Map of the China-US conflict

It is necessary to evaluate the information operations of the Chinese government against military alliances with the participation of the United States exclusively from the point of view of the logic of the internal political struggle in the leadership of China and the CCP. In general terms, a unified information policy for external audiences exists, it is expressed by the hierarchical system of Chinese media and is aimed at creating a positive image of China, increasing its attractiveness and progressiveness. On closer inspection, there is no unified information policy in China, and it breaks down into accents and different goals of different groups of influence in the Chinese leadership.

The acute intra-elite conflict between pro-American groups (the leadership of the Chinese Komsomol, orientated towards the pro-American and anti-Soviet heritage of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping) and Xi Jinping's anti-American allies (belonging to military circles), focused on reducing dependence on the United States and reorienting to Eurasia, is the most acute in China's recent history. The question is literally "who is who" and should be resolved in the near future.

China's external information operations serve the interests of one or another force and try to strengthen its own and weaken its opponents. In other words, behind every Chinese information operation outside, one should look for lobbying groups and ask the question "who benefits?", meaning a cold civil war between the globalist (pro-American) "Komsomol members" (Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and his group: the first Vice Premier and four vice premiers) and the sovereign "army" (anti-American) representatives of the Chinese elite (the military and political wing of the CCP leadership, oriented towards Xi Jinping).

Among the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, three are representatives of the Komsomol: Premier Li Keqiang, Head of the Public Chamber of the People's Republic of China Wang Yang and Vice Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Han Zheng. That is, the top of the Politburo and the State Council is the highest arbitration commission and the body for setting up the system of checks and balances in China. The balance of power in China's government is reflected in the distribution of seats in these authorities.

Alliances involving the United States are alliances directed against Xi Jinping and his group in power. They are objectively working into the hands of pro-American influence groups in China, creating conditions for their return to power.

The content of China's information operations abroad depends on what message the owners of a particular information resource want to convey to their target audience. Since there is no Western media freedom in China, official newspapers and TV channels should be understood as representing the interests of the ruling group.

Information received through business contacts and intelligence agencies carries more hidden signals and reflects more internal contradictions and conflicts of interest, as it reflects more competition between Komsomol members and the top brass.

At the same time, even a pro-American group is interested in penetrating the political structures of the West, but it seeks to protect the business interests of groups whose feed base is the US market and its allies.

Information campaigns of “top brass" are designed to destroy the Western feed base of "Komsomol members": this is what should explain the tough policy of the Chinese authorities against Chinese global corporations promoted through exchanges in the construction and digital trade sector. However, the interests of companies associated with the Chinese military-industrial complex to varying degrees, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, are protected by the entire resource of the Chinese government.

Xi Jinping's very rise to power in China was made possible in large part by the rule of Vladimir Putin in Russia, who managed to provide about 15% of China's oil imports by land, from Russia. Before that, all oil to China went by sea, which means that created it It also threatened China's energy security and strengthened the position of the pro-American elite coalition within the country.

All the Belt and Road projects that envisage the Eurasian vector of China, land transit corridors, one of which is Russia and the political space controlled by it, are sabotaged by “Komsomol” members who develop the sea and port sector of the Chinese economy, which maintains its dependence on the United States.

The United States began to formalise alliances against China (and, in fact, against Xi Jinping) under Obama, who understood the perspective of Xi Jinping's course and began to form the TPP - a trade union consisting of the United States, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, but closed to China.

The United States withdrew from the TPP under Trump, but under Biden it wanted to return to this idea, changing its format and going even further: the creation of the tripartite anti-Chinese alliance AUKUS, thwarting the deal between Australia and France for the sale of French submarines. Since then, any alliances involving the United States are anti-Chinese in nature and are aimed at countering Xi Jinping's group with the ultimate goal of completely removing him from power.

AUKUS is a military alliance of the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Australia, like Canada, which is a British dominion, has been preparing for a conflict with China since 2011, so its participation in a new anti-Chinese alliance aimed at consolidating all of China's opponents in the Indo-Pacific region is not surprising.

Indonesia and the Philippines were hesitant to join the US against China. In Europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania joined the US-inspired anti-China alliance, while Hungary preferred to stay away. Germany and France, on behalf of the EU, have suspended investment agreements with China, but refrain from any form of confrontation with it.

Under Biden, the United States created another, quadrilateral anti-China alliance, QUAD, which includes the United States, Australia, India and Japan. The alliance is still virtual, and consent to its formation was obtained as a result of a remote meeting of the heads of state, but representatives of the State Department and the Pentagon personally traveled to Japan and South Korea, trying to get them to actively participate in the alliance.

It is obvious that the US considers Australia and Japan to be weak links in the anti-Chinese strategy of alliances, since they have already been included in two alliances: AUKUS and QUAD. Obviously, due to the close economic ties of these countries with China, there is reason to believe that they will be passive about American anti-Chinese initiatives.

And in the event of a war, China and the United States may find themselves between a rock and a hard place, and therefore, without strict pressure from Washington and binding to several multilateral alliances, they will try to stay on the sidelines, not allowing the United States to use their geographical potential.

The United States seeks to involve as many states as possible in the conflict with China. The US’ aggression against China is being carried out under the slogan of consolidating allies to form a "united front for the defence of democracy" against "authoritarian China", which is deeply embedded in the economies of "Western democracies". The conflict with China is being framed by the United States in an ideological wrapper, hiding its declining economic competitiveness under it.

The conflict was initiated by the United States, which realised that it was beginning to lose the race for global leadership to China. At the same time, without emotionally coloured ideological demagogy, the United States is not able to consolidate its vassals: the selfish motivation of a losing competitor makes its claim to a rival illegitimate.

Thus, the map of the conflict between China and the United States looks like this:

1. Subject of conflict: battle for resources.

2. Clients of the conflict: transnational globalist financial elites, founders of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

3. Participants in the conflict: active (aggressor) - the United States, passive (victim) - China.

4. Provocateurs: Great Britain, Lithuania, Ukraine.

5. Allies:

5.1. For the USA: active – Great Britain, Australia, Taiwan, passive - Thailand, India, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, Poland, Czechoslovakia.

5.2. For China: active – none, passive - Russia.

6. Sympathisers:

6.1. For the USA: Vietnam, South Korea, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand.

6.2. For China: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea.

7. Observers: South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Scandinavia, Israel, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Arab world, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia.

The task of each side of the conflict is to transfer observers to their sympathisers, their sympathisers to allies, passive allies to active ones, and active ones to participants on their side. At the same time, it is necessary to prevent observers from becoming sympathisers of the enemy, its sympathisers - its allies, its passive allies - active, and active allies - a participant in the conflict on the side of the enemy.

Analysing the information operations of the Chinese government directed against alliances involving the United States, it’s necessary to see this structure of interests and understand that the best actions should be carried out according to this methodology. How effective is the Chinese strategy of winning wars without "besieging fortresses" and "breaking enemy alliances"?

Problem statement.

For almost half a century, from 1964 to 2013 (when Xi Jinping came to power), China was an ally of the United States. China sees the transition to competition as a gradual process that should not be forced on its own. The Chinese leadership continues to avoid a clash with the US leadership.

First of all, it is necessary to note the fundamental difference in the rhetoric that the United States uses against China and how China responds to US attacks. Since the United States is the aggressor and initiator of the conflict, they called China in the public space is "a Frankenstein's tyranny that must be overthrown" (Michael Pompeo).

The fact that this is published in the British top media highlights the role of London as the main provocateur. At the same time, it was emphasised that China is woven into the economy, politics and society of the West much more strongly than the USSR, and therefore it is much more difficult to fight it.

It is the West's powerlessness and fear of China that explains the unprecedented defiance of key US officials towards the CCP leadership. And it is precisely the fear of damaging this Chinese entanglement in Western institutions that explains the extreme reticence of public Chinese diplomacy in response.

The main strategy of China's information work inside the United States is to use the Chinese diaspora. It is so closed that the FBI, with all its intelligence and technical apparatus, cannot fully penetrate it. Chinese intelligence, according to FBI reports, uses not only the diaspora in the United States, but also Triads.

As a result, Chinese agents in the United States are not fully identified by the FBI. And they say they don't know how many Chinese agents have infiltrated US government agencies. The US knows much less about China than China knows about the US. And we are not talking about oriental studies or the civilisational type of Anglo-Saxons, but about closed centres for making military and political decisions.

Through the work of IT giants like Huawei, China collects large databases on all countries of the world, including US allies in anti-Chinese coalitions. It is this information that China uses in bilateral contact, which the Chinese leadership prefers to conduct with each country that is an ally of the United States separately. This tactic is highly effective: the rejection of an alliance with Chinese IT corporations carries the risk of losing technological leadership for many EU countries seeking to increase their subjectivity there.

By the way the forces were distributed on the conflict map, it is clear that, in essence, there was a split within NATO on the issue of China. And the United States can stop the expansion of this split only by moving relations with its allies and vassals to the brink of ultimatums, open threats and blackmail. If we take into account that China does not seek to politically subordinate the local elites of the countries where it comes with expansion, then the US tactic is losing in the long run, although in the short term it has an effect.

But this effect comes at the cost of deepening the conflict of interests with the vassal elites in a situation where there is an alternative for them. It is precisely this alternative that China seeks to emphasise and guarantee in its separate contacts with US allies.

And it is precisely the prevention of this alternative that is the main goal of the United States. So China is trying to transform the camp of US allies, transferring them to a more remote status of supporters, and supporters to observers. Washington is unable to block the temptation of China for the elites of US vassals, and forceful methods are counterproductive, which Biden realised and tried to be more flexible in the fight for allies.

China understands psychological warfare as a confrontation between operational systems. This is a combination of the capabilities of independent elements. This is how China understands the war of systems in the 21st century.

This is a combination of network-centric wars in cyberspace, special intelligence operations, the use of organised crime structures against a rival state, the recruitment of agents of influence through corporate business and contacts with officials and politicians, as well as the formation of a rigid, even exclusive national identity for the Chinese, who will live in the cultural space of the West. They are convinced of the impossibility of assimilating into the West, and therefore are determined to return and use their connections and skills in China.

Even US-bribed agents of influence in China believe that they are strangers in the West and will never be their own there. The strategy of retaining Chinese agents by the special services of the United States and Great Britain is based on supporting Chinese versions of regional separatism. It explores the conflict between two versions of Chinese identity, national-communist and national-bourgeois.

But Chinese identity itself is a constant. And the idea that Chinese compradors can ever become part of Europeans or Americans is never encouraged. No, they are being helped to build dominance in Asia, but under an Anglo-Saxon protectorate. The ideal China from the US point of view is a lot of Hong Kong.

Therefore, the national idea helps China find allies in Taiwan among the military and political wing of the Kuomintang Party. In Taiwan, the Kuomintang's conflict with the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (a branch of the US Democratic Party) has long been much sharper than the conflict with the Chinese Communist Party. The positions became especially close after Xi Jinping, a representative of the so-called military wing, came to power.

Both the Kuomintang and Xi Jinping's group have similar views on China's fate in the next century, and they are only prevented from making peace by the presence of pro-American democrats, who are part of Taiwan's elite consensus and a condition for the physical survival of nationalist pro-Chinese groups in Taiwan.

China's public media is used to express the policies of the country's leadership, not any influence groups. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, said on his Twitter account that if Australia intervenes in the fighting in Taiwan and lands its troops there, the Australian military will sacrifice itself to the interests of the United States and the current Taiwanese government. China will certainly strike at them. Global Times is an English-language resource where information about the position of the Chinese leadership is intended for Western English-speaking readers.

This is how China responded to the speech of Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton, who promised to support the US military operation in Taiwan against China. Dutton's remarks drew criticism from former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, who said Dutton was dragging Australia into a war over Taiwan that had nothing to do with Australia's national interests.

That is, in countries where there is no Chinese diaspora or it is weak, China's information influence is carried out through diplomacy (relations with Iran and Pakistan) and the circle of official media established for this purpose. Those involved in them create resonant information events that stimulate a split in the local elites, some of whom are Americanophiles, and some are Americanosceptics. But these are the extreme poles, in the middle are usually Americano-optimists, indifferent, and quite on the edge are Ampricanophobes.

Any information policy of a foreign state in another country seeks to take into account the specifics of these target audiences, studying their nature and trying to influence their size and behaviour in their own interests. There is no doubt that the specific feature of Australia is the presence of a large group of people who are indifferent to China.

If they feel their interests are threatened by excessive Americanophile activity, they will turn into Americanosceptics. This will provoke conflict in Australian civil society, which will reduce the likelihood of support for its direct participation in the intervention in Taiwan.

However, AUKUS means pumping Australia with a nuclear submarine fleet and engaging it in operations in the Indo-Pacific region as part of US and UK forces. The Australian ground forces will probably not be involved in a landing in Taiwan. In such a situation, China's informational influence on Australian civil society and elites will be much weaker. Given Australia's lack of personality, China will not be able to prevent or slow down its involvement in the naval strategy of the United States and Great Britain.

In Australia, China conducts intelligence traditionally, like all other countries, including under the guise of the media. In September 2020, in Australia, domestic intelligence officers detained four Chinese journalists from three Chinese media groups: the Xinhua News Agency, the China Media Group Broadcasting Corporation, and the China News news agency.

The Chinese side protested and used traditional rhetoric about the need to maintain relations, but the incident itself showed that information operations in Australia are carried out by China mainly through intelligence, official media and the contact of representatives of Chinese big business with local authorities. All of this activity is under the control of the British and American intelligence services. There are no reserves for strengthening pro-Chinese propaganda.

China's expansion is not to the West or North, but to the South. It is home to numerous and powerful Chinese diasporas that dominate the trade and business of their home countries and influence local government policies. These are countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Mali, and Bangkok.

However, not all local Chinese identify with mainland China. Working with the diaspora for China is characterised by the same thing as any work with compatriots in exile: cutting off the disloyal, pitting them against each other, then weakening and strengthening the loyal ones, consolidating them and aiming at a given result.

Given that any diaspora is always an object of in-depth work of local counterintelligence, information work here is the prerogative of the intelligence agencies. They are the ones who coordinate the diaspora's relations with the recruited agency from among local officials and resist the efforts of counterintelligence to neutralise identified informants and agents.

Japan and Vietnam are traditionally hostile states to China. With regard to Japan, Beijing uses threats to Japanese business in China and the risk of being caught between China and the United States. Vietnam has repeatedly fought with China, and China has always been the initiator of wars. The entire Vietnamese culture is built on asserting its identity in a dispute with China.

China can only exert influence on Vietnam by demonstrating the utmost peacefulness, since Vietnam strictly protects its sovereignty. China is one of Vietnam's largest trading partners. Any increase in pressure on Japan and Vietnam leads to their rapprochement with the United States. China's task is to demonstrate that it has no intention of exerting such pressure. In this case, Japan and Vietnam become passive allies of the United States, teetering on the verge of sabotaging any escalation.

China is trying to exploit a long-standing dislike between Vietnam and Japan. Vietnam was a colony of both China and Japan, so the United States, the USSR, Great Britain and China itself played on this fact: during the communist period, Vietnam and China became closer for the first time in history.

But with the collapse of communism, the old feud has returned, and Vietnam has become an area of intense rivalry between China and the United States. At the same time, China plays on Vietnam's anti-Americanism, while the United States plays on its anti-Chinese character. Vietnam has pro-American and pro-Chinese circles, and it remains the social base for information operations between the two countries.

Conclusions.

US intelligence agencies and their think tanks have been studying how Xi Jinping's China conducts information operations to break up their anti-Chinese alliances. This means the following:

1. China's political elite is in fact a quasi-two-party, where the Communist Party and the Komsomol are quantitatively equivalent and have organisational autonomy, as a result of which they pursue different agendas and form competing personnel reserves.

The information campaigns of the Chinese government are an area of rivalry between two groups: the Westernised image of the Chinese is the line of the Komsomol, and sovereignty, traditions and cultural superiority over the West as a "sphere of barbarians" is the line of a link of security forces in the party leadership who did not get there through the Komsomol.

2. Xi Jinping's goal is to destroy what is commonly referred to as "Sino-American ties", as it is a feeding base for compradors and a channel for external control of China's sovereignty.

3. The Xi Jinping group has become the beneficiary of China's previously achieved status as an ally of the United States, but uses this status to achieve victory over the United States and the collective West by seizing control of the Taiwan Strait area, through which all goods flow from Asia to the West.

4. All anti-Chinese alliances with American participation are formed solely for the sake of preventing Taiwan from joining mainland China, which nullifies the US status as a global superpower and transfers this status to China.

5. China's information operations against military alliances involving the United States are intended to appeal to the elites of countries that are allies of the United States with a warning that the price of such an alliance will be unacceptable for their states, victory is impossible, and the damage is super-critical.

6. China's media campaigns among US allies are localised by global American media, and contact with target audiences look like intelligence operations. Therefore, the main channels of propaganda remain Chinese television, English-language media, diplomatic circles and relations of the Chinese diasporas. China often uses hacking attacks on the servers of its opponents, which is another feature of its information strategy.

7. The most problematic sector for the United States of targeted Chinese influence remains the sphere of business contacts of Chinese companies. The Belt and Road project itself is one powerful information campaign, divided into sub-camps and having the potential to tempt local elites.

8. US military alliances with countries located in the Belt and Road project zone. The Anglo-Saxon core of these countries remains subordinate to the United States, but the periphery (the countries of Central Asia and the Far East) is in conditional loyalty.

9. China has managed to adapt to the US’ green agenda, and under its banner, Xi Jinping's group has begun to crush the economic base of its opponents inside China.

10. The US elites are split on the issue of priorities: to defeat Russia or China first. This prevents the concentration of American resources in any of these areas and destabilises the domestic political process in the United States.