites, with global military-positioning capabilities. In conjunction with this, the PLA is fielding increasingly advanced combat-capable drones. At the 2018 Zhuhai Airshow in China, the debut of the CH-7 Rainbow drone caught the attention of military experts. The Rainbow series signifies that China has caught up in the technology for developing armed drones. A large number of the earlier CH-4 Rainbows have taken over the military markets of Jordan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan, countries that were restricted from purchasing armed drones from the United States. [103] The latest CH-7 Rainbow, in some ways, is as well-equipped as the X-47B, the best drone the United States has to offer. [104] A video played at the airshow simulated the drones combating the enemy, which was clearly the US military. [105] The drones’ small size allows them to be deployed from a variety of platforms, including civilian vessels, which could give the CCP an advantage over Taiwan in a potential conflict. [106] A large number of aerial drones can form clusters under the control of satellites and artificial intelligence, making them useful in regional and asymmetrical conflicts.
The stealth fighter Chinese J-20, also unveiled at the Zhuhai Air Show, resembles the American F-22, while the Chinese J-31 appears modeled on the F-35. Though still lagging behind the US military in many respects, the PRC defense industry is closing the gap with the United States in developing modern jet fighters.
In terms of tactics, the PLA focuses on asymmetric capabilities: asymmetric warfare, asymmetric strategy, and asymmetric weapons. [107] Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, described China as a “peer competitor.” He said that China is not trying to match America’s firepower one-to-one; rather, it is trying to catch up with the United States by building critical asymmetric capabilities, including the use of anti-ship missiles and capabilities in submarine warfare. Because of this, he warned that “there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China.” [108]
One such asymmetrical weapon is the Dongfeng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile. Traditionally, ballistic missiles are used for delivering nuclear warheads to stationary targets such as cities and military bases, but the Dongfeng 21D is a unique weapon intended for use against US aircraft carrier battle groups at sea. The CCP has also followed the Soviet Cold War-era strategy of deploying large numbers of cruise missiles in an effort to offset US naval supremacy. In 2018, the PLA revealed its land-based YJ-12B supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, known as the “aircraft carrier killer.” It has drawn a 550-kilometer “death zone” in the western Pacific, in which American carrier battle groups will be susceptible to ultra low-altitude saturation strikes.
Armed with missiles like the Dongfeng 21D and the YJ-12, the PLA does not have to match the US Navy in one-to-one strength — such as the number of deployable aircraft carriers — to be able to deny it regional access to the Western Pacific.
Following the rapid expansion of its military power, the PRC has become a huge weapons exporter to the world’s authoritarian regimes, such as North Korea and Iran. On the one hand, the goal is to expand its military alliances, and on the other hand, to disperse and counter US military power. To this end, the CCP regime encourages hatred against the United States, finding common cause with other anti-American regimes.
At the same time, the CCP leadership has adopted terrorist military theories such as unrestricted warfare. It advocates the necessity of war by saying that “war is not far from us; it is the birthplace of the ‘Chinese century.’” It legitimizes violence and terror with sayings such as “death is the driving force for the advancement of history.” It justifies aggression with the sayings “there is no right to development without the right to war” and “the development of one country poses a threat to another — this is the general rule of world history.” [109]
Zhu Chenghu, a major general and the dean of the PRC’s National Defense University, publicly stated in 2005 that if the United States intervened in a war in the Taiwan Strait, China would preemptively use nuclear weapons to raze hundreds of cities in the United States, even if all of China to the east of Xi’an (a city located at the western edge of China’s traditional boundaries) were destroyed as a consequence. [110] Zhu’s statements were made largely to probe the reactions of the international community.
It is important to be aware that the CCP’s military strategies are always subordinate to its political needs, and that the regime’s military ambitions form only one dimension of its broader scheme to establish communist hegemony over the entire globe. [111]
3. Unrestricted Warfare With Chinese Communist Characteristics
In the process of realizing its global ambitions, the CCP recognizes no moral limitations and obeys no laws. As discussed in Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, the history of the CCP’s founding and rise to power was a process of gradually perfecting the evilness found through history, both in China and around the world, including the Party’s nine inherited traits: “evil, deceit, incitement, unleashing the scum of society, espionage, robbery, fighting, elimination, and control.” [112] These traits are seen everywhere through the CCP’s global expansion, and the Party has continually enhanced and strengthened its techniques and their malignancy. The CCP’s unrestricted warfare is the concentrated expression of these evil traits and an important part of its success.
The idea of unrestricted warfare has always run through the CCP’s military practices, but the term was first used officially in the 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare, written by two Chinese colonels. As the name implies, unrestricted warfare has these characteristics: “[It is] a war beyond all boundaries and limits, … forcing the enemy to accept one’s own interests by all means, including methods of force and non-force, military and non-military, killing and non-killing. … The means are all-inclusive, information is omnipresent, the battlefield is everywhere … beyond all political, historical, cultural, and moral restraints.”
Unrestricted warfare means that “all weapons and technologies can be used at will; it means that all boundaries between the worlds of war and non-war, military and non-military, are broken.” It utilizes methods that span nations and spheres of activity. Finance, trade, the media, international law, outer space, and more are all potential battlefields. Weapons include hacking, terrorism, biochemical warfare, ecological warfare, atomic warfare, electronic warfare, drug trafficking, intelligence, smuggling, psychological warfare, ideological warfare, sanctions, and so on. [113]
The authors of Unrestricted Warfare believe that “the generalization of war” is the inevitable future direction and that every field must be militarized. They believe that utilizing a large number of nonmilitary personnel is the key to unrestricted warfare, and that the government must quickly prepare for combat in all invisible fields of war. [114]
Many people refer to various professional or social environments as “battlefields” by way of metaphor, but the CCP takes this literally. All fields are battlefields because the CCP is in a state of war at all times, and everyone is a combatant. All conflicts are regarded as struggles of life and death. Slight problems are magnified to be questions of principle or ideology, and the whole country is mobilized, as if in a state of active war, to meet the CCP’s goals.
In the 1940s, during the Chinese Civil War, the CCP used economic warfare to harm the economy of the Nationalist government (Kuomintang, or KMT) of the Republic of China and cause it to collapse. The Party used espionage to obtain the Kuomintang’s military plans even before the KMT’s own troops received them. The CCP continues to use unrestricted means of warfare today, on a yet larger and broader scale. Unrestricted warfare, which breaks all conventional rules and moral restraints, leaves most Westerners, Western governments, and Western companies unable to understand the CCP, much less contend with it.
The CCP implements many seemingly mundane means, in numerous fields, to achieve its goals:
* Exporting Party culture and lies to the world through foreign propagandaControlling global media and carrying out ideological warfare
* Using fame, honey traps (sexual entrapment), interpersonal relationships, bribery, and despotic power to gain leverage over the leaders of global organizations, important political figures, experts in think tanks and academic circles, business tycoons, and influentials from all walks of life
* Supporting, inciting, and allying with rogue regimes to distract the United States and Western governments
* Using trade diplomacy to make free countries compete against one another, using the market of more than one billion Chinese consumers as bait
* Deepening economic integration and interdependency to tie up other countries
* Violating World Trade Organization trade rules
* Making false reform commitments to accumulate trade surplus and foreign exchange reserves
* Using the market, foreign exchange, and financial resources as weapons to suppress human rights through economic unrestricted warfare and to force other countries to abandon moral responsibility and universal values
* Forcing Chinese working in private enterprises abroad to steal information from them
* Making hostages of China’s citizens and those of other countries
a. The CCP’s Global Propaganda Operations
In 2018, when the PRC’s state-run broadcaster established a branch in London, the outlet encountered an enviable problem: receiving too many job applications. Nearly six thousand people applied for the ninety positions available. [115] People’s eagerness to work for the CCP’s mouthpiece — the jobs required reporting news from the PRC’s perspective — reflects the decline of the Western media industry and the threat that the CCP’s foreign propaganda poses to the world.
The World’s Largest Propaganda Machine
Mao Zedong once demanded that the Xinhua News Agency “take charge of the earth and let the whole world hear our voice.” [116]
After the 2008 financial crisis, Western media outlets faced their own financial and business crises. The CCP seized the opportunity to deploy its “external propaganda” campaign. The People’s Daily, China Daily, Xinhua, China Central Television (CCTV), China Radio International, and other Communist Party mouthpieces set up newspaper distribution, radio stations, and television stations around the world.
Chang Ping, former news director of the major Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend, said that between 2009 and 2015, the Chinese regime allocated 45 billion yuan ($6.52 billion) to the “national strategy for external propaganda in public relations and publicity.” According to Chinese media sources, the 45 billion yuan was only a small part of the total expenditure. [117] The CCP spends between an estimated $7 billion and $10 billion per year on media targeted at non-Chinese foreigners, according to a 2015 report published by The Wilson Center. [118]
In March 2018, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China led the integration of CCTV, China Radio International, and China National Radio to establish the China Media Group, also called Voice of China. It has become the largest propaganda machine in the world.
The CCP’s foreign propaganda apparatus attempts to blend in by recruiting mainly local reporters and presenters. A video call between Xi Jinping and the Washington, DC, bureau of CCTV America in February 2016 showed that the majority of the journalists employed there were not Chinese. [119] But the CCP’s propaganda department drives the content they report. China’s state-run media thus produces local packaging in the target country, using local faces and voices to spout the Communist Party’s thinking and conflate the regime with the Chinese people. It uses locals abroad to spread the CCP’s stories and the CCP’s voice — not China’s true stories and not the voices of the Chinese people.
The Party also provides scholarships to young foreign journalists, including in the areas of food and education, so that they can study or be trained in mainland China and, at the same time, be instilled with the CCP’s views on journalism.
In many situations, the CCP’s propaganda appears unsuccessful due to its crude narratives, which damage its credibility. However, it uses a raft of tactics, including using foreign media as its mouthpiece, ruthlessly attacking any media and individuals that criticize the CCP, and forcing support for the CCP.
Aligning the World’s Media With the CCP
In 2015, the foreign ministers of ten countries condemned the CCP for building artificial islands in the contested waters of the South China Sea. At the same time, a radio station in Washington, DC, claimed that external forces had attempted to fabricate the facts and aggravate tensions in the South China Sea. It failed to mention the CCP’s takeover efforts. The station, WCRW, repeats a great deal of content favoring the position of the CCP — and curiously, it runs no advertising. Its only customer is a Los Angeles company, G&E Studio Inc., itself 60 percent controlled by China Radio International (CRI) in Beijing. G&E broadcasts its programs in Chinese and English on at least fifteen US stations, covering Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Houston, Honolulu, and Portland, among others. [120] The biggest benefit of this operation is to conceal the role of the CCP and listeners are made to feel that Americans themselves are expressing their support for the CCP.
Globally, CRI operated thirty-three such stations in at least fourteen countries in 2015. By 2018, it had fifty-eight stations in thirty-five countries. [121] The control and operations are carried out via local Chinese companies, making it legal, although many people are unhappy about the Party hiding its propaganda. Under the banner of democracy, the CCP advocates for communism and attempts to manipulate its audience into adopting its views by exploiting loopholes in the laws of free societies. It uses democracy to destroy democracy.
The China Daily’s inserts are another important part of the CCP’s external propaganda campaign. China Daily publishes pro-CCP news inserts in The Washington Post using a layout style that can give readers the impression that it’s The Washington Post’s content, as the text indicating the insert is an advertisement is placed in an inconspicuous location. [122] The CCP struck similar deals with more than thirty other newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, and Le Figaro.
On September 23, 2018, China Daily also inserted a four-page supplement that looked like ordinary news and commentary in the local Iowa newspaper Des Moines Register. The material attacked the US president and the pending trade deal, in what some called an attempt to influence the upcoming midterm elections. [123]
When it comes to information warfare, the CCP’s totalitarian regime has several advantages over other countries. The Party blocks media from all democratic countries, but is able to insert its state-run media in democratic societies. The CCP prevents media inserts from free countries being added to its own media, but the CCP can insert its content into the media from free societies. CCP media serve the Party first and foremost, and Western journalists will never hold executive roles in their Party mouthpieces. The CCP can, however, send its own undercover people into Western media or train foreigners into being mouthpiece reporters for the Party’s media.
As long as the West still regards the CCP media as legitimate, the West will continue to lose in the information war. In 2018, the US Department of Justice ordered Xinhua and China Global Television Network to register as foreign agents in the United States. It was a step in the right direction but far from sufficient, the problem being the lack of reciprocity in the first place.
More recently, the US government has taken stronger action to counteract the CCP’s propaganda narratives. Starting in March 2020, the US State Department began placing restrictions on PRC-controlled media outlets operating in the United States, such as naming them foreign missions and limiting the number of staff they can hire. Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been especially vocal in their criticism of the Communist Party’s attempts to win the propaganda war.
The Communist Party also excels in controlling overseas Chinese-language media. Through coercion and enticement, the CCP has recruited a large number of Chinese-language media, including some Taiwanese-founded media that previously had a strong tradition of anti-communism. The CCP-sponsored World Chinese Media Forum is used as a platform to communicate the Party’s instructions to Chinese media around the world. More than four hundred and sixty overseas Chinese media executives from more than sixty countries and regions attended the 9th World Chinese Media Forum held in Fuzhou on September 10, 2017.
An example of the impact of this media-control work can be found in the reporting of The China Press (called Qiao Bao in Mandarin), a California-based Chinese-language media outlet that carries CCP propaganda in the United States. The China Press’s lengthy reports during the CCP’s 19th National Congress in 2017 were almost identical to those published by official Party media. [124]
The CCP-controlled Overseas Chinese Media Association, with more than one hundred and sixty media members, swung into action during the 2014 Umbrella Movement’s pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The group urgently rallied one hundred and forty-two pro-PRC media outlets in Asia, Europe, Africa, the United States, and Australia to publish its “Safeguarding Hong Kong” declaration supporting the CCP’s perspective. [125]
Alongside the PRC’s economic “colonization” of Africa, CCP media has also reached all corners of the continent. The China-based television and media group StarTimes is now operating in thirty African countries and claims to be “the fastest growing and most influential digital TV operator in Africa.” [126] The regime has been relentless in its penetration of overseas media.
Suppressing opposing voices is another aspect of CCP overseas propaganda operations. The Party threatens journalists who expose it with visa denials and other forms of harassment, leading to self-censorship. The result is that there are few global media corporations that take a completely independent stance on the CCP without regard to consequences imposed by the regime.
There are several ways for a tyrannical regime like the CCP to improve its public image. The first and most direct way is to implement genuine reform and transition to a form of government that respects human rights, universal values, and the rule of law. The second way is for the regime to cover up its crimes through censorship. The third way is to actively convince the outside world to side with the regime. The third method offers the most effective form of cover for tyranny.
The CCP has used both the second and third methods simultaneously over decades. It employs a variety of large-scale propaganda activities to target foreigners, changing the minds of people to make them think positively about communist China, or at least not criticize its fundamental flaws. In some cases, CCP propaganda is even able to pull them into the mire, turning them into active allies. Through extensive investments and shrewd operations, the Party has established a worldwide system for creating alliances, isolating enemies, and turning neutral entities into sympathizers or scoundrels.
Manipulating Cultural Exchange to Indoctrinate the World in CCP Culture
Ideological and political indoctrination is an essential tool in the CCP’s destruction of traditional Chinese culture. But in recent years, the Party has advertised its commitment to restoring traditional culture, seeking to frame itself as the legitimate representative of the Chinese nation and its identity. As discussed in previous chapters of this book, this wave of supposed restoration has left out the soul of the traditions, replacing it with a fake version infused with deviant Communist Party culture. This has not only deceived the world, but also further undermined China’s ancient heritage. Typical examples of this effort are Confucius Institutes, which are set up on college and high school campuses around the world.
Confucius Institutes subvert important academic principles of autonomy and freedom of inquiry, aim to promote the CCP’s version of historical events, distort the history of China, and omit the CCP’s appalling human rights record. In some Confucius Institute classrooms, quotes from Mao are hung on the wall. On the surface, Confucius Institutes claim to teach Chinese culture, while, in fact, they promote communist doctrine and transmit Party culture.
According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2017, the PRC had established at least 525 Confucius Institutes (targeting colleges and universities) and opened 1,113 Confucius Classrooms (targeting elementary and secondary schools) in more than 145 countries. [127] Confucius Institute funding is provided by Hanban, an organization affiliated with the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The use of funds is supervised by personnel from the PRC embassies and consulates.
In addition to offering cultural and language courses, Confucius Institutes also distort history and even organize protests against activities the CCP believes threaten its dominance. For example, pro-Beijing speakers invited to Confucius Institute-sponsored events have repeated the CCP’s lies about Tibet, while others have claimed the United States drew China into the Korean War by bombing Chinese villages, according to a 2018 report by the congressional US–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). [128]
The US National Defense Authorization Act for the 2019 fiscal year condemned the CCP’s attempts to influence US public opinion, especially “media, cultural institutions, businesses, and academic and political groups.” The act explicitly prohibits any national defense funds from being given to Chinese-language departments in US universities where a Confucius Institute exists. [129]
The CCP’s foreign propaganda campaign is a major project aimed at globally reshaping the public’s views on the regime. The CCP spreads its noxious ideology through this propaganda work, which has severely misled people about the regime, its mode of operations, its human rights abuses, and communism in general.
b. The Aim of United-Front Work: Disintegrating the Free World From Within
On December 18, 2018, the CCP celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its so-called reform and opening up. It awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal to ten influential foreigners to “thank the international community for supporting China’s reform.” [130] These ten foreigners included Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the International Olympic Committee, which had selected China to host the 2008 Olympics Games; and Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an American businessman who lent his name as author of a fawning biography of former CCP head Jiang. Over the past few decades, countless politicians and celebrities have acted as accomplices to the CCP’s united-front tactics.
Mao labeled the united front as one of the CCP’s “three magic treasures.” Western governments have been deceived and suffered losses by these tactics, but some are beginning to wake up, and a number of investigative reports about the united front have been published.
The USCC’s 2018 report China’s Overseas United Front Work outlines the CCP’s overseas united-front work structure and operations, including how the CCP uses various types of governmental and non-governmental organizations for its united-front work and the implications for the United States and other Western countries. The report states, “This elevation of the importance of United Front work has resulted in an increased number of UFWD officials assigned to top CCP and government posts, adding roughly 40,000 new UFWD cadres.” [131]
The think tank Global Public Policy Institute published a report in 2018 detailing the activities of CCP’s united front in Europe. [132] The Hoover Institution at Stanford University released a detailed report on the same topic on Nov. 29, 2018. The report states: “China’s influence activities have moved beyond their traditional United Front focus on diaspora communities to target a far broader range of sectors in Western societies, ranging from think tanks, universities, and media to state, local, and national government institutions. China seeks to promote views sympathetic to the Chinese Government, policies, society, and culture; suppress alternative views; and co-opt key American players to support China’s foreign policy goals and economic interests.” [133]
The CCP’s united front primarily targets the following actors in the West: politicians and businesspeople; academicians and members of think tanks; overseas Chinese leaders, businessmen, and students; the movie and entertainment industries; and overseas dissidents.
Politicians and Businesspeople
The USCC report says the CCP regards its united-front work as an important tool to strengthen domestic and international support for the Party. This includes buying off Western politicians. Through persuasion, temptation, and relationship-building, the CCP maintains close ties with many high-level officials in Western governments. The Party treats these politicians as its “state treasures,” giving them lavish gifts and conferring upon them titles such as “old friends of China.” Among them are current and former United Nations secretaries general, heads of state, high-ranking government officials, senior government advisers, heads of international organizations, famous academics and think-tank scholars, and media consortium tycoons. All these people in the united-front network are expected to voice their support for the CCP at crucial moments.
Patrick Ho Chi-ping, a former Hong Kong secretary for home affairs, was convicted in the United States for bribery in December 2018. Ho had close ties to the CCP, and bribed high-ranking officials in two African nations on behalf of China Energy Co. Ltd., a CCP-linked energy corporation in order to obtain mining rights. [134]
US court papers also document the corruption and espionage carried out by Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE. Two high-ranking telecom officials in Liberia testified that between 2005 and 2007, ZTE bribed numerous officials — including the president, government officials, and judges — with paper bags full of thousands of dollars in cash. [135]
The CCP uses money and women to entrap political leaders and then use them as pawns for the regime’s ends. In a memorandum following the November 2014 midterm US elections, CEFC China Energy outlined a plan to establish relationships and friendships with politicians. Ye Jianming, the now-disgraced chairman of the company, has strong ties to European political leaders. He once asked a security adviser to a US president to persuade the US army not to bomb Syria because he wanted to buy up oil fields there. Ye also boasted connections to senior officials at the Federal Reserve and the United Nations, as well as family members of US government officials. [136]
When deemed necessary, the CCP can form various temporary united fronts to isolate its enemies. For instance, the CCP has used the votes of developing nations whose officials it previously suborned to pass or block motions at the United Nations. Via proxies, it has disrupted US efforts to stabilize the Middle East. In the meantime, it has been able to forge new economic alliances. In the US–China trade war, the CCP sought to sow conflict between the United States and Europe with the aim of using the latter as part of another united front against the United States.
Local politicians are also targets of the CCP’s united-front work. These include community leaders, city council members, mayors, state senators, and others. The usual approach is to donate to local politicians through Chinese organizations or merchants, who are invited to visit China, where they receive bribes. Their family businesses get special treatment in China. Cases of sexual entrapment, known as “honey traps,” often involve blackmail and the CCP often uses this tactic.
Chen Yonglin, a former officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005, told The Epoch Times that the UFWD had infiltrated the Australian government and had corrupted officials. Chen said: “The amount of private bribery for the officials far surpassed political donations. Especially those higher-ranking officials; the bribes were huge. … Another aspect of bribery is the all-expenses-paid trips to China, where officials are treated as kings. This includes prostitution paid for by Chinese companies. Many officials changed their stances after returning from China.” [137]
With its strong financial backing, the CCP has paid communist and leftist politicians around the world to become its agents in those nations in order to further spread communist ideology.
The CCP uses the same tactics on those in the financial sector and a number of other industries. Business people and entrepreneurs are treated as kings and given business incentives. In return, they become the CCP’s voice for lobbying their governments and influencing their countries’ financial and economic policies. In the US–China trade war, the CCP had frequent contact with Wall Street tycoons. Many top financial companies and international corporations do business in China. To help expand their business there, these companies hire numerous children of high-ranking Chinese officials, called “princelings.” In turn, these princelings act as the Party’s eyes, ears, and voice in those companies.
Academic Circles and Think Tanks
Many think tanks in the West directly shape their country’s policies and strategy toward China; therefore, the CCP pays them special attention. The CCP exerts control over think tanks via financial sponsorship. It has bribed, controlled, or influenced almost all think tanks related to China. [138] The Chinese tech giant Huawei has provided financial support to think tanks in Washington, who then write positive reports about Huawei, according to a 2018 Washington Post report. [139]
Huawei sponsors more than twenty universities in the UK, including Cambridge and Oxford universities. Historian Anthony Glees, a British expert in national security, said: “This is about the electronic agenda being driven by the injection of Chinese money into British universities. That is a national security issue.” [140] Huawei, through its Seeds for the Future program, attracted a large number of young talented engineers — a classic communist subversion tactic.
The CCP buys off overseas scholars, especially China observers, with money, status, and fame. Some such scholars then closely follow the CCP’s rhetorical line, publishing books and articles to explain the CCP’s “peaceful rise,” the concepts of the “China dream” or the “China model.” The viewpoints of these scholars then influence the China policies of Western governments to accommodate the CCP as it goes about hijacking the international order.
To make things worse, over the past several decades, Western humanities scholars and sociologists have been heavily influenced by strains of communist ideology. With a small amount of CCP influence, they can go from merely supporting leftist ideology to embracing the Party’s rule.
Overseas Chinese Leaders, Businessmen, and Students
The CCP has successfully exploited the patriotism of overseas Chinese students to create sympathy for CCP policies and ideology. To gain the support of overseas Chinese, the CCP provides them with financial support. It frequently uses the phrase “the love for one’s homeland, the friendship of kin” as part of its deliberate conflation of China and the CCP in order to deceive overseas Chinese. The Party also uses an extensive overseas network of organizations, supporters, and spies to marginalize and attack its opponents.
The CCP uses various pretexts to invite overseas Chinese to do business with and invest in mainland China. It gives overseas Chinese leaders special treatment when visiting the country, arranging for them to meet with high-ranking officials and invites them to attend PRC national-day celebrations.
Zach Dorfman, a senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, published an investigative report in Politico revealing Chinese and Russian espionage activities in Silicon Valley, with a particular focus on Chinese actors. The report examined Rose Pak, the San Francisco Chinese powerbroker, as an example. It noted that the CCP used Pak to have the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco marginalize Falun Gong, Tibetan, pro-Taiwan, and Uyghur groups, preventing them from participating in the Chinese New Year parade. [141]
The USCC report also detailed how Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) are controlled by the CCP. On their websites, some CSSA branches directly state that they were established by the local Chinese consulate or are its subsidiaries, while in other cases, the control is carried out clandestinely. These organizations receive orders from the PRC consulates, preventing any dissonant views from being aired. Consulate officials harass, intimidate, and monitor students who dissent from the Communist Party line.
CSSAs and those affiliated with them sometimes even conduct industrial and economic espionage. In 2005, France’s Le Monde reported that the CSSA at the University of Leuven in Belgium was the CCP’s front-line spy group in the country. Sometimes such spy networks consist of several hundred agents working in various companies in Europe. [142]
The Film and Entertainment Industries
In recent years, the CCP has increased efforts at infiltrating the US entertainment industry. In 2012, the mainland Chinese Wanda Group spent $2.6 billion to acquire AMC, the second-largest movie theater chain in the United States. Since then, it has acquired Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, and Carmike Cinemas, the fourth-largest movie theater chain in the United States, for $1.1 billion. [143] In 2016, Ali Pictures acquired a stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, and placed a representative on Amblin’s board of directors to participate in major decision-making. [144]
One of the CCP’s main goals in infiltrating the entertainment industry is to have the world follow the CCP’s script — painting a positive image of the CCP and China’s so-called peaceful rise — to conceal the regime’s tyrannical ambitions. At the same time, this image covers up how the exportation of Party culture has corrupted the world. From 1997 to 2013, China invested in only twelve out of the top one hundred highest-grossing Hollywood movies. But in the ensuing five years, China co-financed forty-one of Hollywood’s most popular movies. [145]
Hollywood covets China’s rapidly growing movie market, and executives are well-aware that they’ll be excluded from it if they fail to toe the Party line. Thus, they set about ensuring they are in compliance with Chinese censorship. [146] American movie stars who’ve taken a stand against CCP oppression are blocked from entering the country, or their films are excluded from the Chinese market. Hollywood star Richard Gere’s clear support for Tibet, for example, led to his being denied access to China, thus limiting his career in the United States as film producers sought to avoid offending or provoking the CCP. [147] Other movie stars have been blacklisted for such “transgressions” as well.
Marginalizing Overseas Experts and Dissidents
The CCP has used intimidation and incentives to influence Western China scholars and marginalize the experts who are critical of the regime. This has led many to willingly self-censor. Intimidation includes refusal to issue visas, which has the greatest impact on young scholars. For the sake of professional advancement, many voluntarily avoid discussing human rights, Tibet, and other sensitive topics that might attract the Party’s ire.
Perry Link, a professor of East Asian Studies, was blacklisted by the CCP for his scholarship on the Tiananmen Square massacre. His treatment by the regime became a “lesson” for young scholars as to what not to do. [148]
In October 2017, Benedict Rogers, deputy chairman of the British Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission and supporter of the Hong Kong democracy movement, went to Hong Kong on a private visit to see friends, including democracy activists, but was refused entry and repatriated at the Hong Kong airport. [149]
The 2018 report by the USCC also said that PRC intelligence agents attempt to recruit people from ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs living abroad, to act as spies. Refusal may lead to persecution of their family members in China. Uyghurs who have been threatened state that the purpose of such threats is not only to collect information about the Uyghur diaspora, but also to create discord and prevent them from effectively opposing the CCP. [150]
c. Economic Warfare: The CCP’s Heavy Weaponry
If external foreign propaganda, perception-management, and united-front work are the CCP’s forms of soft power, then its high-tech industry must be the Party’s hard power. In the 1950s, the CCP’s slogan was to “surpass the United Kingdom and catch up with the United States.” Today, that strategy has become a legitimate threat.
Since the 1980s, the PRC has implemented a series of strategic plans in science and technology, including the 863 Program (also known as the State High Technology Research and Development Program), which helped facilitate the theft of technology from other countries; the Torch Program, which helped build high-tech commercial industries; the 973 Program, for scientific research; and the 211 Project, which helped “reform” universities. [151][152] The Made in China 2025 plan aims to transform China from a manufacturing country to a manufacturing power by 2025, taking the lead in big data, 5G, and the like. The strategy includes ambitious plans for artificial intelligence, in which China aims to be a world leader by 2030. The purpose is to upgrade the PRC’s status as the world factory to that of an advanced manufacturing giant, thereby attaining global supremacy. [153]
Under normal circumstances, it is normal for a country to mobilize state resources for the benefit of industrial development, or to invest in the research of key technologies. But the CCP’s high-tech development strategy poses a fundamental threat to the free world. The PRC is not a normal country, and does not respect the norms that govern international relations. The purpose of the CCP’s technological development is not so it can join the ranks of the world’s other high-tech countries or compete on equal footing with them, but to eliminate opponents and take down Western economies — especially that of the United States — and thus be one step closer to world domination.
Technological innovation is the fruit of individual liberty, which is in natural conflict with the totalitarian rule of communism. Researchers in mainland China are deprived of the freedom to use foreign search engines, let alone express their freedom in other ways. Thus it is indeed difficult to make real breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation given the CCP’s restrictions on thought and access to information.
To make up for this, the Party has used various underhanded means to steal Western technology and win over cutting-edge talent, and has also used unfair and extraordinary measures to undermine Western industry. The PRC has adopted an all-of-state approach, including government bodies and firms, the military, private business, and individuals to steal technologies the West spent decades and vast sums of money to develop. After assimilating and improving upon the stolen intellectual property, mainland Chinese companies mass-produce high-tech goods at low costs and dump them in international markets, squeezing out foreign enterprises, which are privately owned and cannot flout regulations as is done in the PRC. This economic strategy forms an important component in the CCP’s use of “unrestricted warfare” against the West.
The Trap of Trading Technology for Market Access
In recent years, China’s high-speed rail network has become almost like an advertisement for the country’s high-end manufacturing prowess, and the concept of “high-speed rail diplomacy” has arisen. Chinese state media has called China’s work in this area “legendary,” given its rapid development in only ten years. But to Western companies, China’s high-speed rail buildup has been a nightmare of technological theft, entrapment, and what ultimately became huge losses in exchange for only small gains.
Work on the high-speed rail project began in the early 1990s. By the end of 2005, the CCP abandoned the idea of developing the technology independently and turned to Western technology. The CCP’s goal was clear from the beginning: It planned to first acquire the technology, then manufacture the same technology and sell it for cheaper prices on the global market.
The Chinese side requires that foreign manufacturers sign a technology-transfer contract with a Chinese domestic firm before bidding on construction contracts. The Chinese regime also established formal internal assessments called “technology-transfer-implementation evaluations,” which focus not on how well foreign businesses teach their systems, but rather on how well domestic companies learn them. If domestic enterprises don’t completely master the technology, China doesn’t pay. The authorities also require that by the last batch of orders, local companies must produce 70 percent of the orders. [154]
Because foreign companies felt that accessing China’s market was an opportunity not to be missed, such terms didn’t stop them from signing contracts. Japan’s Kawasaki, France’s Alstom, Germany’s Siemens, and Canada’s Bombardier all submitted bids. Still, no Western company was willing to transfer its core, most-valued technology. The CCP thus continued to play games with several of the companies in the hope that at least one would relent and give up something of real value for the benefit of short-term interests. Sure enough, when it appeared that one company would get a chunk of the Chinese market in exchange for technology, the others began to fear being left out. Thus, several of them fell into the CCP’s trap, with the result that China was able to extract key technology from the above four companies.
The PRC has invested huge sums in the rail project, acting regardless of cost, and Chinese firms built out the world’s most extensive high-speed rail system by mileage. In a few years, China rapidly assimilated Western technology, which was then turned into “independent intellectual property rights.” What really shocked Western companies was when the PRC then began applying for high-speed rail patents abroad, with Chinese firms becoming fierce competitors against their former teachers on the international market. Because Chinese companies have accumulated a great deal of practical experience in this realm, and are afforded all the industrial advantages brought by large-scale production capacity and massive state financial backing, China’s high-speed rail industry possesses a competitive advantage against peers. It has become a key element of the Party’s One Belt, One Road project.
While foreign companies once dreamed of getting their share of the huge market for high-speed rail in China, they found instead that not only were they squeezed out of that market, but they also had created a tough international competitor. Yoshiyuki Kasai, an honorary chairman of the Central Japan Railway Company, said: “The Shinkansen [Japanese bullet train] is the jewel of Japan. The technology transfer to China was a huge mistake.” [155]
The CCP itself acknowledges that China’s success in high-speed rail was achieved by standing on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, its purpose from the beginning was to become a giant so as to slay all the others. The CCP has an explicit dual purpose: Its short-term goal is to use economic achievements to prove the legitimacy of its regime and to make economic and technological progress to maintain and excite nationalist sentiment and propaganda. But its long-term purpose is to prove that its communist system is superior to the capitalist system, so it unscrupulously steals technology and uses the power of the entire country to compete with capitalist free enterprise.
The CCP’s tactics — promising market access in exchange for technology, coercing tech transfers, absorbing and improving foreign technology, having mainland Chinese firms practice in the domestic market before advancing to the world, and dumping products globally to undercut competitors — have led Western companies, and job markets, to suffer immensely.
In 2015, the CCP proposed the ten-year Made in China 2025 project, envisioning that by 2025, China would have transformed from a big manufacturing country to a manufacturing power, and that by 2035, the country’s manufacturing industry would surpass that of industrially advanced countries like Germany and Japan. The PRC hopes it will lead innovation in key manufacturing sectors by 2049. Using such lofty rhetoric, the CCP has raised the status of its manufacturing sector to “the foundation of the nation” and “the instrument for rejuvenating the country.”
A Manufacturing Superpower Built on Theft
How did the CCP boost Chinese manufacturing and innovative potential in such a short period of time? It used the same old tricks: It coerced companies to transfer their technologies, as in the case of high-speed rail and demanded that foreign companies form joint ventures with Chinese firms so they could acquire the foreign companies’ technologies. In addition, the regime encouraged domestic firms to make acquisitions of overseas high-tech companies, directly investing in startups with key technologies, and establishing overseas research-and-development centers. It induced leading foreign tech and scientific research institutes to set up R&D centers in China, and it used targeted policies to bring in foreign technology experts.
Many startups in Silicon Valley need capital. The CCP uses taxpayer money to invest in them in order to get its hands on new technologies, including rocket engines, sensors for autonomous navy ships, and 3D printers that manufacture flexible screens that could be used in fighter-plane cockpits. Ken Wilcox, chairman emeritus of Silicon Valley Bank, said in 2017 that within a six-month period, he was approached by three different Chinese state-owned enterprises about buying technology on their behalf. He said: “In all three cases, they said they had a mandate from Beijing, and they had no idea what they wanted to buy. It was just any and all tech.” [156] A 2018 investigative report by the Office of the United States Trade Representative said that Digital Horizon Capital (formerly Danhua Capital) uses China’s venture capital to help the CCP gain top technologies and intellectual property in the United States. [157]
The PRC’s aptitude for industrial espionage far exceeds the scope of commercial spies in the past. In order to steal technology and secrets from the West, the regime mobilizes all available personnel and tactics — including espionage, hackers, international students, visiting scholars, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants working in Western companies, and Westerners lured by monetary interests.
The CCP has always coveted the US F-35 stealth fighter jet. In 2016, a Canadian permanent citizen from China, Su Bin, was sentenced to forty-six months in prison for helping steal plans for the F-35 and other US military aircraft. Su worked with two hackers from the Chinese military to penetrate the computer systems of the manufacturer Lockheed Martin and steal the trade secrets. Investigators found that Su’s group had also stolen information about Lockheed’s F-22 stealth fighter and Boeing’s C-17 strategic transport aircraft, as well as 630,000 files from Boeing’s system, totaling some 65 gigabytes of data. [158] The PLA’s own J-20 stealth fighter exhibited in recent years is now very similar to the American F-22, and the smaller Chinese FC-31 is an imitation of the F-35.
David Smith, an expert on metamaterials at Duke University, invented a kind of “invisibility cloak” with the potential to one day protect US forces. The US military invested millions in support of his research. In 2006, Chinese student Ruopeng Liu came to the United States with the express purpose of studying at Smith’s lab, becoming the scientist’s protégé. An FBI counterintelligence official believes Liu had a specific mission: to obtain Smith’s research. In 2007, Liu brought two former colleagues, traveling at the Chinese regime’s expense, to visit Smith’s lab, and they worked on the invisibility cloak for a period of time. Later, the equipment used to make the cloak was duplicated at Liu’s old lab in China. [159]
On December 20, 2018, the Department of Justice sued two Chinese citizens from the Chinese hacker organization APT 10, which has close ties with the CCP. According to the indictment, from 2006 to 2018, APT 10 carried out extensive hacking attacks, stealing massive amounts of information from more than forty-five organizations, including NASA and the Department of Energy. The documents stolen included information on medicines, biotechnology, finance, manufacturing, petroleum, and natural gas. FBI Director Christopher Wray said: “China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world’s leading superpower, and they’re using illegal methods to get there. They’re using an expanding set of non-traditional and illegal methods.” [160]
PRC theft of technology and patents is hard to combat and prevent. Kathleen Puckett, a former US counterintelligence officer in San Francisco, said that the CCP puts all its efforts into espionage and gets everything for free. [161]
The CCP has launched a “war against everyone” to loot advanced technology from the West, using patriotism, racial sentiments, money, and prestige to drive its unprecedented stealing spree.
Some have defended Chinese intellectual property theft by arguing that such activity can’t amount to much, because Chinese firms don’t get the full picture of how technology is deployed and scaled. But it’s very dangerous to look at the PRC’s industrial espionage this way. Espionage in the electronic age is completely different from that in decades past, in which spies might take some photos. CCP spies now steal entire databases of research, and in many cases, scoop up not only the technology, but also the experts. With the power of the world factory that the PRC has developed for decades and the R&D potential it has accumulated, the regime is truly willing and able to build a manufacturing superpower based on theft — and it is on course to do so.
The Thousand Talents Program: Espionage and Talent Attraction
From when mainland China opened up in the 1970s until today, millions of Chinese students have studied overseas, and many have become accomplished in various fields. The CCP seeks to recruit and use these talented individuals, invested in and trained by the West, to directly bring back to China the technology and economic information they’ve acquired so as to support the Party’s campaign for global dominance. Until its recent disappearance, multiple PRC government departments ran the Thousand Talents Program. Started in 2008, the Thousand Talents Program was ostensibly about recruiting top Chinese talent overseas to return to China for full-time or short-term positions. But the real goal was for state industry to get its hands on new technology and intellectual property from the West. In 2020, following mounting pressure from the West, information about the Program has been scrubbed from public view.
The FBI declassified a document about the talent programs in September 2015. It concludes that recruiting target individuals allows China to profit in three ways: gaining access to research and expertise in cutting-edge technology, benefiting from years of scientific research conducted in the United States and supported by US government grants and private funding, and severely impacting the US economy. [162]
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) noted in a 2018 report that foreign nationals had transferred US intellectual property to their native countries while on the US government payroll. Their actions have unfairly impacted all US academic institutions. [163] M. Roy Wilson, a report co-author and co-chair of the advisory committee to the NIH director, said that a key qualification of becoming part of the Thousand Talents Program is having access to valuable intellectual property. He said that the problem was significant, not random, and that the severity of the intellectual property losses was impossible to ignore. [164]
Peter Harrell, adjunct senior fellow in the energy, economics, and security program at the Center for a New American Security, said: “China is pursuing a whole-of-society approach to its technological capabilities. That includes purchasing innovative companies through overseas investments, requiring Western companies to transfer cutting-edge technologies to China as a condition of market access, providing vast state resources to finance domestic technological development, financing training for top Chinese students and researchers overseas, and paying a hefty premium to attract talent back to China.” [165]
The Thousand Talents Program included as its targets almost all Chinese students who have come to the United States since the 1980s and who find themselves with access to useful information for the regime’s industrial, technological, and economic development — potentially tens of thousands of individuals. The CCP is mobilizing the capacity of the entire country and population to conduct unrestricted warfare in its recruitment of talent and accumulation of intellectual property.
A Sinister, ‘Whole-of-Government’ Effort
In addition to outright stealing, PRC state support and subsidies are also an important means for the CCP to fulfill its ambitions. State support means that the regime can use huge sums of money to support key industries. Effectively, this is about using China’s national power to exert pressure on private businesses in the West. This poses an enormous, unique challenge to countries where leaders are democratically elected and leave business decisions to businesses themselves. Chinese subsidies — ultimately taken out of the pocket of the unconsenting taxpayer — mean that Chinese manufacturers can ignore the real costs of doing business, making them unstoppable predators in international markets.
The solar cell industry is a classic example of the CCP regime’s subsidies. In the early 2000s, no Chinese companies existed among the top ten solar-panel manufacturers, but by 2017 there were six, including the top two. The green energy industry was heavily promoted during US President Barack Obama’s first term, but before long, dozens of solar-panel makers were filing for bankruptcy or had to cut back their businesses in the face of unrelenting competition from China, which ultimately undermined enthusiasm in the clean energy industry. [166] The damage was wrought by China’s dumping of products on the international market, enabled by the regime’s subsidies for its domestic solar industry.
In Western countries, states also fund key projects, including those on the cutting edge of technological development. The prototype of the internet, for instance, was first developed by the US Department of Defense. However, in the West, government participation at the national level is limited. Once a technology is commercialized, private companies are free to act as they will. For example, NASA disseminated its advanced research results to industry through its Technology Transfer Program. Many of its software projects simply put their source code on the Web as open source. In contrast, the CCP directly uses the power of the state to commercialize high-tech, which is equivalent to using a “China Inc.” to compete against individual Western firms.
The Made in China 2025 project is, of course, inseparable from state subsidies and state industrial planning. If the CCP continues on its current track, the story of the solar panel companies will play out in other industries, and Chinese products will become global job-killers. Through unrestricted economic and technological warfare, the CCP has successfully led many Western companies, including multinational corporations, into a trap. They handed over capital and advanced technology, but weren’t able to compete fairly in the Chinese market, and instead helped create their own state-backed competitors. The CCP used them as pawns to achieve its ambitions.
d. Using the Masses for Espionage
The CCP regards information as simply another weapon in its arsenal. Regardless of the field, whether pertaining to the state, private enterprise, or individual endeavors, all forms of information are seen as fair game for the fulfillment of the regime’s strategic ambitions.
The CCP also has used legislation to force all Chinese people to participate in its unrestricted warfare. The National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China, passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, states that “national intelligence agencies may require relevant agencies, organizations, and citizens to provide necessary support, assistance, and cooperation.” [167] This means that any Chinese citizen can be coerced by the CCP to collect intelligence and become a spy.
On December 12, 2018, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing about the CCP’s non-traditional espionage activities. Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI counterintelligence division, outlined the CCP’s approach: The Party plays by the rules when it’s advantageous, while at other times, it bends or breaks the rules to achieve its goals. When possible, the Party also tries to rewrite the rules and reshape the world according to its own requirements. [168]
John Demers, assistant attorney general of the National Security Division of the US Department of Justice, testified that the CCP’s Made in China 2025 plan is essentially a handbook for what to steal. He disclosed that from 2011 to 2018, more than 90 percent of the cases of economic espionage allegedly involving or benefiting a country, and more than two-thirds of the trade-secret theft cases were related to the PRC. [169]
The CCP’s espionage is far from limited to intellectual property. The CCP controls all major private companies in China and uses them for international intelligence gathering. US Senator Ted Cruz called Huawei a “Communist Party spy agency thinly veiled as a telecom company,” in a Twitter post in 2018. “Its surveillance networks span the globe and its clients are rogue regimes such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba. The arrest of Huawei’s CFO Wanzhou Meng in Canada is both an opportunity and a challenge,” Cruz wrote. [170]
An investigation published in January 2018 by the French newspaper Le Monde, revealed that confidential information from the African Union (AU) headquarters in Ethiopia had been sent to Shanghai every night for five years, starting in January 2012. The CCP was accused of being behind the hack. A report released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute six months later revealed that Huawei was the key provider of the information and communications technology infrastructure at the AU headquarters building. [171]
André Ken Jakobsson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen, said: “What is worrying is that the CCP can get very critical and sensitive information. They can enter a system that controls our entire society. Everything will be connected to the 5G network in the future. We are worried that the country that provides such equipment — China — controls the switch.” [172]
For at least two decades, the CCP has used hackers on a large scale to obtain critical information from other countries. As early as 1999, CCP hackers disguised as a Falun Gong overseas website attacked the US Department of Transportation. The department contacted the website to investigate the attack and traced it back to a hacker from a Party-run intelligence agency. [173]
In June 2015, CCP hackers attacked the US Office of Personnel Management, stealing the data and security information of more than 21.5 million Americans. Those affected included 19.7 million government employees and 1.8 million of their family members.
In November 2018, Marriott International announced that private information, including passport details, of up to 500 million guests had been stolen by hackers, dating back to 2014. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo confirmed on December 12 that the hacking was carried out by the CCP. Marriott is the largest hotel supplier to the US government and military.
e. The Many Forms of Unrestricted Warfare
The CCP utilizes other methods of unrestricted warfare. A few major areas are listed below.
Diplomatic Warfare
The CCP’s typical diplomatic method is to divide and conquer. When the world criticizes the CCP for its human rights abuses, regime officials invite each country to discuss human rights separately and in private; consequently, such criticism can have no restraining effect. Moreover, the CCP has virtually disintegrated the international norms that safeguard human rights.
The CCP used this method to escape condemnation and sanctions right before being admitted to the World Trade Organization. Once admitted, the CCP immediately began using economic means to tempt various countries, and again used divide-and-conquer to achieve large-scale breakthroughs in various areas.
The CCP also uses rogue tactics of hostage diplomacy to arrest and threaten both Chinese and non-Chinese until its demands are met. Before the PRC was granted permanent normal trade relations status by the United States in 2002, regime authorities arrested dissidents before almost every negotiation session, then used the release of the dissidents as a bargaining chip during the negotiations. The Communist Party disregards the lives of its own people, but it knows that Western societies care about basic human rights. Therefore, it uses its own citizens as hostages, puts a knife to the neck of the Chinese people, and uses them to threaten the enemy — the United States.
With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, the CCP has become bolder, even taking foreign hostages. Six weeks after the aforementioned Su Bin was arrested in Canada for hacking into a US military database, Canadian couple Kevin and Julia Garratt were arrested in China and accused by the CCP of espionage. [174]
After the arrest of Huawei’s vice president and chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver on December 1, 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs incited a series of protests, with the Chinese Embassy in Canada mobilizing a large number of pro-communist overseas Chinese for the action. In addition, the PRC arrested two Canadian citizens in retaliation for Meng’s arrest. [175] This was both to put direct pressure on Canada and to drive a wedge between Canada and the United States.
Lawlessness is the CCP’s modus operandi. Any foreigner in China may become a hostage at any time and be used as a bargaining chip for political, economic, and diplomatic purposes. Additionally, when the CCP threatens overseas Chinese, especially dissidents, it often uses their relatives in China as hostages.
Military Warfare
The CCP has developed asymmetric weapons, such as anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft carrier missiles. In terms of conventional weapons, the CCP has attempted to surpass the technological supremacy of the United States by having a larger quantity of matériel targeting high-value assets. The CCP has grown economically and technically, giving it greater operational space to implement cyberwarfare, outer-space warfare, and other unconventional high-tech attack vectors against the United States, as addressed in the last section.
The PLA publicly declares that the conduct of the kind of war it wishes for would “appear in a manner that is cross-national, cross-domain, and utilizes any means necessary.” In the PLA’s ideal war, “tangible national boundaries, intangible cyberspace, international law, national law, codes of conduct, and ethics are not binding on them [PLA forces]. … They don’t take responsibility for anyone, and are not restricted by any rules. Anyone can be a target, and any means can be used.” The authors of Unrestricted Warfare declare to their readers: “Have [you] considered combining the battlefield with the non-battlefield, war with non-war, military with non-military — specifically, combining stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and network killers, nuclear war, financial warfare, and terrorist attacks? Or, simply put, Schwarzkopf [then-commander-in-chief of US Central Command] + Soros [leftist billionaire] + Morris [creator of the Morris Worm computer virus] + bin Laden? This is our true card.” [176]
Internet Warfare
Through the efforts of Huawei and ZTE to seize the 5G technology market, the CCP is striving to gain a dominant position in 5G standards, and wants to play a leading global role in the new technology. The former head of the Federal Reserve of Dallas said, “If China were to win the race, they would establish the protocols for the internet, just as English replaced German as the language of science and became the language of all crucial activity on a global scale.” [177]
At present, with the impending rollout of 5G technology, the internet faces a new round of evolution. With the combination of 5G and artificial intelligence, the internet’s control over the physical world is dramatically expanding, and the rules of the entire world are being rewritten. If the CCP dominates 5G, it will be able to act unimpeded.
In addition, once the CCP’s external propaganda operations are successfully integrated with a China-controlled 5G, its efforts at indoctrinating foreign audiences will greatly exceed their current scale and impact.
Narcotics Warfare
At a US Cabinet meeting held on August 16, 2018, President Donald Trump said that the proliferation of opioids, particularly the synthetic drug fentanyl from China, is “almost a form of warfare.” [178] In 2017, more than seventy thousand people died of a drug overdose in the United States, of which more than 40 percent were related to synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl and its analogues). These drugs are primarily produced in China and then enter the United States through the US Postal Service or are smuggled in via the US–Mexico border. [179]
Markos Kounalakis, a senior researcher at the Central European University and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, in November 2017, wrote that fentanyl was “being used as a weapon in China’s 21st Century Opium War against America.” Kounalakis cited fentanyl trafficking as an example of CCP strategy: The CCP sees the real value of this chemical as a “profitable opiate export that also destroys American communities and roils the US political landscape.” [180]
Mass Mobilization Warfare
In September 2018, a Chinese family traveling in Sweden claimed they were mistreated by police after they were removed from a hotel for attempting to sleep in the lobby. A video of the melodramatic family being removed was then exaggerated by the Chinese Embassy and media, and Chinese people began boycotting Swedish companies Ikea and H&M. [181] The Swedish TV station SVT aired a satirical segment about the incident on its comedy show, which further exacerbated the situation. Tens of thousands of Chinese internet users flooded the websites of the Swedish Embassy, segment host Jesper Rönndahl, and the TV station’s Facebook page. [182]
After sixty years of destruction of traditional culture and its replacement with Communist Party culture, the CCP is able to coerce millions of Chinese people and turn them into a mass army. Before the ninetieth anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2017, the CCP came up with software that can add PLA uniforms to an individual in an uploaded image. In just several days, the app received over one billion visits.
The CCP is able to use nationalism to control the public because it has suppressed information about the Party’s true history, leaving the people ignorant of its crimes. In particular, people don’t know the CCP’s history of killing. Thus, generations of Chinese people who grew up in the Party culture carry the Party culture with them. When they travel abroad to make a living, they export Party culture overseas and become part of the regime’s massive overseas army. This has strengthened the CCP’s ability to control this army in the free world and use it for subversion.
Cultural Warfare
The CCP has been peddling Party culture and its values under the banner of Chinese traditional culture and customs for many years. People all over the world have a strong interest in China’s long history and rich culture, yet their understanding is very limited. The CCP knows this well and takes full advantage of it. By adopting some of the superficial forms of traditional culture, the CCP has disguised itself as the guardian and true representative of Chinese culture, making it extremely difficult for people in other countries to see through the deceit.
Financial Warfare
The CCP has begun promoting its own financial payment system and use of the renminbi through “economic assistance” and private enterprises, in an attempt to build a global infrastructure. It intends to use the renminbi to replace the US dollar’s dominance in international currency circulation. According to the CCP’s unrestricted financial-warfare strategy, the regime can achieve its goals simply by printing massive amounts of money, thus destroying the financial system when necessary. CCP think tanks have advocated the weaponization of foreign exchange reserves.
Other Forms of Unrestricted Warfare
During the 1989 student democracy movement, the CCP ordered soldiers and police to disguise themselves as Beijing civilians and create riots so that the military could use them as an excuse for its mass killing, which it called “suppressing riots.” During the early years of the persecution campaign against Falun Gong, the CCP fabricated the “self-immolation” incident to justify the ensuing escalation of the persecution. During Hong Kong’s Occupy Central With Love and Peace movement, the CCP transported people from Shenzhen to incite violence in Hong Kong, effectively forcing police action to escalate toward violence.
In the eyes of the CCP, murder and assassination are commonplace methods, and in the future, the Party may well use any means — poisoning, assassination, explosions, the sabotage of power grids or transportation facilities, and so on — to create chaos and conflict in the West.
The core of unrestricted warfare is about mobilizing evil people to destroy mankind step by step. The CCP is highly skilled at tempting people to go against morality and their own conscience, and those who do so often end up as either passive in the face of the CCP’s abuses, or active participants. Therefore, for influential figures in the political, economic, military, media, cultural, technological, educational, and other fields, the CCP uses all means to discover their weaknesses — whether vested interests or desires — and uses them to make people willingly collaborate with the Party. When this doesn’t work, the CCP uses threats and intimidation to exploit their fears or mistakes, effectively blackmailing them into assisting the Party. In some cases, the CCP has even provided transplant organs obtained by killing to buy off influential figures in need of a transplant.
The resources the CCP is able to bring to bear to infiltrate other countries defy the imagination, and the facts uncovered at present are only the tip of the iceberg. People in all walks of life, especially in politics and business, have become the CCP’s pawns in its unrestricted warfare campaign. Almost all countries in the world have begun to feel the CCP’s global ambitions and its evil, unrestricted means.
4. The Communist ‘China Model’
The CCP’s nature means that it will always set itself against traditional culture, morality, and universal values. Today’s CCP is the world’s axis of evil and the enemy of humankind. The world must wake up and take action.
China has a vast territory and the largest population of any country on earth. It has become the world’s second-largest economy and, from 2010, the second-largest military power. No tyrannical force in history has had such economic and military power. The Party has absorbed the most sinister and deformed elements of modern totalitarian regimes and ancient Chinese tactics, and therefore, it never plays by the rules. Its strategies are both deep and ruthless, often beyond the imagination and understanding of leaders and strategists in other countries. By hijacking 1.3 billion Chinese people, the CCP has presented a huge and greatly coveted market to the world, attracting foreign capital, business people, and politicians. It has them turn a blind eye to the CCP’s human rights abuses and evil, and in some cases, even gets them to cooperate with the CCP in its crimes.
The CCP has killed 80 million Chinese people. In recent times, it has committed countless crimes against Falun Gong practitioners, underground Christians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, dissidents, and those at the lower end of society. Once the regime collapses, it will be brought to justice and punished for all its crimes. To avoid this fate, the CCP will not hesitate to commit more horrific crimes to protect itself.
The Chinese Communist Party is the communist specter’s main agent in the human realm. Fated for elimination, its existence has always been accompanied by a strong sense of crisis and fear. Driven by this sense of constant crisis, the CCP resorts to any means necessary at critical moments, taking extreme measures to keep itself going. It has built itself up in an attempt to replace the United States and dominate the world and is preparing for the final battle with the United States with determination and nonstop effort. At the same time, it has used a range of means to export the CCP’s model and the Communist Party’s ideology, poisoning the world.
If the orthodox morality that has helped humankind survive for thousands of years is ever truly destroyed, the result will be the destruction of the entire human race. Therefore, in addition to its military, economic, scientific, and technological endeavors, the CCP is also bent on imposing its ideology of atheism and warped views of good and evil on other countries.
All the CCP’s ambitions — which it pursues through soft power, hard power, and sharp power — are based on a total disregard for morality and are aimed at serving its larger ambition of destroying traditional morality and universal values. The CCP’s goal is to establish itself as an evil empire and world ruler. It aims to bring totalitarian oppression to the world — a global police state characterized by brainwashing, mind control, mass surveillance, the elimination of private ownership, official atheism, the elimination of religion and traditional culture, unrestrained carnal desires, corruption, and moral degeneration. Its aim is to drag the world into poverty and turmoil, turning men into beasts and sending humankind into an abyss of moral degradation. All this is the path arranged by the communist specter in its attempt to destroy mankind.
5. Lessons Learned and the Way Out
a. The Policy of Appeasement: a Grave Mistake
Ambitious and eager to assert its global hegemony, the CCP poses a serious threat to the world. Sadly, to this day, many countries, governments, and political figures still wish to befriend the CCP, oblivious of the danger. The relationship is illustrated by a Chinese saying, “If you raise a tiger cub, eventually it’ll grow up to devour you.”
Without the aid of the developed Western countries and the support of so many multinational corporations, high-tech giants, and large financial institutions, the PRC could not have developed from a weak economy with a regime on the verge of collapse to an indomitable axis of evil over the short span of just a few decades.
Pillsbury, the national security expert, has argued that the West all along has held unrealistic expectations of the CCP, such as believing that China would inevitably become more democratic, that it longed for an American-style capitalist society, that it would inevitably integrate into the international social order, that US–China exchanges would bring about full cooperation, or that the hawkish elements in the CCP were weak, and so forth. In his 2015 book, he strongly urged the US government to quickly face reality and adopt counter-measures against the CCP, lest it allow the CCP to win. [183]
A March 2018 article in The Economist reflected on the policy that Western countries adopted toward China — specifically their gamble that China would head toward democracy and the free market economy. It conceded that the West’s gamble has failed; China under the CCP isn’t a market economy and, on its present course, will never be one. On the contrary, the CCP treats business and trade as extensions of state power and controls them as such. It uses its monopoly on power to shape the global economy, uses money to manipulate trading partners, and punishes individuals and groups it does not agree with. [184]
b. Why the West Got China Wrong
The West got China wrong for many reasons: the communist specter’s complex arrangements mentioned earlier, the duplicity and chameleon-like nature of the CCP, and the difficulty that free societies have in differentiating the CCP from China. In addition, the West got China wrong because of the pursuit of short-term gains, whether by individuals, companies, or entire nations. This provided yet another opportunity for the CCP to exploit.
The morally corrupt CCP targets gaps in the morality of people in free societies, people whose pursuit of short-term profits allows the CCP to infiltrate and corrupt the very foundations of these societies. Policies adopted by the United States regarding the CCP, are largely based on considerations of short-term gain instead of the most fundamental, long-term interests of America — such as the spirit upon which the country was founded.
Humankind’s glory and authority come from the divine and are determined by humankind’s moral level. The prosperity and strength bestowed on an ethnic group or nation also depend on its level of morality. Using ordinary means, humans are incapable of negating the arrangements made by the communist specter. Following this logic, where the West has gone wrong becomes clear — whatever the human methods applied, ultimately these cannot succeed in overcoming the forces of evil.
Many governments, large companies, and business people may, for a period of time, ostensibly obtain benefits from the CCP in exchange for the sacrifice of their moral principles. But in the end, they’ll lose more than they gain. Such ill-gained, superficial benefits are all poisonous.
The CCP is not a political party or regime in the normal sense. It does not represent the Chinese people. It represents the communist specter. To associate with the CCP is to associate with the devil. To be friendly with the CCP is to appease the devil, aid it, and play a role in pushing humanity toward destruction. Conversely, to push back against the CCP is to engage in the battle between good and evil. This is not a simple matter of countries fighting over national interests. It is a battle for the future of humanity.
c. The Way Out?
Today, China and the world are at a crossroads. For the Chinese people, the Chinese Communist Party, which owes countless debts of blood, cannot be expected to make any real reforms. China will be free only when the Communist Party is consigned to history.
For people around the world, China is known as the land of an ancient civilization characterized by courtesy and righteousness. Free of the Communist Party, China will once again be a normal member of the civilized world — a nation whose human and natural resources, diverse ancient traditions, and cultural heritage will be part of the wealth of humanity.
Moving forward during times of great difficulty, more and more Chinese people are coming to realize the evil nature of the CCP. With the publication of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in November 2004, a growing number of people began to regain their moral courage and made the decision to separate themselves from the communist specter. More than 350 million Chinese have renounced the CCP and its affiliated organizations. If the free world can support the trend of renouncing the CCP and sever all ties with the specter, the CCP will not be able to continue to act as it does.
The seemingly indomitable Soviet Union dissolved overnight. Though the CCP is baring its fangs globally, its dissolution could occur just as rapidly once the world recognizes its evil nature and makes the righteous choice.
The rise of the CCP resulted mostly from moral corruption and from people’s being blinded by the pursuit of vested interests. To escape this fate, we need to summon up our moral courage, revive traditional values, and firmly believe in the divine.
To defeat the CCP, simply depending on ordinary secular means will never be enough. The communist specter has greater power than humans, and this is the underlying cause of the CCP’s continuous expansion. However, evil can never rival the divine. As long as humans can stand by the divine and abide by divine will, they will be blessed and overcome the specter’s infernal arrangements.
The CCP is the enemy of all humanity, having established the bloodiest yet most powerful tyranny history has ever seen. All nations and peoples must resist its global ambitions if they are to secure their future and that of all civilization. The evil CCP is destined for elimination; thus, to reject the CCP is to avoid sharing in its fate.
Conclusion
In the long course of history, mankind has seen eras of splendor and glory, but has also endured countless episodes of tragedy and disaster. Looking back, we find that moral rectitude ushers in clean governance, economic prosperity, cultural brilliance, and national strength, whereas moral degeneracy signals the fall of nations and the extinction of entire civilizations.
Today, mankind has reached a zenith in material wealth, yet it faces unprecedented challenges caused by the havoc of communism. The ultimate goal of communism is not to establish a heaven on earth, but to destroy mankind. The nature of communism is that of an evil specter forged by hate, degeneracy, and other elemental forces in the universe. Out of hate, it slaughtered more than 100 million people, trampled several thousand years of exquisite civilization, and corrupted human morality.
The communist specter made arrangements to corrupt both the East and the West, adopting different strategies in different countries. In the East, it committed ruthless slaughter and forced people to accept atheism. In the West, communism took an alternate route: It infiltrated society in covert form, coaxing people into abandoning their traditional faiths and moral values.
Using communist regimes and organizations, fellow travelers, accomplices, and other agents, communism rallied negative elements in the human world to amass formidable power. With this power, it subverted and established control in all social spheres, including politics, economics, law, education, media, arts, and culture. Today’s mankind is in dire straits.
In hindsight, the reasons for communism’s triumph over the past two centuries are clear. When people indulge in the material pleasures brought by technological advancement and allow atheism to spread, they reject divine mercy and turn themselves over to evil. Having strayed from the traditions established by the divine, much of humanity is easily deceived by communism and its myriad ideological permutations, such as socialism, liberalism, and progressivism.
Traditional culture shows the path for humans to maintain their morality and gain salvation in the final epoch. But with traditional culture under attack and basic moral truths cast aside, the link between man and the divine has been severed. Man can no longer understand divine instruction, and evil reigns supreme, wreaking havoc in the human realm. When human morality drops below the basic standards required of human beings, the divine must reluctantly abandon humankind, as the devil leads man into the abyss of damnation.
But having reached an extreme, the circumstances are bound to reverse. It is an eternal principle in the human realm that evil can never defeat righteousness. Communism’s momentary victory is a temporary phenomenon, brought about by the devil, which has intimidated people with its illusory might and treacherous temptations. Man, while imperfect, innately carries kindness, virtue, and moral courage, which have been nurtured and passed down for millennia. In this, we find hope.
Global events are developing at an incredible pace. Righteous elements are growing stronger, and the world’s people are awakening.
In China, millions of people have peacefully resisted the Chinese Communist Party’s tyrannical rule by remaining steadfast in their faith and morality. Inspired by the editorial series Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, more than 350 million Chinese have bravely renounced their ties with the CCP and its affiliated organizations, through the act of “tui dang,” or “quitting the Party.” More and more individuals are making a heartfelt decision to free themselves from the shackles of communism. The disintegration of the Communist Party is already well underway.
The end of the Communist Party is a matter of divine arrangement. Should China’s leaders take steps to dismantle the Party, they will be provided with all the conditions required for a clean transition. In the future, they stand to gain true authority — that which is granted by the divine. Should they stubbornly refuse to make this break, they will take the Party’s fate as their own, joining in the calamities of its final downfall.
The world is experiencing a revival of traditional culture and morality in alignment with the universal values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. At the fore of this renaissance is Shen Yun Performing Arts, which tours five continents every year. In its display of classical Chinese dance, Shen Yun brings universal values to audiences around the world.
The West has begun to recognize the communist infiltration and its subversion of traditional culture that has taken place over the past century. Society has begun to be cleansed of communist elements and deviated modern culture in many spheres, from law and education, to government administration and international relations. Governments are becoming more vigilant against communist regimes and their enablers, which is greatly reducing communism’s influence on the global scene.
Communism is not an enemy that can be defeated by military force. To free the world from its grasp, we must start by purifying ourselves from the inside. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, wrote in his article “Pacify the External by Cultivating the Internal”:
If people do not value virtue, the world will be in great chaos and out of control; everyone will become enemies of one another and live without happiness. Living without happiness, they will not fear death. Lao Zi said, “If the populace doesn’t fear death, what good will it do to threaten them with death?” This is a great, imminent danger. A peaceful world is what people hope for. If at this point an excessive number of laws and decrees are created to secure stability, it will end up having the opposite effect. In order to solve this problem, virtue has to be cultivated around the world — only this way can the problem be fundamentally resolved. If officials are unselfish, the state will not be corrupt. If the population values self-cultivation and the nurturing of virtues, and if both officials and civilians alike exercise self-restraint in their minds, the whole nation will be stable and supported by the people. Being solid and stable, the nation will naturally intimidate foreign enemies and peace will thus reign under heaven. This is the work of a sage. [185]
The merciful Creator has always been watching over mankind. Disasters occur when man turns against the divine, and humanity can be saved only by returning to our divinely bestowed heritage. As long as we stay unmoved by the devil’s facades, maintain true compassion, follow divine standards for being human, revive traditional values, and return to traditional culture, the divine will deliver mankind from evil. Today, whether or not humanity will walk this path is the choice that we all face.
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50. Zhuang Beining 莊北甯 and Che Hongliang 車宏亮, “Zhong Mian qianshu Jiaopiao shenshuigang zhuan’an kuangjia xieding” 中緬簽署皎漂深水港專案框架協定 [“China–Myanmar Signs the Framework Agreement for the Kyaukpyu Deep-Water Port Project”], Xinhuanet.com, November 8, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/2018-11/08/c_1123686146.htm. [In Chinese]
51. Lu Cheng 鹿鋮, “Zhong Mian Jingji zoulang: Miandian fabiao de xinxing tujing” 中緬經濟走廊：緬甸發展的新興途徑 [“China–Myanmar Economic Corridor: An Emerging Approach to Myanmar’s Development”], Guangming Net, September 17, 2018, http://news.gmw.cn/2018-09/17/content_31210352.htm. [In Chinese]
52. Lin Ping 林坪, “Jiemi Zhongguo rui liliang (shiyi): Ouzhou zhengjie” 揭祕中國銳實力（十一）欧洲政界 [“Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XI) European Politics”], Radio Free Asia, November 5, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/ytbdzhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl-11052018102634.html. [In Chinese]
53. Jason Horowitz and Liz Alderman, “Chastised by EU, a Resentful Greece Embraces China’s Cash and Interests,” The New York Times, August 26, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/26/world/europe/greece-china-piraeus-alexis-tsipras.html.
54. Jan Velinger, “President’s Spokesman Lashes Out at Culture Minister for Meeting With Dalai Lama,” Radio Prague International, October 18, 2016, https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/presidents-spokesman-lashes-out-at-culture-minister-for-meeting-with-dalai-lama.
55. Lin Ping, “Disclosing China’s Sharp Power.”
56. “Deguo lanpishu: Zhongguo zai Deguo feijinrong zhijie touzi dafu zengzhang” 德國藍皮書：中國在德國非金融直接投資大幅增長 [“German Blue Book: China’s Non-Financial Direct Investment in Germany Has Grown Substantially”], Sina.com.cn, July 9, 2017, http://mil.news.sina.com.cn/dgby/2018-07-09/doc-ihezpzwt8827910.shtml. [In Chinese]
57. Hoover Institution, Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2018), 163, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/chineseinfluence_americaninterests_fullreport_web.pdf.
58. Philip Oltermann, “Germany’s ‘China City’: How Duisburg Became Xi Jinping’s Gateway to Europe,” The Guardian, August 1, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/01/germanys-china-city-duisburg-became-xi-jinping-gateway-europe.
59. “Xilake: Re’ai Zhongguo de ren” 希拉克：熱愛中國的人 [“Chirac: A Man Who Loved China”], China Net, March 20, 2007, http://www.china.com.cn/international/txt/2007-03/20/content_18421202.htm. [In Chinese]
60. Various, Di jiu zhang: Tan zhan (shang) 第九章：貪戰（上）[“Chapter 9: The War of Greed (Part I)”], in Zhenshi de Jiang Zemin 真實的江澤民 [The Real Jiang Zemin], The Epoch Times, June 18, 2012, http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/12/6/18/n3615092.htm. [In Chinese]
61. Holly Watt, “Hinkley Point: The ‘Dreadful Deal’ Behind the World’s Most Expensive Power Plant,” The Guardian, December 21, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant.
62. Nick Timothy, “The Government Is Selling Our National Security to China,” Conservative Home, October 20, 2015, http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2015/10/nick-timothy-the-government-is-selling-our-national-security-to-china.html.
63. Lin Ping 林坪, “Jiemi Zhongguo rui liliang (shi’er): zai Ouzhou de jingji shentou” 揭祕中國銳實力（十二）在歐洲的經濟滲透 [“Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XII) Economic Infiltration in Europe”], Radio Free Asia, November 12, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl-11082018122750.html; “Jiemi Zhongguo rui liliang (shisan): Ouzhou xueshu, yanlun ziyou” 揭祕中國銳實力（十三）歐洲學術、言論自由 [“Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part XIII) Encroachment on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Europe”], Radio Free Asia, November 12, 2018 [自由亞洲電台], https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/MCIEU-11122018165706.html. [In Chinese]
64. Jack Hazlewood, “China Spends Big on Propaganda in Britain … but Returns Are Low,” Hong Kong Free Press, April 3, 2016, https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/04/03/china-spends-big-on-propaganda-in-britain-but-returns-are-low.
65. Thorsten Benner et al., “Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe,” Global Public Policy Institute, February 2018, https://www.gppi.net/media/Benner_MERICS_2018_Authoritarian_Advance.pdf.
66. Christophe Cornevin and Jean Chichizola, “The Revelations of Le Figaro on the Chinese Spy Program That Targets France,” Le Figaro, October 22, 2018 [“Les révélations du Figaro sur le programme d’espionnage chinois qui vise la France”], http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2018/10/22/01016-20181022ARTFIG00246-les-revelations-du-figaro-sur-le-programme-d-espionnage-chinois-qui-vise-la-france.php. [In French]
67. “German Spy Agency Warns of Chinese LinkedIn Espionage,” BBC News, December 10, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42304297.
68. Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa (New York: Nation Books, 2010), 162.
69. “China Is the Single Largest Investor in Africa,” CGTN, May 7, 2017, https://africa.cgtn.com/2017/05/07/china-is-the-single-largest-investor-in-africa.
70. “Not as Bad as They Say,” The Economist, October 1, 2011, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2011/10/01/not-as-bad-as-they-say.
71. Joseph Hammond, “Sudan: China’s Original Foothold in Africa,” The Diplomat, June 14, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/sudan-chinas-original-foothold-in-africa.
72. “Beijing shengqing kuandai zao tongji de Sudan zongtong Baxier” 北京盛情款待遭通緝的蘇丹總統巴希爾 [“Beijing Shows Hospitality to the Wanted Sudanese President Bashir”], Radio France Internationale (RFI), June 29, 2011, http://cn.rfi.fr/中國/20110629-北京盛情款待遭通緝的蘇丹總統巴希爾. [In Chinese]
73. “Zhongguo de heping fazhan daolu” 中国的和平发展道路 [“China’s Path of Peaceful Development”], Information Office of the State Council, http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/ndhf/2005/Document/307900/307900.htm. [In Chinese]
74. Pan Xiaotao 潘小濤, “Zhongguoren, qing zhunbei zai dasa bi” 中國人，請準備再大撒幣 [“Chinese, Get Ready to Give Out More Money”], Apple Daily, August 31, 2018, https://hk.news.appledaily.com/local/daily/article/20180831/20488504. [In Chinese]
75. Chen Haifeng 陈海峰, ed., “Shangwubu: Feizhou 33 ge zui bu fada guojia 97% de chanpin xiangshou ling guanshui” 商務部：非洲33個最不發達國家97%的產品享受零關稅 [“Ministry of Commerce: 97 Percent of Products in 33 Least-Developed Countries in Africa Enjoy Zero Tariffs”], China News, August 28, 2018, http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2018/08-28/8612256.shtml. [In Chinese]
76. Jia Ao 家傲, “Zhongguo zai xiang Feizhou dasa bi, Meiguo jingjue” 中國再向非洲大撒幣 美國警覺 [“China Gives Africa Big Bucks Again and America Gets Alert”], Radio Free Asia, September 3, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/junshiwaijiao/hc-09032018110327.html. [In Chinese]
77. Cai Linzhe 蔡臨哲, “Aisai’ebiya xuexi ‘Zhongguo moshi’” 埃塞俄比亞學習「中國模式」[“Ethiopia Is Learning the ‘Chinese Model’”], Phoenix Weekly, May 15, 2013, http://www.ifengweekly.com/detil.php?id=403. [In Chinese]
78. Andrew Harding, “Jizhe laihong: Feizhou chu le ge ‘Xin Zhongguo’” 記者來鴻：非洲出了個「新中國」[“Correspondence From Our Reporters: ‘A New China’ in Africa”], BBC Chinese, July 27, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/ukchina/simp/fooc/2015/07/150727_fooc_ethiopia_development. [In Chinese]
79. Si Yang 斯洋, “Zhengduo huayuquan, shuchu Zhongguo moshi, Zhongguo yingxiang OuMei he YaFei fangshi da butong” 爭奪話語權，輸出中國模式，中國影響歐美和亞非方式大不同 [“To Seize Discursive Power and Export the ‘Chinese Model,’ China Resorts to Different Means in Europe-America and Asia-Africa”], Voice of America, December 7, 2018, https://www.voachinese.com/a/4420434.html. [In Chinese]
80. Quan Ye 泉野, “Duihua Wang Wen: cong cheqian lun dao ‘xin zhimin zhuyi’ wuqu beihou de zhen wenti” 對話王文：從撒錢論到「新殖民主義」誤區背後的真問題 [“A Dialogue With Wang Wen: From the Theory of Spending Money to the Real Problem Behind the Misconstrued New Colonialism”], Duowei News, September 2, 2018, http://news.dwnews.com/china/news/2018-09-02/60081911_all.html. [In Chinese]
81. Ted Piccone, “The Geopolitics of China’s Rise in Latin America,” Brookings Institution, Geoeconomics and Global Issues 2 (November 2016), 4, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/the-geopolitics-of-chinas-rise-in-latin-america_ted-piccone.pdf.
82. Megha Rajagopalan, “China’s Xi Woos Latin America With $250 Billion Investments,” Reuters, January 7, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-latam-idUSKBN0KH06Q20150108.
83. Alfonso Serrano, “China Fills Trump’s Empty Seat at Latin America Summit,” The New York Times, April 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/china-trump-pence-summit-lima-latin-america.html.
84. Jordan Wilson, “China’s Military Agreements with Argentina: A Potential New Phase in China–Latin America Defense Relations,” US–China Economic and Security Review Commission: Staff Research Report, November 5, 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%27s%20Military%20Agreements%20with%20Argentina.pdf.
85. Jin Yusen 金雨森, “Zhonggong jinqian waijiao kong chengwei zuihou yi gen daocao” 中共金錢外交恐成為最後一根稻草 [“The CCP’s Dollar Diplomacy May Be the Last Straw”], watchinese.com, July 5, 2017, https://www.watchinese.com/article/2017/23053. [In Chinese]
86. “Zhonggojng ju’e jinyuan qiang Saerwaduo, yin Meiguo youlü” 中共巨額金援搶薩爾瓦多 引美國憂慮 [“The CCP’s Huge Amount of Financial Aid to El Salvador Causes Anxiety for America”], NTD Television, August 22, 2018, http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2018/08/23/a1388573.html. [In Chinese]
87. Huang Xiaoxiao 黃瀟瀟, “La Mei he Jialebi diqu Kongzi Xueyuan da 39 suo” 拉美和加勒比地區孔子學院達39所 [“Number of Confucius Institutes in Latin America and the Caribbeans Increases to 39”], People.cn, January 26, 2018, http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0126/c1002-29788625.htm. [In Chinese]
88. “Pentagon Says Chinese Vessels Harassed US Ship,” CNN, March 9, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html.
89. Barbara Starr, “Chinese Boats Harassed US Ship, Officials Say,” CNN, May 5, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/05/china.maritime.harassment/index.html.
90. Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne, and Brad Lendon, “Chinese Warship in ‘Unsafe’ Encounter With US Destroyer, Amid Rising US-China Tensions,” CNN, October 1, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/politics/china-us-warship-unsafe-encounter/index.html.
91. Military Strategy Research Department of the Academy of Military Science, Zhanlue xue 戰略學 [Strategic Studies], (Beijing: Military Science Publishing House, 2013), 47. [In Chinese]
92. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2018 (Washington DC: US Department of Defense, May 16, 2018), 46–47, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Aug/16/2001955282/-1/-1/1/2018-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.PDF.
93. Lawrence Sellin, “The US Needs a New Plan to Address Chinese Power in Southern Asia,” The Daily Caller, June 5, 2018, https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/05/afghanistan-pakistan-america-china/.
94. Panos Mourdoukoutas, “China Will Lose The South China Sea Game,” Forbes, July 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/07/01/china-will-lose-the-south-china-sea-game/#5783cad73575.
95. Michael Lelyveld, “China’s Oil Import Dependence Climbs as Output Falls,” Radio Free Asia, December 4, 2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-oil-import-dependence-climbs-as-output-falls-12042017102429.html.
96. M. Taylor Fravel, “Why Does China Care So Much About the South China Sea? Here Are 5 Reasons,” The Washington Post, July 13, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/13/why-does-china-care-so-much-about-the-south-china-sea-here-are-5-reasons.
97. Brahma Chellaney, “Why the South China Sea Is Critical to Security,” The Japan Times, March 26, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/03/26/commentary/world-commentary/south-china-sea-critical-security/#.XAnOBBNKiF1.
98. Scott Montgomery, “Oil, History, and the South China Sea: A Dangerous Mix,” Global Policy, August 7, 2018, https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/07/08/2018/oil-history-and-south-china-sea-dangerous-mix.
99. Hal Brands, “China’s Master Plan: A Global Military Threat,” The Japan Times, June 12, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/06/12/commentary/world-commentary/chinas-master-plan-global-military-threat/#.W9JPPBNKj5V.
100. Joel Wuthnow, “China’s Other Army: The People’s Armed Police in an Era of Reform,” Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, China Strategic Perspectives 14 (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, April 2019), https://inss.ndu.edu/Portals/82/China%20SP%2014%20Final%20for%20Web.pdf.
101. US Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2018, May 16, 2018, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Aug/16/2001955282/-1/-1/1/2018-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.PDF.
102. David E. Sanger, “US Blames China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks,” The New York Times, May 6, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/world/asia/us-accuses-chinas-military-in-cyberattacks.html.
103. Sharon Weinberger, “China Has Already Won the Drone Wars,” Foreign Policy, May 10, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/10/china-trump-middle-east-drone-wars/.
104. Rick Joe, “China’s Air Force on the Rise: Zhuhai Airshow 2018,” The Diplomat, November 13, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/11/chinas-air-force-on-the-rise-zhuhai-airshow-2018/.
105. Huang Yuxiang 黃宇翔, “Zhongguo wurenzhanji jingyan Zhuhai Hangzhan liangxiang, jiaxiang di shi Meiguo” 中國無人戰機驚豔珠海航展亮相假想敵是美國 [“Chinese Drones, Whose Target Is America, Stun the Audience at Zhuhai Air Show”], Asia Weekly, vol. 32, issue 46 (November 25, 2018), https://www.yzzk.com/cfm/blogger3.cfm?id=1542252826622&author=%E9%BB%83%E5%AE%87%E7%BF%94. [In Chinese]
106. Ibid.
107. Peter Navarro, Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World (New York: Prometheus Books, 2015).
108. Steven Lee Myers, “With Ships and Missiles, China Is Ready to Challenge US Navy in Pacific,” The New York Times, August 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/world/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier-pacific.html.
109. San Renxing 三人行, “Ping xuexinggongsi de mori fengkuangdu” 評血腥公司的末日瘋狂賭 [“On the Bloody Company’s Mad Doomsday Gambling”], The Epoch Times, August 1, 2005, http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/5/8/1/n1003911.htm and http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/5/8/2/n1004823.htm [In Chinese]; and Li Tianxiao, “Shen yao Zhonggong wang, bi xian shi qi kuang” 神要中共亡 必先使其狂 [“If God Wants the CCP to Die, He Will Make It Go Mad First”], The Epoch Times, August 17, 2005, http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/8/17/n1021109.htm. [In Chinese]
110. Jonathan Watts, “Chinese General Warns of Nuclear Risk to US,” The Guardian, July 15 2005, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jul/16/china.jonathanwatts.
111. Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon, chap. 2.
112. “Commentary Two: On the Beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party,” in Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (New York: Broad Press Inc., 2004), http://www.ninecommentaries.com/english-2.
113. Qiao Liang 乔良 and Wang Xiangsui 王湘穗, Chao xian zhan 超限战 [Unrestricted Warfare], (Beijing: People’s Liberation Army Literature and Art Press, 1999), 1, 62. [In Chinese]
114. Qiao Liang 喬良 and Wang Xiangsui 王湘穗, Chao xian zhan yu Fan chao xian zhan: Zhongguoren tichu de xin zhanzhengguan Meiguoren ruhe yingdui 超限戰與反超限戰：中國人提出的新戰爭觀美國人如何應對 [Unrestricted Warfare and Anti-Unrestricted Warfare: How Will the Americans Counter the New Chinese Strategy?] (Beijing: Changjiang Literature and Art Press, 2016). [In Chinese]
115. Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin, “Inside China’s Audacious Global Propaganda Campaign,” The Guardian, December 7, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping.
116. Mao Zedong 毛澤東, Mao Zedong xinwen gongzuo wenxuan 毛澤東新聞工作文選 [Selected Works on Journalism], (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 1983), 182. [In Chinese]
117. “Zhong jin pulu Zhonggong Dawaixuan haiwai kuozhang” 重金鋪路中共大外宣海外擴張 [“The CCP Spends Big Money Expanding Its Overseas Propaganda”], Radio Free Asia, November 15, 2015, https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/propaganda-11052015084921.html. [In Chinese]
118. Anne-Marie Brady, “China’s Foreign Propaganda Machine,” Wilson Center, October 26, 2015, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/chinas-foreign-propaganda-machine.
119. “Chinese President Xi Jinping Visits With CCTV America via Video Call,” CGTN, February 19, 2016, https://america.cgtn.com/2016/02/19/chinese-president-xi-jinping-visits-with-cctv-america-via-video-call.
120. Koh Gui Qing and John Shiffman, “Beijing’s Covert Radio Network Airs China-Friendly News Across Washington, and the World,” Reuters, November 2, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio.
121. Lim and Bergin, “Inside China’s Audacious.”
122. James Fallows, “Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online From the WaPo!” The Atlantic, February 3, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690.
123. Donnelle Eller, “Chinese-Backed Newspaper Insert Tries to Undermine Iowa Farm Support for Trump, Trade War,” The Des Moines Register, September 24, 2018, https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2018/09/24/china-daily-watch-advertisement-tries-sway-iowa-farm-support-trump-trade-war-tariffs/1412954002.
124. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Beijing Builds Its Influence in the American Media,” Foreign Policy, December 21, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/21/one-of-americas-biggest-chinese-language-newspapers-toes-beijings-party-line-china-influence-united-front.
125. “Zhan zhong jiekai hongse shentou, 142 jia haiwai Dangmei shunjian baoguang” 占中揭開紅色滲透 142家海外黨媒體瞬間曝光 [“‘Occupy Central’ Reveals Red Infiltration, 142 of the CCP’s Overseas Media Outlets Are Disclosed”], NTD Television, October 6, 2014, http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2014/10/06/a1143788.html. [In Chinese]
126. Yuan Jirong 苑基榮, “Zhongguo dianshiju rebo Feizhou dalu” 中國電視劇熱播非洲大陸 [“Chinese TV Series Are Trendy in Africa”], People’s Daily, January 5, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20160206004955if_/http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2015-01/05/nw.D110000renmrb_20150105_3-03.htm. [In Chinese]
127. Jeffrey Gil, “Why the NSW Government Is Reviewing Its Confucius Classrooms Program,” The Conversation, May 17, 2018, http://theconversation.com/why-the-nsw-government-is-reviewing-its-confucius-classrooms-program-96783.
128. Alexander Bowe, “China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States,” US–China Economic and Security Review Commission, August 24, 2018, 5–6， https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%27s%20Overseas%20United%20Front%20Work%20-%20Background%20and%20Implications%20for%20US_final_0.pdf.
129. US Congress, House, John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, 115th Cong., 2nd sess., https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20180723/CRPT-115hrpt863.pdf.
130. “Wei fazhan he jinbu, yu Zhongguo xieshuo tongxing — Zhongguo gaige youyi jiangzhang huodezhe qunxiang” 为发展和进步，与中国携手同行——中国改革友谊奖章获得者群像 [“Marching Forward Hand in Hand With China for Development and Progress: Vignettes of Winners of ‘China Reform Friendship Medal’”], Xinhua News, December 18, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-12/18/c_1123872219.htm. [In Chinese]
131. Bowe, “China’s Overseas,” 5–6.
132. Thorsten Benner et al., “Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe,” Global Public Policy Institute, February 2018, https://www.gppi.net/media/Benner_MERICS_2018_Authoritarian_Advance.pdf.
133. Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2018), https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/chineseinfluence_americaninterests_fullreport_web.pdf.
134. US Department of Justice, “Patrick Ho, Former Head of Organization Backed by Chinese Energy Conglomerate, Convicted of International Bribery, Money Laundering Offenses,” December 5, 2018, https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/patrick-ho-former-head-organization-backed-chinese-energy-conglomerate-convicted.
135. Nick McKenzie and Angus Grigg, “China’s ZTE Was Built to Spy and Bribe, Court Documents Allege,” The Sydney Morning Herald, May 31, 2018, https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/china-s-zte-was-built-to-spy-and-bribe-court-documents-allege-20180531-p4ziqd.html.
136. Alexandra Stevenson, et al., “A Chinese Tycoon Sought Power and Influence. Washington Responded,” The New York Times, December 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/cefc-biden-china-washington-ye-jianming.html.
137. Rona Rui 駱亞, “Zhuanfang Chen Yonglin: Zhonggong quanmian shentou Aozhou neimu” 專訪陳用林：中共全面滲透澳洲內幕 [“Exclusive Interview With Chen Yonglin: How the Chinese Communist Party Has Thoroughly Infiltrated Australia”], The Epoch Times, June 19, 2017, http://www.epochtimes.com.tw/n215385. [In Chinese]
138. Chinese Influence & American Interests, 57–78.
139. Isaac Stone Fish, “Huawei’s Surprising Ties to the Brookings Institution,” The Washington Post, December 7, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/08/chinese-companys-surprising-ties-brookings-institution/?utm_term=.2720ba57db52.
140. Margaret Wollensak, “Canadian, UK Universities Warned by Intelligence Agencies to Be Wary of Huawei,” The Epoch Times, December 19, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/universities-warned-to-be-wary-of-research-partnerships-with-huawei_2743679.html.
141. Zack Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies,” Politico, July 27, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/27/silicon-valley-spies-china-russia-219071.
142. Bowe, “China’s Overseas,” 10–12.
143. Gao Shan 高山, “Zhongguo Wanda: 20 yi Meiyuan maixia Meiguo liang jia dianyinggongsi” 中國萬達：20億美元買下美國兩家電影公司 [“China’s Wanda Buys Two US Film Companies for 2 Billion US Dollars”], Radio Free Asia, August 23, 2016, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/jingmao/hc-08232016102649.html. [In Chinese]
144. Cui Peng 崔鵬, “Ali yingye rugu Amlin Partners, Ma Yun touzi Sipierboge” 阿里影業入股Amblin Partners 馬雲投資斯皮爾伯格 [“Ali Pictures Invests in Amblin Partners; Ma Yun Makes Investment in Spielberg”], sohu.com, October 9, 2016, http://www.sohu.com/a/115703678_115565. [In Chinese]
145. Amy Qin and Audrey Carlsen, “How China Is Rewriting Its Own Script,” The New York Times, November 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-movies.html.
146. Ben Fritz and John Horn, “Reel China: Hollywood Tries to Stay on China’s Good Side,” The Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/16/entertainment/la-et-china-red-dawn-20110316.
147. Lin Ping 林坪, “Jiemi Zhongguo rui liliang (wu): Meiguo dianying yule ye” 揭秘中國銳實力（五）美國電影娛樂業 [“Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part V) American Film and Entertainment Industries”], Radio Free Asia, September 7, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl5-09072018150445.html. [In Chinese]
148. Lin Ping 林坪, “Jiemi Zhongguo rui liliang (san) Meiguo xueshu jie, gaoxiao” 揭秘中國銳實力（三）美國學術界、高校 [“Disclosing China’s Sharp Power (Part III) American Universities and Academia”], Radio Free Asia, September 5, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/zhuantixilie/zhongguochujiaoshenxiangshijie/yl3-09052018122139.html. [In Chinese]
149. “Ying Baoshaodang ren bei ju rujing Xianggang, Yuehanxun biao guanqie” 英保守黨人被拒入境香港 約翰遜表關切 [“British Conservatives Were Denied Entry to Hong Kong; Johnson Expresses Concern”], BBC Chinese, October 12, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-41591196. [In Chinese]
150. Bowe, “China’s Overseas,” 7–8.
151. William Pentland, “Entrepreneurial Espionage – Made in China,” Forbes, January 22, 2011, https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/01/22/entrepreneurial-espionage-made-in-china/#7e0175c65207.
152. Joshua Philipp, “How Hacking and Espionage Fuel China’s Growth,” The Epoch Times, September 10, 2015, https://www.theepochtimes.com/investigative-report-china-theft-incorporated_1737917.html.
153. Annie Wu, “What Is the ‘Made in China 2025’ Program That Is the Target of US Tariffs?” The Epoch Times, April 5, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/what-is-the-chinese-industrial-policy-made-in-china-2025-that-is-the-target-of-us-tariffs_2485482.html.
154. High-Speed Rail News, Gaotie Fengyun lu 高鐵風雲錄 [A Record of the High-speed Rail Saga], (Changsha: Hunan Literature and Art Press, 2015). See “Di wu zhang: Zhongguo gaotie sanguo sha” 第五章中國高鐵三國殺 [Chapter 5, “China’s High-Speed Rail Three Kingdom Legends”]. [In Chinese]
155. Sankei Shimbun, “Japan’s Transfer of Bullet Train Technology a Mistake. China, of Course, Has Copied It,” Japan Forward, August 18, 2017, https://japan-forward.com/japans-transfer-of-bullet-train-technology-a-mistake-china-of-course-has-copied-it.
156. Paul Mozur and Jane Perlez, “China Bets on Sensitive US Start-Ups, Worrying the Pentagon,” The New York Times, March 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/technology/china-defense-start-ups.html.
157. Office of the United States Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, Update Concerning China’s Acts, Policies and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation, November 20, 2018, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/301%20Report%20Update.pdf, 46.
158. US Department of Justice, “Chinese National Who Conspired to Hack Into US Defense Contractors’ Systems Sentenced to 46 Months in Federal Prison,” July 13, 2016, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-who-conspired-hack-us-defense-contractors-systems-sentenced-46-months.
159. Cynthia McFadden, Aliza Nadi, and Courtney McGee, “Education or Espionage? A Chinese Student Takes His Homework Home to China,” NBC News, July 24, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-chinese-student-takes-his-homework-home-china-n893881.
160. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Chinese Hackers Indicted,” December 20, 2018, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-indicted-122018.
161. Zach Dorfman, “How Silicon Valley.”
162. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Chinese Talent Programs,” Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Intelligence Note, SPIN: 15-007, September 2015, https://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-ChineseTalentPrograms.pdf.
163. Lawrence A. Tabak and M. Roy Wilson, “Foreign Influences on Research Integrity,” Presentation at the 117th Meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Director, National Institutes of Health, December 13, 2018, https://acd.od.nih.gov/documents/presentations/12132018ForeignInfluences.pdf.
164. Lev Facher, “NIH Report Scrutinizes Role of China in Theft of US Scientific Research,” STAT, December 13, 2018, https://www.statnews.com/2018/12/13/nih-report-scrutinizes-role-of-china-in-theft-of-u-s-scientific-research.
165. Jennifer Zeng, “Communist China Poses Greatest Threat to US and World, Senators Told,” The Epoch Times, updated December 17, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/senate-told-communist-china-poses-greatest-threat-to-us-and-the-world_2738798.html.
166. Keith Bradsher, “When Solar Panels Became Job Killers,” The New York Times, April 8, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/business/china-trade-solar-panels.html?_ga=2.209817942.255138535.1542571491-142437734.1525387950.
167. “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia qingbao fa” 中華人民共和國國家情報法 [“The National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China”], National People’s Congress Net, June 27, 2017, http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2017-06/27/content_2024529.htm. [In Chinese]
168. US Congress, Senate, Statement of Bill Priestap Before the Committee on the Judiciary, China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses, 115th Cong., 1st sess., December 12, 2018, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/12-12-18-priestap-testimony.
169. US Congress, Senate, Statement of John C. Demers Before the Committee on the Judiciary, China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses, 115th Cong., 1st sess., December 12, 2018, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12-12-18%20Demers%20Testimony.pdf.
170. Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz), “Huawei is a Communist Party spy agency thinly vieled [sic] as a telecom company. Its surveillance networks span the globe & its clients are rogue regimes such as Iran, Syria, North Korea & Cuba. The arrest of Huawei’s CFO Wanzhou Meng in Canada is both an opportunity & a challenge,” Twitter, December 6, 2018, https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1070708648865861633.
171. Danielle Cave, “The African Union Headquarters Hack and Australia’s 5G Network,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, July 13, 2018, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-african-union-headquarters-hack-and-australias-5g-network.
172. Theis Lange Olsen and Cathrine Lakmann, “Huawei Now on the Danish Mark: ‘The Chinese Can Access Systems That Govern Our Society,’” Danish Broadcasting Corporation, December 7, 2018, https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/huawei-nu-paa-dansk-sigtekorn-kineserne-kan-faa-adgang-til-systemer-der-styrer-vores. [In Danish]
173. Tang Ming 唐銘, “Zhonggong haike weizhuang Falun Gong wangzhan, Mei yu Zhong zunshou guoji guize” 中共駭客偽裝法輪功網站 美籲中遵守國際規則 [“CCP Hackers Feigned Falun Gong Websites; America Calls on China to Observe International Rules”], The Epoch Times, March 16, 2013 [大紀元新聞網], http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/13/3/16/n3824225.htm. [In Chinese]
174. Dan Levin, “Couple Held in China Are Free, but ‘Even Now We Live Under a Cloud’,” The New York Times, January 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/canada/canadian-couple-china-detention.html.
175. “Peter Navarro on China’s National Security Risks to US,” Fox Business, December 13, 2018, https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5979037938001/?#sp=show-clips.
176. Qiao Liang 乔良 and Wang Xiangsui 王湘穗, Unrestricted Warfare, 61. [In Chinese]
177. Eri Sugiura, “China’s 5G a Bigger Threat Than Trade War, Says Ex-Dallas Fed Chief,” Nikkei Asian Review, September 24, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-s-5G-a-bigger-threat-than-trade-war-says-ex-Dallas-Fed-chief.
178. Gregg Re, “Trump Declares Opioids From Mexico, China ‘Almost a Form of Warfare,’ Tells Sessions to Sue Drug Makers,” Fox News, August 16, 2018, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-declares-opioids-from-mexico-china-almost-a-form-of-warfare-tells-sessions-to-sue-drug-makers.
179. Kirsten D. Madison, “Stopping the Poison Pills: Combating the Trafficking of Illegal Fentanyl from China,” prepared statement before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, October 2, 2018, https://www.drugcaucus.senate.gov/sites/default/files/Final%20INL%20Written%20Statement%20for%20Senate%20Drug%20Caucus%20Hearing%20on%20Chinese%20Fe.._.pdf.
180. Markos Kounalakis, “China Is Using Fentanyl in a Chemical War Against America,” McClatchy, November 2, 2017, https://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article182139386.html.
181. Anna Fifield, “China’s Row With Sweden Over a ‘Racist’ TV Skit Has Citizens Urging Boycotts of Ikea and H&M,” The Washington Post, September 26, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/26/chinas-row-with-sweden-over-racist-tv-skit-has-citizens-urging-boycott-ikea-hm/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.15e1b22bc530.
182. Xinmei Shen, “How China’s Army of Online Trolls Turned on Sweden,” Abacus News, September 26, 2018, https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/how-chinas-army-online-trolls-turned-sweden/article/2165747.
183. Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon, introduction.
184. “How the West Got China Wrong,” The Economist, March 1, 2018, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/01/how-the-west-got-china-wrong.
185. Li Hongzhi, “Pacify the External by Cultivating the Internal,” in Essentials for Further Advancement, January 5, 1996, https://www.falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz24.htm.
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