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Understanding the CCP Threat

National security expert David Maxwell exposes Chinese Communist Party tactics for gaining influence

Retired U.S. Army Col. David Maxwell delivered the keynote address during the Transregional Resistance Working Group conference at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, in February 2020. Speaking to an audience of mostly special operations forces (SOF) personnel, Maxwell described the critical role SOF play in political warfare. He also exposed tactics used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) in attempts to gain regional and global influence. Exposing and understanding those tactics, Maxwell said, is key to a country’s ability to counter them.

Maxwell served 30 years in the U.S. Army, retiring in 2011 as a Special Forces colonel. For his final assignment, Maxwell served on the military faculty teaching national security strategy at the National War College. He specializes in China, military and political power, North Korea and U.S. defense policy and strategy.

What follows are statements Maxwell made about the CCP and PRC during his speech at the Transregional Resistance Working Group.

It’s critical for SOF to understand the region’s “fundamental problem” — which Maxwell identifies as the PRC.

More specifically, it is the CCP that is a threat. I am not afraid to say it. The CCP seeks to undermine U.S. and Western influence and the influence of individual freedom and liberty, liberal democracy, free market economy and human rights and human dignity of all. These are the common values the U.S. and like-minded countries share.

We should all take some time and reread Unrestricted Warfare, which was written by two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) colonels in 1999 as an academic exercise on how to counter a superpower. It was based on their assessment of the U.S. military in the post-Cold War world and, in particular, the so-called revolution in military affairs, which we were chasing in the 1990s. I think this was a very prescient book using all means available in an unrestricted manner. When I received my letter from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management after the Chinese hacked all our security clearance forms, I returned to Unrestricted Warfare, and I was amazed at how many references there were to hacking and obtaining data for later exploitation. Again, this was written in 1999.

In 2004, when I was at the National War College, the Chinese minister of defense addressed the students. I asked only one question at these distinguished leader presentations all year long. I asked the defense minister that since Unrestricted Warfare has proved so prescient, is the PLA using it to inform its doctrinal development and strategic and operational concepts? He walked off the stage and conferred with his handlers and returned to tell me the book has been debunked and I should not believe everything I read. My inside voice said: “He doth protest too much.”

A woman uses a Chinese national flag to shade herself as she listens to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen speak during the inauguration ceremony of a sky bridge funded by the People’s Republic of China in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Identifying and understanding CCP warfare strategies are key.

We should know the CCP’s “three warfares” just as our brethren from Europe know Russia’s next generation or nonlinear warfare and its little
green men.

Psychological warfare seeks to disrupt an opponent’s decision-making capacity, create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments, and deceive and diminish the will to fight among opponents.

Legal warfare — lawfare — can involve enacting domestic law as the basis for making claims in international law and employing bogus maps to justify PRC actions.

Media warfare is the key to gaining dominance over the venue for implementing psychological and legal warfare.

PRC investment schemes are shaping the conversation on the CCP threat.

We should know One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and the economic strategy behind it that causes debt traps for vulnerable countries. Just ask Sri Lanka how the PRC gained controlling interest of its major port. This is happening not just in Asia but in Latin America and Africa as well.

We should understand CCP investment strategies and the industries in which it invests. Sure, economically it makes sense for the PRC to invest in energy and other resources, and we know it is a very extractive investor — takes all the benefits and provides little in return. In places such as Taiwan, it has made major investments to achieve controlling ownership of media companies. We should ask, is this purely for profit or does this provide the CCP with important capabilities?

CCP influence campaigns, infiltrating networks and communities are widespread.

We need to be aware of Chinese espionage operations and the CCP’s attempt to recruit spies in our countries. The thousand talents and the thousand grains of sand concepts are designed to gather information and knowledge for the PRC. The Confucius Institutes provide money to cities, towns and school districts in return for providing education in Chinese language, culture and history. Local governments become addicted to these funds, which in turn allow the PRC to conduct aggressive influence operations at the grassroots level. The PRC has a vast intelligence network. They have infiltrated governments, militaries, businesses, the media, nongovernmental organizations and much more. It is difficult to keep information from the CCP because they seem to have eyes almost everywhere. However, this can have a positive benefit because the development of resistance capabilities and resilience in society will show the CCP that its strategy is not working, and it may give its leaders pause from pursuing it further or even shifting to more violent operations and actions. We should think about our political processes. While we know what Russia has done and is doing to undermine the democratic processes in the U.S. and European countries, we should be observing Chinese actions. Although I do not have specific data and evidence in the United States, I think it is something that we must defend against, especially because I think the Chinese will be more subtle and sophisticated than the Russians.

Police in Taipei, Taiwan, escort Chinese student Zhou Hongxu to a court hearing on charges that he tried to develop a spy network for China. REUTERS

The CCP attempts to use movies and gaming to control the narrative.

We have seen the CCP censorship of Hollywood movies such as Red Dawn, where the enemy had to be changed from the PRC to North Korea. But one of the most insidious influence operations ever conducted is the Chinese takeover of the gaming industry. There are perhaps only a few people in this room who partake in massive multiplayer online gaming. Yet for some of the championship games, the amount of people watching is many times greater than the Super Bowl audience. What is really important about these games is the CCP is shaping the narrative storylines creating Chinese character heroes and favorable descriptions of the PRC versus negative portrayals of the U.S. and the West. This is shaping a whole next generation of youth who see the PRC in a very favorable light based on false information and propaganda. The question is how do we resist this and how to develop the resiliency necessary to counteract this?

The coronavirus pandemic has unmasked elements of CCP influence tactics.

It is important to see how the coronavirus changes the PRC’s strategy. We do not know for sure what happened. I do not want to be a conspiracy theorist and say the PRC was developing a bioweapon, though we understand there was a bio lab 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Wuhan. In fact, bio experts have told me that it makes no sense to use this type of virus as a bioweapon. However, it may not have been deliberate. Perhaps there was an accident at the lab or perhaps it was some kind of test that went wrong. Maybe it was a deliberate test to see the response and reaction or perhaps to deplete resources on a global scale. If it was a deliberate act, the PRC appears to already be suffering blowback. When the stock market reopened,  it lost billions of dollars in value. The question is, if this was deliberate, what do we do about it? In addition, although I am loath to exploit tragedy, it is obvious even if it was not deliberate, the Chinese reaction to the problem illustrates the vulnerability of authoritarian regimes. The lack of transparency allowed the virus to spread. The Chinese system is not one designed to take care of the people. It is a system designed to protect and keep in power the CCP at the expense of its people. That should be a key theme and message in any information and influence activities campaign.

The U.S. Justice Department displays a sign depicting the four members of the People’s Liberation Army indicted on charges of hacking into Equifax Inc. and stealing data from millions of Americans. GETTY IMAGES

Countries should consider the following when developing counterapproaches to the PRC’s political warfare strategy.

We must consider new approaches, as well as recall old approaches that are still likely to be relevant and effective. This is by no means a thorough approach.

First, there are really only three options for a country facing the PRC’s political warfare strategy:

Accept and acquiesce. Accept that the PRC can’t be stopped, accept their investment and influence, which will undermine the government’s legitimacy and lead to the PRC’s objective of creating instability and insecurity among U.S. friends, partners and allies.

Create a civil-military resistance capability to defend your country.

Develop a civil-military resistance and conduct a countersubversion campaign and actively subvert the hostile power.

I would posit that there are three elements to resistance and resiliency that we need to focus on. Resilience of governments and institutions to withstand attacks on their legitimacy. Resilience of the people to maintain their values and belief in their nation and form of government (as imperfect as all our governments are). Third, a civil-military resistance capability to resist Chinese political warfare but also contribute to their own country’s superior form of political warfare. Ultimately, countries must develop resistance that will deter military adventurism and, if deterrence fails, will contribute to defeating an attack. Nations and their people must undertake these tasks themselves. No one can do it for them. However, because we are like-minded countries that share values, interests and  strategies, the U.S. can provide advice, assistance and support in some areas to help countries protect their sovereignty.

A paradigm shift is needed to implement counterstrategies.

The first thing we need to do is change our mindset. We need to take a campaign approach rather than a preparation approach. It is good that our strategic planning process has eliminated the standard phasing template that begins with phase zero and preparation. What we have to shift to is to be able to conduct a campaign within that time and space we once called phase zero. We need to conduct a political warfare campaign that has as part of its foundation developing resilience in government and society and developing a civil-military resistance capability.

The second thing is, we need to attack the Chinese strategy. The first step in that is to expose its strategy. We need to bring sunshine on the strategy. By doing so, we can inform, educate and influence the population. We can, in fact, inoculate the population against the Chinese strategy because if they know it, they can recognize it and take measures not to succumb to it.

We have to develop aggressive, comprehensive and sophisticated information and influence activities campaigns to counter Chinese propaganda. One thing I understand that Taiwan is doing is fact-checking Chinese content but using humor. This apparently is an attention-getter and is useful for exposing propaganda. And it apparently upsets the Chinese, so we know it must be working.

Offensive measures are key to counter CCP messaging.

Countries must strengthen their human rights to serve as an example for those in authoritarian countries. This will allow them to have the moral high ground when they contribute to international efforts that focus on Chinese human rights with the Uighurs, other ethnic minorities and Hong Kong. There should be no hesitation among free nations of the world to call out the CCP’s terrible human rights record. It is one of the most subversive acts we can conduct.

We have to be aggressive in cyberspace, not only in defense but offense as well. We should consider combined cyber task forces to counter PRC cyber-enabled economic warfare, its online espionage efforts, its infrastructure-attack capabilities and its influence operations. We need to take back the online gaming and entertainment industries to shut off a key propaganda line of effort. Simultaneously, we need to inoculate our youth against CCP propaganda in online gaming because they will continue gaming operations.

We need to develop civil-military resistance capabilities along some similar lines. This is especially true for Taiwan. As I see the terrain of Taiwan, I get the sense that if Taiwan were ever to be invaded, it would be a black hole, meaning what goes in will never come out. Taiwan conventional military capabilities may be insufficient to defend against a PLA attack. However, a civil-military resistance could create devastating conditions for the PLA. Taiwan SOF could move away from direct-action, commando-type operations to a more unconventional warfare-focused posture. It could lead an effort to organize, train and equip local civil defense forces. It could learn from the Poles and the Swiss and the development of their civil defense and stay-behind forces. U.S. SOF could advise Taiwan SOF in this work. The No. 1 purpose is for local civil defense. But such a plan would also contribute to governance and most importantly influence. The civil-military linkage would reinforce government legitimacy. From an influence perspective, due to the large number of Chinese spies, this could not be done in secret.

Allies and partners must work together to counter CCP and PRC influence operations.

The bottom line is the U.S. and its friends, partners and allies face an aggressive and hostile PRC that is operating well below the threshold of conflict, operating in the so-called gray zone. It is conducting a form of political warfare that seeks to undermine the international nation-state system and attack many of the international institutions for which the U.S. had a large role in developing. The SOF trinities of irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and support to political warfare, along with governance, influence and support to Indigenous forces and populations, can play a role in helping to advise and assist in these areas. Most important is that we need to adopt a new campaign approach and learn to lead with influence so that we can execute a superior political warfare strategy built on the foundation of resistance and resilience.  

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