China’s Three Warfares

The Three Warfares is supposedly a pillar of China’s People Liberation Army strategic thinking. It was approved by the Central Military Commission in 2003. It emphasizes the exploitation of information flows along three axes – psychological, public opinion and legal. The Three Warfares has been described as follows:

• Psychological Warfare: Seek to undermine an enemy’s ability to conduct combat operations through operations aimed at deterring, shocking, and demoralising enemy military personnel and supporting civilian population.

• Public Opinion/Media Warfare: Is aimed at influencing domestic and international public opinion to build support for China’s military actions and dissuade an adversary from pursuing actions contrary to China’s interests.

• Legal Warfare: Uses international and domestic law to claim the legal high ground or assert Chinese interests. It can be employed to hamstring an adversary’s operation freedom and shape the operational space. China has attempted to employ legal warfare in the maritime domain and in international airspace in pursuit of a security buffer zone. 

Matthew Sawyers of the University of Western Australia recently wrote a paper about Beijing’s core strategic objectives which include the exploitation of cyberspace. He wrote: “Beyond just securing regime survival, national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Beijing aims to continue to establish as a major regional and global power.

The last several [Beijing] five-year plans identify the development of key strategic industries as a major component. Specifically, these include the development of new energy  technologies, biotechnology, high end / high tech materials, information technology and high-tech manufacturing. Beijing now pays close attention as close attention to economic secrets as it does to the military and diplomatic because the fields benefit extensively from information advantage. Cyber espionage is a uniquely useful tool to furnish that information advantage while avoiding open conflict. Unsurprisingly these industries are prominent targets of cyber attacks which are widely held to be Chinese in origin. Therefore, and despite any international commitments to the contrary, it is unlikely that Beijing intends to give up or seriously scale back its exploitation of cyberspace.”

Sawyers also believes that Beijing’s interest in bilateral agreements and international norms is really something between “smokescreen and stalling strategy.“ By engaging  international and securing bilateral agreements Beijing avoids the negative costs – political, diplomatic and economic – as a result of its cyber espionage. China has so far avoided sanctions or other significant punitive or deterrent action in response to its  expansive cyber espionage campaign.

The coming tech war

China’s growing technological advancements will be a source of increasing worry for the United States. Artificial Intelligence will be a critical area of competition between the two countries because it has applications in military as well as civilian life; and will likely revolutionize both. Because of China’s size, its tech sector could give the United States stiff competition in terms of market share if it even comes close to producing the same technologies.

Google CEO Sundar Pichal has said that the advent of Artificial Intelligence was “...more profound than electricity or fire.” Artificial intelligence may be the most important technological advancement of our lifetime. AI will have applications in military as well as civilian life.

In the civilian world alone. AI helps power smartphone applications such as visual and audio recognition software and digital personal assistants. AI will also transform the medical industry, diagnosing and treating serious illnesses. AI will eventually complement or supersede other white collar jobs. 

AI will also be used in the battle field, driving tanks, ships and perhaps even robotic soldiers. Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria have used drones to deliver explosives to their targets. Houthi rebels in Yemen have deployed unmanned vessels to carry waterborne improvised explosive devices. In 2017, China released a three-year development plan for Artificial Intelligence which includes specific goals for such technologies as artificial neural network processing chips, intelligent robots, automated vehicles, intelligent medical diagnosis, intelligent drones and machine translation.

China has formed a team made up of the biggest Chinese tech firms – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent – to lead the country’s AI development alongside voice recognition software developer iFlytek. Geopolitical analyst Matthew Bey recently concluded: “Forging a comprehensive strategy against China will become all the more important for Washington as time goes by. The dizzying pace  and unpredictable trajectory of innovation compels tech companies to constantly broaden their horizons or else jeopardize their competitiveness. But as the same firms expand their services into more and more industries, they risk running afoul of U.S. antitrust laws. The more companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple grow, the bigger the targets on their backs become. Antitrust investigations and busts in the United States, in turn could give Chinese companies a prime opportunity to catch up on their competition.”

Blockchain

The next disruptive technology that will affect economies and societies just as artificial intelligence is doing will be the blockchain. This is the technology that anchors “bitcoin” or electronic money. Another name for blockchain is “ distributed ledger technology.” It will affect a number of industries, aside from the financial sector, such as shipping, and logistics, aerospace, defense, retail, health care, and manufacturing. 

This new technology is still in its infancy and new applications are still being developed. One attraction of blockchain is that users can remain autonomous. Its decentralized data set is more difficult to tamper with than systems stored on single servers or folders. 

The world will have to get used to dealing with more disruptive technologies in the near future.

Creative writing classes for kids/teens and adults

Young Writers’ Hangout on March 17, April 7, 14, 21 & 28 (1:30 pm-3 pm; independent sessions); Fiction Writing for Adults with Sarge Lacuesta on March 10 (1:30 pm-4:30 pm) at Fully Booked BGC.  For details and registration contact 0945-2273216 or [email protected].

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