Tag: China

There is a great article over at Small Wars Journal that explains the 12 different grey zone strategies that the Chinese Communist Party is currently using against the U.S. For those that follow this issue closely, the tactics will not be surprising, though I have to admit I wasn’t aware of the smuggling of agro-weapons to threaten the U.S. food supply with. Anyway the first tactic of algorithmic cognitive warfare should be very familiar to ROK Drop readers:

While the West treats media and influence as mere public relations, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) integrates strategic cognitive communications at a structural level. Reorganized into the PLA Information Support Force and historically anchored by the political warfare units of Base 311, these specialized operators execute what Beijing terms the “Three Warfares” (psychological, public opinion, and legal warfare). As outlined by researchers at the Project 2049 Institute in their specialized reports on PLA political warfare and the Global Taiwan Institute in their strategic briefs, these entities deploy industrial-scale digital networks, bot ecosystems, and tailored disinformation engineered to inflame Western partisan divides and paralyze political decision-making.

Small Wars Journal

I recommend reading the rest of the article at the link. However, due to the political partisanship in D.C. I don’t see how the author’s recommendations will ever get implemented outside of a major Chinese provocation forcing a whole of government and society approach in response.

The Chinese are just accepting reality that North Korea is not going to give up their nuclear weapons and the Kim regime is an ally in their great power competition against the U.S. Why would they antagonize an ally to get rid of their nuclear weapons when they know they will never give them up in the first place?:

China appeared more focused on countering U.S. regional influence than on addressing North Korea’s nuclear program, given the absence of any public reference to Pyongyang’s denuclearization in either country’s readout of their summit this week, experts said Tuesday.

The summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang on Monday underlined a deepening strategic alignment between the two countries and their unity amid an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry over trade, security and other areas, they pointed out.

Xi visited the North Korean capital on Monday and Tuesday on his first trip to the country since 2019, as Beijing was seen striving to strengthen relations with Pyongyang, which has drawn closer to Russia through deepening military, diplomatic and economic cooperation.

“China is more focused on denying U.S. influence than denying North Korea nuclear weapons,” Patrick Cronin, chair for Asia-Pacific security at the Hudson Institute, told Yonhap News Agency via email.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.