Operations that aim to persuade an audience of a particular viewpoint, energize those who hold specific views, and/or divert target audiences are all examples of influence operations.

Propagandists are vying for users’ already-diminishing attention on social media platforms, according to the logic of distraction. Propagandists could successfully capture user attention without necessarily persuading them, if they can divert target audiences from an unfavorable narrative developing on social media by disseminating alternative theories or muddying the information environment.

Although influence operations can take many different shapes and employ a variety of techniques, there are a few common threads that connect them all. According to a recent study on political influence operations in the Middle East, these operations frequently used one of the following strategies:

• Making an effort to promote one’s own government, culture, or policies;

• Making an argument in favor of or against particular policies.

• Attempts to destabilize foreign relations or domestic situations in rival nations;

• Attempts to make allies appear good and opponents look bad to third-party countries

In a number of these instances, the accounts carrying out the operation pretended to be locals voicing their displeasure with their government or certain political personalities. This strategy of using digital agents of influence is frequently used by social media manipulation operations to conceal the genuine identity of the content source from the target audience. For instance, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) accounts of Russia sent direct messages to members of the Black American and conservative American communities while posing as activists. A misused idiom, a recurring grammatical fault, or even the use of a backtick (‘) where a real speaker would use an apostrophe (‘) are some subtle indicators that might help you spot these false reports. State-level antagonistic actors frequently deploy a variety of strategies, drawing on their own workforce or contracting out to virtual mercenaries.

Since 2016, Twitter and Meta have taken down well over 100 social media influence operations that originated in dozens of different nations. Inauthentic amplification attempts, fake news websites, and persona creation (the creation of false personas to disseminate a message) are frequently used in these operations.

However, influence operations have also greatly increased outside of Facebook and Twitter to other platforms, intimate settings, and encrypted areas. The New York Times reported on how “Iranian agents had infiltrated small [Israeli] WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels and messaging apps” to promote divisive messages. The report was done in collaboration with Israeli disinformation researchers. These influence operations occasionally show inventiveness by using platform rules in an offensive way.

For instance, a campaign in favour of the Tanzanian government that Twitter deleted in 2021 targeted Tanzanian activists’ accounts by making fake allegations of copyright reporting.

Recent studies and media coverage on influence operations have tended to concentrate on foreign campaigns, in which governments or individuals target individuals in other countries. But influence efforts can also be domestically focused, as the Tanzanian case demonstrates. Political actors frequently disseminate clandestine propaganda directed at their constituents in an effort to increase their popularity, detract from that of an adversary, or create commotion inside the political system. Facebook terminated phony accounts associated with Brazilian politicians, President Jair Bolsonaro, and his sons, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro and Senator Jair Bolsonaro, in 2020 for disseminating divisive content about Brazilian politics. In fact, a lot of critics think that internal influence operations-rather than foreign ones-are the most concerning.

Additionally, influence operations have been used to take sides in intraparty disputes and, in the case of some campaigns linked to the Chinese Communist Party, to hit expatriate groups.

Techniques Employed

China employs a variety of techniques for influence operations to shape opinions, advance its interests, and project power. These techniques can be both overt and covert, and they are often coordinated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its various government agencies. Here are several techniques that China has been known to use:

Propaganda and Media Influence: China maintains a vast propaganda apparatus that includes state-controlled media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency, CCTV, and People’s Daily. These outlets disseminate narratives aligned with the CCP’s objectives and promote positive portrayals of China. They also engage in information warfare by spreading disinformation, censorship, and manipulating online discussions through social media platforms.

Economic Leverage: China utilizes its economic power to exert influence. It may offer financial aid, investment, or loans to other countries, attaching conditions that align with its political objectives. This can create dependencies and influence decision-making processes in target nations.

Diplomatic Influence: China engages in diplomatic efforts to shape global narratives, build alliances, and influence international organizations. It actively seeks to cultivate relationships with political leaders, academic institutions, and think tanks globally. It hosts conferences, forums, and summits to promote its interests and propagate its narratives.

United Front Work: The CCP employs a strategy known as “United Front Work” to co-opt and influence individuals and groups outside of its formal political structure. This includes overseas Chinese communities, ethnic or religious groups, business leaders, and intellectuals. The goal is to create a favorable perception of China and gain support for its policies.

Cyber Espionage and Information Warfare: China has been accused of engaging in state-sponsored cyberattacks and espionage to steal intellectual property, gain access to sensitive information, and manipulate public opinion. It also employs “50 Cent Army” or “Wu Mao” internet trolls who spread pro-China propaganda and disrupt discussions critical of the regime.

Confucius Institutes: China has established Confucius Institutes in various countries, which are cultural and educational centers that promote Chinese language and culture. However, they have been criticized for engaging in censorship, promoting self-censorship, and advancing Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

Overseas Investments and Infrastructure Projects: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a large-scale infrastructure development project that seeks to enhance connectivity across Asia, Europe, Africa, and beyond. By investing in critical infrastructure projects in other countries, China can deepen its economic ties, gain influence, and extend its geopolitical reach.

United Front Work

United Front Work is a strategy employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to co-opt and influence individuals and groups outside of its formal political structure. Here are a few examples of United Front Work activities carried out by China:

Overseas Chinese Communities: China seeks to influence overseas Chinese communities by establishing various organizations and associations that promote Chinese culture and interests. These organizations often operate under the umbrella of the CCP’s United Front Work Department. They aim to maintain ties with overseas Chinese, encourage support for China’s policies, and discourage dissent or criticism of the CCP.

Ethnic and Religious Groups: China targets ethnic or religious groups within its borders and abroad through United Front Work. For example, it seeks to co-opt Tibetan and Uighur diaspora communities by promoting narratives that downplay human rights concerns and highlight economic development and cultural preservation efforts in Tibet and Xinjiang. China also uses United Front tactics to exert influence over overseas Chinese Muslim organizations.

Business and Intellectual Elites: China actively cultivates relationships with influential business leaders, academics, and intellectuals around the world. Through various means, such as funding research institutions, supporting academic exchanges, and organizing conferences, China seeks to shape narratives, gain access to cutting-edge technologies, and project soft power. These efforts aim to build networks of individuals who are sympathetic to China’s policies and willing to advocate for them.

Political Parties and Politicians: China seeks to cultivate relationships with politicians and political parties in other countries. It may offer financial support, establish friendship associations, or facilitate exchange programs to build political influence. This can involve providing financial assistance, investment opportunities, or other incentives to countries or politicians that align with China’s interests.

Media and Academic Institutions: China invests in media outlets and academic institutions worldwide to enhance its soft power and control narratives. This includes establishing partnerships with foreign media organizations, sponsoring Confucius Institutes in universities (which have been accused of promoting CCP propaganda), and funding research centers or think tanks that produce China-friendly analysis.

Operations and Impact of Influence

Influence operations may have an effect due to their particular content or focus (such as through persuasion) or by undermining public confidence in the information environment as a whole.

Resources, message quality, and operation detectability are sometimes constraints on the direct impact of content in modern influence operations. Depending on the objectives of the operator, these aspects may be more or less important. For instance, the effectiveness of each individual message is probably much less important if operators are merely trying to divert targets rather than persuade them of a particular opinion. Theoretically, language models might one day partially circumvent these limitations.

It is more important to create the impression that any given message can be false or deceptive in order to affect trust in an information environment. Even if influence operations fail to alter people’s opinions, they may cause people to doubt the veracity of information they get from even reliable sources, which could undermine trust in democratic and epistemic institutions more generally.

Content-Based Impact

If an influence operation

• Persuades someone of a specific position or supports an existing one,

• Distracts them from discovering or developing other ideas, or

• Distracts them from making any room for higher quality thought, then it may have an impact dependent on the content.

Often, the intention is to merely divert attention away from information that could be harmful to the operator. Distraction operations frequently take advantage of and worsen preexisting attention rivalries between advertisers, media sources, and platforms to crowd out crucial information with attention-grabbing, irrelevant material. Therefore, distraction operations do not require a target to be convinced by the information spread, but rather that a target not be convinced by (or even take into consideration) any other piece of information.

The impact of an influence operation can be quantified or tracked in both historical and modern cases. For instance, the Soviet Union engaged in an influence campaign to disseminate the myth that the United States government invented the virus in a lab during the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. According to a 2005 research, 27% of African Americans still held this belief. In 2016, the IRA organized rallies and counter protests outside the Islamic Da’wah Center in Houston using manipulative agents of influence on Facebook. As a result of the protests’ inability to take place without the IRA’s involvement, the impact is extremely simple to identify in this case.

While platforms assign blame and give researchers information about influence operations that were shut down, researchers still have little visibility into the impact on users or their post-engagement behavior. Additionally, not every influence operation is discovered. Due to multicausality and the obstacles associated with tracking changes in public opinion over time, even propagandists who try to gauge their own influence occasionally run into problems. Scholars have emphasized that historically, this uncertainty has helped intelligence agencies exaggerate the impact of their influence operations for administrative gain.

Despite these measuring difficulties, several characteristics, such as resources, material quality and messaging, and detectability, obviously restrict the impact of current efforts. Following a brief description of these drawbacks, we go into how generative models might be able to assist you get over them.

• Resources: Just like marketing efforts, the effectiveness of an influence operation depends on one’s ability to reach the target audience with the required material. A political actor employs how many propagandists to write material. How many social media accounts can someone open up to create a false online presence? Low-resource initiatives have a lower chance of reaching their target audience or getting media attention.

• Content’s Quality and Message: People are less likely to be persuaded by messaging if it sharply contradicts their preexisting viewpoint or if the arguments are shoddily put forth or illogically reasoned. Above all else, campaigns with messaging that contradicts targets’ beliefs, fails to successfully integrate with a target’s information environment, and presents weak arguments should be avoided.

• Detectability: Lastly, actions that are rapidly found have a lower likelihood of having an effect. Independent researchers and social media platforms aggressively look for influence operations, which the platforms then take down to reduce their reach. In fact, propagandists’ awareness that these operations can be abandoned might influence their actions, encouraging them to pursue diversion strategies rather than persona creation, which takes more time and effort but can be more persuasive to observers.

It is beneficial to keep these restrictions in mind as we think about the potential contribution of language models to influence campaigns. They could pose a serious problem for the information environment if they can get beyond the current barriers. In Section 4, we go into more detail about this.

Trust-Based Downstream Impact

The second method influence operations might have an effect is via undermining trust. Even when influence campaigns are recognized, their presence, especially at scale, may lead people to become skeptical of other, authentic sources. Degrading public trust does not necessarily require high quality initiatives. Particularly in areas where information technologies make it challenging to determine the reliability of sources, propagandists frequently seek to take advantage of weaknesses in their target’s mental shortcuts for gaining confidence. Influence operators have the ability to erode credibility beyond the narrow focus of their campaign by faking or using deceptive credentials and testimonials, as well as by altering with photographic and video evidence. Lowering societal trust might make it more difficult for a society to plan quick responses to emergencies, which could be an admirable objective for antagonistic actors in and of itself. As a result, propagandists can further their goals in an environment where there is less societal trust. Existing societal division and polarization make it harder for trustworthy actors to gain widespread respect. They can also provide influence operators a foothold to target their messaging at specific audiences, cause discord, and undermine institutional and social confidence. The norms that allow people and organizations to connect and collaborate without the need for numerous rules and processes to manage their behavior are threatened by low universal trust.

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The Chinese Communist Party’s globally focused propaganda and disinformation capabilities are evolving and increasing in sophistication. This emerging approach to influence international discourse on China, including obfuscating its record of human rights violations, is of concern since it flies under the radar of US social media platforms and policymakers.

Youtube accounts are used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to censor speech, promote disinformation and seed the internet with its preferred narratives. These accounts feature mainly female China-based ethnic-minority influencers from the troubled frontier regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia (frontier influencers or frontier accounts).

Frontier-influencer accounts are increasingly used as an emerging part of Beijing’s growing propaganda arsenal. They’re seen as a resource to be drawn on, but only if they’re harnessed properly.

YouTube is blocked in China but it is seen by the CCP as a key battlefield in its ideological contest with the outside world. YouTube’s use in China’s foreign propaganda efforts has intensified in recent years. Earlier it was deployed on domestic video-sharing platforms to meet an internal propaganda need, thus has now been redirected towards global audiences on YouTube to counter criticisms of China’s human rights problems and correct the country’s image.

China uses carefully vetted domestic vloggers with a more personal style of communication and softer presentation to be more convincing than traditional party media content, which is often more rigid and didactic. Frontier influencers represent what may be called ‘guerrillas or militia’ fighting on the flanks in the arena of public opinion. The party media may be seen as the ‘regular army’ ‘charging and killing on the frontlines.

Frontier accounts have been created since 2019. They feature content derived from CCP narratives. A false sense of legitimacy and transparency comes from their less-polished presentations. The videos appear to be the creation of the individual influencers, but is in fact professional-generated content and specialists.

Young female Uyghur, Tibetan and other ethnic-minority influencers with such an active presence on a Western social media platform is clearly unusual. But, they are carefully vetted and considered politically reliable. The content is tightly censored and tested on domestic video audiences before being published on YouTube.

The Case of Annie Gul

The ‘Annie Guli’ account’s videos about cotton production in Xinjiang, which feature English-language subtitles, have been among its best performing on YouTube – something Chinese propaganda experts have made note of. Accounts such as ‘Annie Guli’, which present the lives of ethnic minorities in China in a CCP-approved way, can be particularly useful in combating criticism from foreign governments, media and civil society.

One scholar noted that views of ‘Annie Guli’s’ Xinjiang cotton videos outranked Chinese state media outlet, the China Global Television Network (CGTN), on YouTube on the same topic. Similar videos by foreign vloggers in China, however, outranked them both.

Alongside foreign vloggers, carefully vetted domestic vloggers are increasingly seen as another key part of Beijing’s external propaganda arsenal. The increased use of a combination of these two types of vloggers is being encouraged in order to further buttress the propaganda work of party-state media.

Among rural vloggers, the two authors single out ‘grassroots internet celebrities’ such as Li Ziqi and Grandpa Amu as key examples of online video-content creators who already ‘proved the great attraction of China’s colourful culture to global internet users’ on YouTube. These vloggers depict Chinese people as ‘hard-working, brave, self-improving and self-reliant’ individuals.

Some Chinese scholars have noted that these types of accounts are supportive of Xi Jinping’s persistent call for external propaganda to ‘tell China’s stories well, present a true, multidimensional, and panoramic view of China, and enhance our country’s cultural soft power.’

During his visit to Xinjiang in July 2022, Xi emphasised the need to ‘launch multi-level, omni-directional, three-dimensional propaganda about Xinjiang directed abroad, perfect the work of “inviting in” and tell China’s Xinjiang story well.’

Monetisation

Since YouTube is blocked in China, the influencers based in the country are not able to receive advertising revenue through the YouTube Partner Program. the party content creators have made arrangements with YouTube to monetise content for frontier influencers, as well as for hundreds of other China-based influencers on YouTube.

Professional support also ensures that state-backed content ranks well in search results because search-engine algorithms tend to prioritise fresh content and channels that post regularly. The continuous flooding of content by party-state media, onto YouTube is aimed at outperforming other more critical but stale content about China.

This is clearly the Communist Party’s experiment to shape online political discourse. By such targeting the CCP can hide its affiliation with those influencers and create the appearance of ‘independent’ and ‘authoritative’ voices supporting its narratives.

Recommendations

The emergence of ethnic-frontier accounts on platforms blocked in China is a sign of Beijing’s willingness to experiment in building its global voice. Some recommendations as follows are in  order:

• Social media platforms should broaden the practice of labelling the accounts of state media, agencies, and officials to state-linked, PRC-based influencers, in order to give users context and awareness about more insidious forms of state-backed content that lack independence and transparency.

• US social media platforms should stop partnering with, promoting and giving awards to MCNs that are conducting propaganda and disinformation work on behalf of the Chinese party-state.

• Until the Chinese government allows their services to operate in China, US social media platforms should stop their practice of allowing MCNs to monetise content from creators based in the PRC. MCN’s will still be able to post content on these platforms, but they should not be earning money for content as that effectively subsidises state-backed propaganda and disinformation efforts.

• Governments, social media platforms and civil society organisations which rely heavily on the research and insights produced by expert research groups, should increase their support to and funding of such groups. Research topics such as misinformation, information operations and propaganda are complicated, multi-language, data-heavy and rapidly evolving areas of study.

Conclusion

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long deployed covert and overt online information campaigns to portray positive narratives about its domestic policies, while also flooding the global public discourse with disinformation and propaganda. But the potentially greater impact that influencers can have compared to party-state media or inauthentic social media activity is a point not lost on the CCP’s leadership, as well as on propaganda experts and scholars working inside the PRC.

THE GREAT FIREWALL

The blocking of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in China has been inextricably linked with frontier issues and ethnic clashes since 2008. Before then, those websites were still accessible from China, although with some restrictions, but around the 2008 Beijing Olympics internal censorship increased steeply, and many websites were fully blocked.

In March 2009, Google reported that its video-sharing site YouTube had been blocked. Local media attributed the issue to the publication of a video depicting police brutality against Tibetans in Lhasa during the 2008 uprisings. The site had already been blocked a year earlier during the riots.

The 2009 Xinjiang riots caused an additional tightening of internet controls, and in July that year Twitter and Facebook were also blocked in the country. For months after the riots, the internet was completely shut across the entire region of Xinjiang, denying access to approximately 7 million internet users at the time.

Despite being inaccessible, foreign social media platforms are monitored by Chinese authorities, who use them to clamp down on dissent and hunt down critics even outside of China’s borders, especially if they hold Chinese citizenship. In the past decade, there have been many reports of people being harassed, interrogated, arrested and detained for posting about issues sensitive to the CCP on Chinese and foreign social media.

One of the most well-known cases is that of Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who became famous for her early reporting of the

Covid-19 outbreak in the city of Wuhan. In May 2020, after broadcasting about the impact of the lockdown on YouTube, Zhang was detained and tortured before being sentenced to four years in prison for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’.

For minorities in Xinjiang, state control over online activities is even tighter. Former detainees have reported that having a virtual private network (VPN) and/or having a foreign messaging app such as WhatsApp installed on their phones had been used as a pretext for detention.

Watching a video filmed abroad also raises red flags, as well as simply speaking with someone overseas. Forms of religious expression such as wearing a hijab or wearing a scarf in the presence of the Chinese flag have been reported as reasons for arbitrary detention.

Because of the government’s discriminatory crackdown targeting Turkic Muslims and other ethnic and religious groups, most people don’t feel safe to express their faith online or to have a presence on foreign platforms. And, while the closely vetted vloggers featured in this report seem to have special permission to post content on YouTube, they still avoid making any direct reference to their faith or specific religious practices.

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The PLA is the Party’s army. In China, the most important mission of the army is to bring and keep the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in power. Conversely, ensuring the military’s loyalty to the Party is an indispensable guarantee for the CCP to stay in power.

Prior to Xi Jinping’s military reforms, the basic mechanisms by which the Party exercised control over the military consisted of the following components.

First, the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) continued to be a key post held by the Party’s supreme leader. Following Jiang Zemin’s rule, the Party secretary concurrently served as president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and CMC chairman in order to concentrate a high degree of power in the secretary.

The second component was the existence of three systems:

The General Political Department system

The PLA Party committee system

The political commissar system.

The General Political Department, which was in charge of political work, was established as the single agency responsible for Party-related activities and political work in the PLA. Until the military reforms, the political work carried out by political organs consisted primarily of:

• Ensuring implementation of the Party’s guidelines, policies, state laws, and the CMC’s directives and orders and steering ideologies in the military;

• Managing organizations;

• Cadre administration;

• Security and military justice work;

• Propaganda and cultural activities;

• Discipline inspection;

• Mass work (building relationships with the masses);

• Liaison work (intelligence and collusion with the adversary).

Party Committees in the military are responsible for decision making in military organizations. Political commissars have the same rank as military commanders and have engaged in decision making as secretaries of PLA Party committees. Military organizations were designed to have a dual leadership system, comprised of military commanders and political commissars under the command of Party committees.

Political Commissars were mainly responsible for ideological education and management of units, enforcement of military regulations, cadre work under the command of Party committees, and security. That is, ideological indoctrination, personnel and organization management, and inspections were carried out as political work to ensure that the Party had command of the military.

Issues Affected

A number of problems had beset Party-Army relations as of the start of Xi Jinping’s regime.

•  CMC chairman had become a position merely in name.

•  The mid-level organizations held power, with the four general departments (General Staff Department, General Political Department, General Logistics Department, and General Armament Department) seizing most of the actual functions of the military. In particular, the General Political Department had internalized the functions related to military inspection, such as disciplinary inspection, safety, court procedure, and prosecution, and this created various problems. The PLA’s nature as the Party’s army had the potential of obstructing efficient execu- tion of operations.

• Problem of bribery and corruption.

• Slackening of ideology and discipline due to social pluralization and lack of war experience.

• Concern over U.S. ideological penetration.

For these reasons, organizational reform of Party-Army relations was essential for solving the problems with political control over the military. It was also inevitable for building an army that is capable of winning wars.

Reforms Introduced

In carrying out the most sweeping military reforms since the PRC’s founding, President Xi Jinping has focused on strengthening the Party’s leadership over the military through:

(1) Reestablishment of the CMC Chairman Responsibility System. In November 2012, shortly after he was appointed general secretary of the CCP and CMC chairman, Xi Jinping revised the “Regulations on Central Military Commission Work” so that the CMC chairman responsibility system was specified. The 19th CCP National Congress in 2017 marked the establishment of the CMC chairman responsibility system, and the system was written into the revised Party charter (constitution).

(2) Emphasis on the Leadership of Party Committees. Xi Jinping values the leadership of Party committees in the military and highlights the need to build Party cells in the military. When Xi attended the CMC Party Building Conference in August 2018, he stressed the significance of building Party cells in the military, especially Party committees in the military. Xi reaffirmed that the PLA’s dual leadership system under the command of Party committees would be maintained, and that “All work will be conducted under the unified leadership of Party Committees, and all important issues will be studied and decided by Party committees.” At the same time, for improving combat capability, Xi stated that Party committees in the military would focus on the main responsibilities and tasks of war preparation and war execution.

Xi argued that by enhancing the Party’s leadership, organizational, and executive capabilities, the Party’s political and organizational superiority can be converted into warfare superiority. In particular, he underscored the importance and significant responsibility of high-level Party committees at or above the corps level, and

Xi Jinping talked about problems with Party building in the military, which he referred to as the “seven weakenings.” They are:

•   The weakening of political awareness and political capability;

•   The weakening of centralized and unified leadership by Party committees;

•   The weakening of leadership over war preparations and war execution;

•   The weakening of the principles and combat capability of Party cells;

•   The weakening of management of Party cadres and personnel;

•   The weakening of revolutionary will and combat spirit; and

•   The weakening of responsibility for implementing Party management and Party governance.

(3) Independent Inspection Departments in the Military. Xi Jinping seeks to promote governance in the military and give power to inspection departments to strengthen objective control. He calls this the “fundamental transformation of the military governance system.” Under the previous four general department system, all inspection departments, such as discipline, law, and financial management, were placed in the General Political Department and were unable to exercise independent inspection capabilities. As part of the military reforms, efforts were made to enhance the inspections.

In February 2015, the CMC issued the “Decision on Deeply Promoting Law-based Governance of the Military and Strict Enforcement of Discipline in the New Situation.” These refer to the goal of achieving stable governance in the military through the strict application of law and Party discipline.

Organizational reforms were undertaken to effectively promote governance. That is, as part of the reforms of national defense and the armed forces, inspection departments that had been internalized by the four general departments were given independent status. With the dismantling of the four general departments, the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission, the CMC Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and the CMC Audit Office were established in the CMC.

The CMC Discipline Inspection Commission, which became independent by the reorganization in 2016, sent 10 inspection teams to 15 CMC departments and to each theater command for the first time since the PLA’s founding and began inspection activities. The inspections focused on:

• The implementation status of directives to develop and bolster the Party’s ways and attitude (verify problems, such as not doing even when ordered to, not stopping even when prohibited, not fully adhering to regulations, implementing selectively, and allowing for flexibility);

• The integrity of cadres;

• Compliance with regulations on encouraging saving and opposing wasteful spending; and

• Supervision over the management and use of official military vehicles. Other efforts to strengthen the discipline inspection system include establishing a discipline inspection commission in each military service and branch, as well as having a full-time secretary of the discipline inspection commission, which used to be a concurrent position with deputy member of the Poltburo.

At the theater command level, a dispatch mechanism has been established. This is not an internal mechanism in the theater command but a dispatch mechanism of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission. Responsibility for discipline inspection lies with the central state, not the theatre command. The “Regulations on Discipline Inspection,” revised in March 2018, lists 10 categories of discipline inspections, namely, political discipline, organizational discipline, operational discipline (obedience to orders and commands), training discipline (supervision of training), work discipline, safety discipline, integrity discipline, financial discipline, mass discipline (attitude toward civilians), and life discipline. As the above indicates, discipline inspections are not limited to political loyalty and are highly broad in scope, extending to operations and training.

Training inspection, too, is being strengthened. In building an armed forces capable of winning wars, it is important to standardize training and acquire capabilities as intended by the central state.

In this context, supervision of training has been enhanced, including enacting regulations on training inspections. While the CMC Training and Administration Department oversees the training inspections, actual inspections are carried out also by the CMC Joint Staff Department, the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission, and the CMC Agency for Offices Administration, with the Training and Administration Department playing a central role. As this fact reveals, the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission is engaged in training and operations as well.

In comparison, the CMC Political and Legal Affairs Commission underwent a more subtle transition. In 1982, the Political and Legal Affairs Leading Small Group was established in the General Political Department. This became an all-military political and legal affairs commission in 2007, but it remained under the jurisdiction of the four general departments. Although the reorganization in 2016 gave it independent status as the CMC Political and Legal Affairs Commission, its authority is considered weaker than that of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission.

(4) Introduction of a Patrol System. The CCP further seeks to strengthen its direct monitoring of organizations and regions by introducing a patrol system. The PLA enacted the “Regulations on Patrol Work” in January 2018. According to the regulations, patrol work is mainly conducted to monitor the discipline of high-level Party committees in the military. At the central state level, the CMC Patrol Work Leading Small Group was established to lead the patrol work. The CMC vice chairman is the head of the small group, the secretary of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission is the managing deputy head, and the director of the Political Work Department and the secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission are the deputy heads. An administrative organization is established in the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission. The patrols cover the Party committees of CMC departments, theater commands, military services and branches, the National Defense University, the Academy of Military Sciences, and the People’s Armed Police (PAP). Furthermore, a Patrol Work Leading Small Group is established in the military services and branches and the PAP. The patrol system is headed by the leader of the Party committee in the military, and the secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission is responsible for the implementation work.

The purpose of the patrol inspections is fourfold:

• Supervising and giving guidance on the implementation status of theoretical armament and real combat training under the leadership of Party cells, measurement of their effectiveness, and whether Party cells and cadres are supporting the core (Xi Jinping) and adhering to the Party’s command;

• Supervising whether Party cells are taking proactive responsibility in promoting war preparation and war execution, and supervising measurements of the actual effectiveness of the training and units’ fulfillment of combat capability standards;

• Understanding and resolving small issues, such as what officers and soldiers are opposed to and what they consider as hardships, and what the focus of their patrol inspections is; and

• Training the substratum Party cells and cadres through the process of patrol inspections.

• Reduced Role of the Political Work Department. The CMC Political Work Department, which took over the main activities of the General Political Department, has reduced its authority and role considerably. First, as mentioned above, the Discipline Inspection Commission and the Political and Legal Affairs Commission in the military were given independent status. In addition, it was stipulated that the ultimate responsibility for political work rested with the CMC, and the Political Work Department was positioned as an enforcement body.

Furthermore, it appears that the political work organization at the theater command level has reduced functions. Military regions prior to the reforms had a political department staffed by a full- time director. In the post-reform theater commands, while a political work department is established, its director is no longer a full-time post, with a deputy member of the Politburo dual hatting as the director.

In addition, as mentioned above, the leadership of the Party committees at each level over the     political work organs of the same level has been strengthened. It likely signifies weakening coordination between the upper and lower-level political work organs. This is because the authority of the same-level Party committees is currently being increased, whereas in the past the General Political Department had strong leadership power over lower-level political work organs.

Implications of Tightening Party Control

What are the implications of this tightening of Party control over the military for China’s external activities? First, this tightening of Party control seems to be a vital means of reforming the military and creating an armed forces capable of conducting joint operations and fighting. It is very difficult for military organizations to carry out reform on their own. Especially for an organization like the PLA with rampant bribery and corruption, this requires powerful external intervention, which Xi Jinping is attempting to achieve by bolstering the Party’s leadership.

Also of note is that strengthening the Party’s leadership offers a means of enabling coordination between the military and other organizations. Such strengthening of the Party’s leadership is essential for understanding China’s activities in the maritime gray zone and in the psychological and cognitive domain.

This report has examined the relationship between military organizational reforms and struggles using non-military means. A number of conclusions can be drawn from the analysis.

First, Xi Jinping’s military reforms drove the restructuring of Chinese military organizations and strengthened the Party’s leadership over them. Previously, the Party controlled the military mainly through political work organizations and political commissars in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Today, more emphasis is placed on direct control by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Focus is on especially the implementation of the Central Military Commission’s chairman responsibility system and the Party committees in the military. Furthermore, military governance through laws and rules is underscored. The Party’s leadership has been reinforced not only over the PLA but also over other military organizations, and mechanisms are being developed for coordination between the military and other governmental actors. These measures were developed also as a response to modern forms of conflict that actively use non-military means.

The People’s Armed Police (PAP) and its subordinate China Coast Guard (CCG) has been restructured. The PAP has been reorganized to specialize in maintaining public security in peacetime and easily contribute to PLA joint operations in a contingency. The reorganization was intended to strip the state of its armed forces and reassign them under the CCP.

The cooperation relationship between the military and other Party governmental organizations is not all that clear. In reality, the Party, the government, and the military may not necessarily be conducting activities in an integrated manner under a consistent system of command. Instead, each actor may be operating under the overarching policies of the Party.

What stands out is that :

• The Party’s leadership is critical to China’s external actions. The Xi Jinping regime strengthened the Party’s leadership in all domains as well as over the organizations engaged in external actions including the military. This is considered not only necessary for maintaining the Party’s rule but also for implementing more strategic external actions. By strengthening the Party’s leadership, the Xi regime succeeded in easing to some extent the problem of “fragmented authoritarianism.”

• What problems and weaknesses face China’s use of non-military means? China has strengthened the Party’s leadership over the military and governmental agencies and developed coordination mechanisms. However, they will not function if the Party itself weakens or falls into chaos. In this sense, the CCP can be both a major strength and a weakness for China’s external actions. There is also no robust mechanism to correct any misjudgments that the CCP might make. Information that goes against the will of the Party is not reported precisely because the Party’s leadership has been strengthened.

Based on the NIDS China Security Report 2023 – China’s Quest for Control of the Cognitive Domain and Gray Zone Situations

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Acutely conscious of the fate of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Chinese President Xi Jinping is particularly concerned that the army remains “an army of the party” and to ensure this, he mandated a series of consecutive year-long education campaigns to instil the CCP’s ideology and correct political orientation among the soldiers. A book released last week, titled “Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Army Q&A”, has now indelibly affixed his imprimatur on the PLA. It has been distributed throughout the army as “important” reading for officers, soldiers, cadres and the masses.

Xi’s grip on the PLA is near absolute. At an “enlarged” meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) within two days of taking over China’s top three posts, including Chairman of the CMC in November 2012, Xi announced that the political reliability and loyalty would trump all other considerations and be the sole determining criterion for promotions in the PLA. Other steps were taken to ensure the PLA’s “absolute obedience” to the CCP and CMC Chairman. The CCP’s anti-graft outfit, the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC), weeded out corrupt officers and those of doubtful loyalty and by September 2017 had dismissed over 4,885 officers, including 150 Generals. Each General in the PLA today has been appointed by Xi, who has also donned the operational role of the Commander-in-Chief.

With the PLA maintaining the number of delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress at 304, despite its downsizing by 3,00,000 personnel, it appears that the PLA’s representation in the new 20th CCP Central Committee (CC) will probably stay at 37 full members and 22 alternate members as in the outgoing 19th CCP CC. Its representation in the Politburo is similarly unlikely to be reduced. The PLA’s presence in the Party Congress would give Xi added leverage in the CCP CC.

Relevant to India is the attention being paid by Xi to the PLA Western Theatre Command (WTC). The largest of China’s five theatre commands, it exercises operational jurisdiction over China’s borders with Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Myanmar. Its tasks include protection of Chinese personnel and assets deployed on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Western Theatre Command was operationally responsible for the intrusions in the Ladakh region in April 2020 that activated the entire 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In this backdrop of continuing tension and deployment of 60,000-70,000 troops each by India and China in the high-altitude eastern Ladakh, what is interesting is that the number of delegates representing the PLA WTC at the 20th Party Congress is nearly double than that of the other four theatre commands. The WTC has selected 30 delegates for the 20th Party Congress. There are other signs of the leadership’s attention to the WTC.

The Chinese President visited Lhasa on July 23, 2021, Chengdu on July 9, 2022, and Urumqi on July 15, 2022, where he met WTC officers. The WTC receives advanced military hardware and latest jet aircraft ahead of all other theatre commands, except the Eastern Theatre Command.

Massive infrastructure projects sanctioned by the 14th Five-Year Plan are scheduled for completion by 2030-35. These will upgrade the WTC’s military capabilities and include new railways, a new highway and 30 additional airfields in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and its surrounding areas.

Coincidentally, the timeline matches that in the article published in June 2013 by Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po, projecting China’s war with India for the “reconquest of the southern Tibet” between 2035 and 2040.

Furthermore, there is little sign of abatement of the considerable widespread discontent inside China, further inflamed by the “zero Covid” policy and unending lockdowns.

A PLA Daily editorial had earlier warned that the United States could “use the tense domestic situation in China to fan the social upheaval and provoke social conflict.”

“Colour revolutions” is a serious worry for the Chinese leadership. Significant for China’s neighbours and India is the fresh warning issued just weeks before the 20th Party Congress via a commentator’s article, which conveys the views of the CCP CC.

This commentator’s article in the People’s Daily last week stated that the world has become increasingly turbulent and more prone to change. In an unusually candid admission, it said the “country’s security situation has become increasingly unstable and uncertain.” It disclosed the CCP leadership’s concern at the increasingly “prominent issues” related to maritime disputes and the “increased likelihood of chaos on our doorstep”, thus making the task of “defending the country’s political security and social stability more formidable.”

The latest warning clearly implies that Xi is facing a difficult period and will be on the edge. The CCP cadres, public security apparatus and the PLA, including the WTC, are certainly on high alert. In case the situation doesn’t improve, or deteriorates, and the CCP’s authority and legitimacy are perceived as beginning to erode, Xi will be tempted to divert attention and resort to military actions abroad. The developments in Ukraine will be a factor in his calculations. In this backdrop, any expectation, prompted by disingenuous Chinese media comments or the disengagement at Gogra-Hot Springs, that Xi will change his attitude or policy towards India is unfounded and premature.

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In a paper titled “Global Strategy 2021: An Allied Strategy for China”, the authors – Matthew Kroenig and Jeffrey Cimmino along with expert collaborators from ten of the world’s leading democracies – writing for the Atlantic Council, propose a logical and actionable strategy for addressing the China challenge. The strategy articulates clear longand short-term goals and several major strategic elements to help achieve those goals.

First, the paper calls for strengthening likeminded allies and partners and the rules-based system for a new era of great-power competition. This will require, for example, prioritizing innovation, repairing infrastructure, and establishing new institutions to bolster democratic cooperation. A successful strategy begins at home.

Second, likeminded allies and partners should defend against Chinese behavior that threatens to undermine core principles of the rules-based system. Executing this element will mean prohibiting China’s engagement in economic sectors vital to national security, countering Chinese influence operations, and deterring and, if necessary, defending against, Chinese military aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Third, the authors recognize that China also presents an opportunity, and they recommend that likeminded allies and partners engage China from a position of strength to cooperate on shared interests and, ultimately, incorporate China into a revitalized and adapted rules-based system. Thus, efforts should be made to cooperate with China on issues of shared interests, including public health, the global economy, nonproliferation, and the global environment.

They argue that the desired endpoint of the strategy is not everlasting competition or the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party, but rather to convince Chinese leaders that their interests are better served by cooperating within, rather than challenging, a rules-based international system. They pay attention to both the rivalry and the cooperative possibilities in the relationship.

The paper presents a sound strategic framework and a comprehensive and practical plan for the US and its democratic allies to follow as they address the China challenge. I encourage experts and officials from the United States and allied nations to study this thoughtful report. Following this strategy could help leading democracies cope with the China challenge and advance a revitalized rules-based system for years to come.

Here is an executive summary.

Over the past seventy-five years, likeminded allies and partners have con­structed a rules-based international system that has generated unprec­edented levels of peace, prosperity, and freedom. The system, however, is coming under increasing strain, especially from the reemergence of great-power competition with China. The increasing assertiveness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses a significant challenge to the interests and values of likeminded allies and partners and the rules-based system.

THE CHINA CHALLENGE IS EVIDENT IN THE ECONOMIC, DIPLOMATIC, GOVERNANCE, SECURITY, AND HEALTH DOMAINS.

•  Economic: China engages in unfair economic practices that violate international standards, including: intellectual-property theft, sub­sidizing state-owned companies to pursue geopolitical goals, and restricting market access to foreign firms. It is also investing enor­mous state resources in a bid to dominate key technologies of the twenty-first century.

•  Diplomatic: Through ambitious plans, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, China is expanding its diplomatic influence in every region and taking aggressive action against countries that resist or criticize Beijing. Its coercive diplomacy, however, is beginning to provoke a backlash.

•  Governance: China’s economic and political model of authoritar­ian state capitalism is the first formidable alternative to the success­ful model of open market democracy since the end of the Cold War. Current and would-be autocrats look to China as a model for com­bining authoritarian control with economic success. Abroad, China is using “sharp-power” tools to disrupt democratic practices and is exporting surveillance technologies that bolster authoritarian governments.

•  Security: China continues its decades-long military modernization and expansion, while making sweeping territorial claims and increas­ing its military and intelligence activities globally. Its growing capabil­ities increasingly threaten the United States’ collective defense with long-standing allies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

•  Health: In a failed bid to protect its image, the CCP suppressed information about the novel coronavirus, silenced those attempt­ing to speak out about it, and used its influence in the World Health Organization (WHO) to hamper global efforts to understand, and quickly mitigate, the spread of the virus.

The CCP poses a clear challenge to the rules-based international sys­tem, but there are domains in which China and other leading nations share interests and could develop a more cooperative relationship, including on the global economy, arms control, nonproliferation, the environment, and development aid.

This Atlantic Council Strategy Paper proposes a comprehensive strategy for how likeminded allies and partners should address the challenges and opportunities presented by China.

By likeminded allies and partners, the authors mean several categories of leading states. The active participation of powerful democracies is of criti­cal importance, including the nations of the D-10 (the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, South Korea, and Australia, plus the European Union), and other NATO allies. Other formal and informal partners (such as India, Sweden, Finland, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and others) will also be helpful in executing various elements of this strategy. 

THIS STRATEGY OUTLINES THE FOLLOWING OVERARCHING SHORT- AND LONG-TERM GOALS.

•  Long-Term: Likeminded allies and partners would prefer a stable rela­tionship with China that avoids permanent confrontation and enables cooperation on issues of mutual interest and concern. They would like China to become a responsible member of a revised and adapted rules-based system that respects individual rights and China’s legiti­mate interests. The problem is that such a relationship will be difficult to achieve under President Xi Jinping and the current generation of CCP leadership, who have launched China on a more confrontational path.

•  Short-Term: In the meantime, therefore, likeminded allies and part­ners must prevent China from continuing to threaten their interests in the economic, diplomatic, governance, security, and public health domains. This strategy seeks to prevent, deter, defend against, and impose costs on Chinese actions that violate widely-held interna­tional rules and norms. The strategy seeks to shape Chinese behav­ior in a positive direction by demonstrating to Beijing that challeng­ing likeminded allies and partners is too difficult and costly. At the same time, likeminded allies and partners should maintain open lines of communication, find areas of mutual cooperation, and work to convince Chinese leadership that Beijing’s interests are better served by playing within, rather than challenging, a revitalized and adapted rules-based system.

The strategy is premised on a two-track approach of:

1) seeking deeper cooperation with allies, partners, and likeminded states to develop a coordinated strategy for defending against and engaging with China; and

2) engaging with China on issues where collaboration is possible, and with an eye toward constructing a revitalized and adapted rules-based system.

THE STRATEGY CONSISTS OF THREE MAJOR ELEMENTS.

1) Strengthen: Likeminded allies and partners should strengthen them­selves and the rules-based system for a new era of great-power competi­tion. They should

• Facilitate a recovery from the current health crisis and pandemic-in­duced economic downturn;

•  Prioritize innovation and emerging technology by boosting research and development spending, investing in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education, and securing supply chains;

•  Invest in repairing and renewing infrastructure and ensuring it incor­porates advanced technology, including fifth-generation (5G) wire­less capability;

•  Reassert influence in existing multilateral institutions by, for example, promoting candidates for leadership positions that favor upholding open and transparent global governance;

•  Create new institutions to facilitate collaboration among likeminded allies and partners in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and globally; and

•  Develop new military capabilities and operational concepts to achieve a credible combat posture in the Indo-Pacific region.

2) Defend: Likeminded allies and partners should defend against destabi­lizing Chinese behavior and impose costs on Beijing’s ongoing violations of core principles of the rules-based system. They should

•  Prohibit Chinese engagement in economic sectors vital to national security;

•  Collectively impose offsetting measures, including tariffs, for indus­tries negatively affected by China’s unfair practices;

•  Collectively resist Chinese economic coercion by reducing economic dependence on China and offering offsetting economic opportuni­ties to vulnerable allies and partners;

•  Counter Chinese influence operations and defend democracy and good governance;

•  Coordinate penalties on China when it uses coercive tools, such as arbitrary detention of foreign nationals, to pressure their home countries;

•  Spotlight CCP corruption and human-rights violations and encourage human-rights reforms in China; and

•  Maintain a favorable balance of power over China in the Indo-Pacific to deter and, if necessary, defend against Chinese aggression.

3) Engage: Likeminded allies and partners should engage China from a position of strength to cooperate on shared interests. They should

•  Maintain open lines of communication with China, even if competi­tion intensifies;

•  Seek to cooperate with China on issues of mutual interest, including public health, the global economy, nonproliferation, and the environ­ment, without compromising core values; and

•  Engage with China to, over the long term, incorporate China into a revitalized and adapted rules-based system.

The three parts of this strategy are interconnected. Likeminded allies and partners will need to strengthen themselves—both domestically and their relationships—to be prepared for a new period of great-power competi­tion. This, in turn, will put them in a better position to defend against China’s threatening behavior. By demonstrating collective resolve and a willing­ness to impose costs on Beijing, likeminded allies and partners will be able to constructively engage China, and help convince Beijing that its current approach is futile and that its interests are better served by cooperating with, or acquiescing to, a rules-based system, rather than challenging it.

Likeminded allies and partners came together many times in the twenti­eth century to defeat autocratic revisionist challengers. Working together, they can once again advance their interests and values, and the broader rules-based system, and fend off the twenty-first-century challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

In several previous cases, former rivals became close allies. If successful, this strategy will ultimately help bring about a cooperative future, in which China is not an adversary, but an integral member of a strong and sustain­able rules-based international system.

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