THE UNITED FRONT: 

THE PARTY’S “MAGIC WEAPON”

The notion of the United Front remains insufficiently understood despite being an 

invaluable key to understanding the Communist Party’s influence operations. The first dif-

ficulty undoubtedly comes from the confusion that arises from the ambiguous nature of 

the expression “United Front.” In the words of Emmanuel Jourda, whose doctoral thesis 

constitutes the most complete work on the subject, the United Front designated a triple 

“dispositive of thoughts on society, the organization of the CCP, and the polit-

ical action.”1 In turn, Alex Joske differentiated between “[the] United Front (统一战

线), a coalition of groups and individuals working toward the CCP’s goals; the work of 

the United Front (统一战线工作) which refers to the CCP’s efforts to strengthen and 

expand the United Front by influencing and co-opting targets; the United Front Work 

Department (中央统一战线工作部), a CCP Central Committee department that coor-

dinates and carries out the United Front’s actions; and the United Front system (统一战

线系统 or 统一战线工作系统), which brings together the agencies, social organizations, 

businesses, universities, research institutes and individuals carrying out the United Front’s 

activities.”2 At once a dedicated body within the Chinese Party-State apparatus and a 

galaxy of actors orbiting around it, the United Front is not easily understood. 

A further difficulty comes from its broad spectrum, whose depth is often underesti-

mated, ranging from “open” operations – i.e. public diplomacy undertaken by ambassa-

dors across the world – to clandestine operations aiming to “undermine social cohesion, 

exacerbate racial tension, influence politics, harm media integrity, facilitate espionage, and 

increase unsupervised technology transfer.”3 While the UFWD is not an intelligence ser-

vice per se, it can nevertheless offer a cover for intelligence officers carrying out clandestine 

actions and “recruiting” Taiwanese agents.4 Finally, understanding the United Front implies 

highlighting the historical trajectory of this central CCP concept. 

After a brief overview of the key moments in the construction of the concept of the 

United Front, we mention the objectives and infrastructures on which its operations rely. 

Ultimately, we offer a typology of United Front operations.

1. Emmanuel Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires d’un canon orthodoxe: le Front uni et l’invention politique de l’après-révolution 

en Chine (The Post-Revolutionary Uses of an Orthodox Canon: The United Front and the Political Revolution of the After-Revolution 

in China), PhD Thesis, EHESS, 2012, footnote 3, 6. 

2. Alex Joske, “The Party Speaks for You. Foreign Interference and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front 

System,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Policy brief, 32 (2020), 6. 

3. Ibid., 3.

4. Ibid., 16.

36

I. Concept of Leninist origin

The concept of the United Front in China comes from a graft operated by the Comintern 

at the beginning of the 1920s. The concept finds its roots in the Communist Manifesto (1848) 

in which Marx and Engels considered possible temporary alliances between communists 

and democratic parties to accelerate the course of history and to take power. Lenin, how-

ever, is considered “the true father of the United Front.”5 In his criticism of Left-Wing 

Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), he hammered home that to achieve the victory 

of communism, it was sometimes necessary to accept certain compromises, to seize the 

“slightest possibility of ensuring a numerically strong ally, be it a temporary ally, faltering, 

conditional, fragile or insecure.”6 For Lenin, the United Front was a tactical collaboration, 

considered as an intermediatory step before the victory of communism. The Comintern 

then promoted the use of the concept of temporary alignment, allowing the reconciliation 

of short-term demands and long-term objectives, in Europe as well as in Asia. The United 

Front is thus not a proper Chinese concept. 

In China, it was initially tied to the anti-Japanese alliance with the Kuomintang between 

1924 and 1927, and then from 1937 to 1945. The term used in Chinese was first Lianhe 

Zhanxian (聯合戰線), before being replaced by Tongyi Zhanxian (統一戰線).7 In the late 

1930s, the Party took ownership of the Leninist concept, modified its theoretical frame-

work and used it as a vector of its drive to take power. From 1938 on, Mao maintained 

that the United Front, the building of the Party’s and the armed struggle were the 

“magic weapons”8 (法宝) that would allow the communists to triumph, an expression 

that was picked up by several of his successors (up until Xi Jinping) to benefit from his 

symbolic aura.

When the People’s Republic of China was declared on October 1, 1949, the United 

Front became the tool to rally the majority around the party. The first United Front 

national labor conference was held from March to April 1950. And the normative recog-

nition of the United Front landed in 1954, with its integration in the preamble of the 

Constitution. It now states that the “popular democratic United Front” makes itself useful 

in mobilizing and rallying “the entire population in the common struggle to achieve the 

fundamental role of the State during the transition,” but also to “confront internal and 

external enemies.”9 The CCP put in place a strategy found more or less everywhere across 

the communist world: communist parties collaborate with what Robert Havemann called 

the “empty acronyms,”10 namely parties without real positions and literally domesticated by 

the communist parties. This tactic was particularly developed after the Comintern’s Seventh 

Congress in 1935 which set building national fronts as a global strategy.11 Mao’s theory of 

a new democracy is thus the Chinese implementation of this United Front policy. Once 

the regime was established, the United Front’s role was no longer to take power but to 

perpetuate the CCP’s control. To do so, the United Front became at once the intellectual, 

5. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 17.

6. Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An infantile disorder, in. Collected Works, Volume 31, 17–118, Progress Publishers, 

USSR, 1964. 

7. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 21. 

8. 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong), “共产党人” (“Communists”), 毛泽东选集 (Anthology of the Works of Mao Zedong) (Oct. 

1938).

9. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 46-48.

10. Robert Havemann, Être communiste en Allemagne de l’Est (Paris: La Découverte, 1979). 

11. Mongolia was the first to adopt the label “people’s democracy,” in 1924.

37

political, and organic framework to rally needed allies to the CCP while it silenced 

those it couldn’t persuade. 

After the disappearance of the United Front during the Cultural Revolution, the institution 

was once again identified as a “magic weapon” in 1983. It was reemployed by the Party for 

its flexibility, its ability to forge ties (in other words, for its “primary function as a cohesive 

force”12), but also to fight against international criticisms following the Tian’anmen events.13 

The 18th United Front Work National Conference in 1993 marked the return of the Chinese 

People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as the body supervising the United Front. 

Created in 1949, it was considered the “United Front structure of the whole Chinese demo-

cratic people”14 before the United Front Work Department gained the upper hand. Bringing 

together representatives of minority parties and other religious or independent ethnic groups, 

it has become the symbol of a semblance of political plurality and representativeness. Finally, 

the United Front accompanies the country’s growing international footprint in striving to 

strengthen links with the Chinese diaspora and to silence opposition to the CCP abroad.

II. Revival and diversification of the United Front under Xi 

Jinping

Since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has reinvigorated the United Front, 

with which he was already very familiar: his father had contributed to its activities in 

Tibet and Xi wrote an article about its work in the diaspora in 1995, while he was the Party 

secretary in the city of Fuzhou. The new CCP Secretary worked to reform the United Front 

after having purged the director of the UFWD, Ling Jihua (令计划) in December 2014, 

because he had been a close ally to former secretary Hu Jintao (胡锦涛). His goal was to 

correct what he saw as the shortcomings of the United Front and put it once again at the 

heart of Party’s action. Xi pointed out that the United Front was not sufficiently united, and 

insisted that its work should be carried out by all Party members.15 

In May 2015, the United Front Work National Labor Conference was raised to the 

rank of central conference, thereby acknowledging its increased importance. The same 

year, a steering group of the Central Committee for United Front activities was established, 

and the first provisional ruling on United Front activities published.16 The United Front 

Work Department saw its number of offices increase to account for the new targets 

(→ p. 68). The goal of the reforms was to ensure a better coordination of the activities 

of the United Front and to reinforce the Party’s control on the structures. It also enlarged 

its perimeter of activities to include the protection of the Party: in his report to the 19th 

12. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 121. 

13. Anne-Marie Brady, “Magic Weapons: China’s Political Influence Activities Under Xi Jinping” (Conference 

paper at “The corrosion of democracy under China’s global influence,” sponsored by the Taiwan Foundation for 

Democracy, Arlington, Virginia, US, 16-17 Sept. 2017). 

14. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 43. 

15. “统战工作要靠全党共同来做” (“The Work of the United Front Must be Carried Out by the Entire Party”), 

天津统一 战线 (Tianjin United Front) (25 May 2015), http://archive.vn/akR11. 

16. “习近平主持中央政治局会议 决定设立中央统一战线工作领导小组” (“Xi Jinping Chairs Politburo 

Meeting and Decides to Establish a Leadership Committee for United Front Work), Xinhuanet (30 Jul. 2015), http:// 

archive.vn/7KOcs; “中共中央印发 ‘中国共产党统一战线工作条例(试行)’” (“The Central Committee of the 

Communist Party of China Issued a Provisional Regulations on the Activities of the United Front”), Government of the 

People’s Republic of China (22 Sept. 2015), http://archive.vn/pwh3q. 

38

C

Congress, Xi Jinping spoke of drawing, with the United Front, the widest possible 

concentric circle around the Party.17 

From a rhetorical point of view, the reference to a “magic weapon” was reactivated. Xi 

Jinping also brought the expression “Great United Front” (大统战) back into fashion, which 

had initially been promoted by a theoretician from the Central Institute of Socialism in 1993. 

Its meaning seems, however, to have evolved. According to another theoretician from the 

Institute, this is the most distinctive characteristic of United Front thinking in the Xi Jinping 

era:18 it insists more than ever on the strategic importance of the United Front and on the 

necessity to improve its coordination.19 For Gerry Groot, the new “Great United Front” is no 

longer limited to representing and creating links between different social groups in order to 

exert control over them, but it is a method that can go as far as forcing the assimilation 

into the dominant Han culture, using methods such as mass internment.20

The United Front is therefore a Communist Party policy devised to develop and 

reinforce its hegemony. The activities of the United Front consist in allying with or 

neutralizing groups situated outside the sphere of CCP control to ensure its role as the 

sole legitimate representative of the Chinese people. Concretely, this means eliminating 

domestic and external enemies, controlling groups that could defy CCP authority, 

building a coalition around the Party in order to serve its interests, and projecting 

its influence abroad in such a way that even individuals and groups based in liberal 

societies are brought to censor themselves and avoid taking a position against the 

CCP.21 The United Front accordingly takes on a considerable part in the influence opera-

tions carried out by the Party.

III. Objectives

The United Front is a policy that essentially “uses the friends of the Party to fight its 

enemies.” It should be thought of as a strategy deployed in concentric circles and 

whose ambition is to bring together the largest possible population. This is therefore 

not a Chinese policy but rather a policy of the Party, employed in China as well as overseas. 

Wherever the Party is threatened, the United Front system is active.

The Party distinguishes twelve primary targets, which correspond to the twelve offices 

of the UFWD (→ p. 68): the members of eight minority parties (known as the eight demo-

cratic parties); individuals without a party affiliation, intellectuals not linked to the Party, eth-

nic minorities; religious individuals; private companies; urban professionals; students studying 

or returning from studies abroad; residents of Hong Kong and Macao; the Taiwanese and 

17. “习近平十九大报告全文” (“Speech Delivered by Xi Jinping at the 19th Party Congress”), Ifeng (27 Oct. 2017), 

https://archive.vn/yTzEg. 

18. “冯海波: 十八大以来习近平对统一战线理论的丰富和发展” (“Feng Haibo: Enrichment and Development 

of the Theory of the United Front by Xi Jinping Since the 18th Party Congress”), 光明思想理论网 (Guangming) (8 

Oct. 2017), http://archive.vn/6faQG. 

19. 李仁质 (Li Renzhi), “关于 “大统战” 的几点思考” (“Several Elements to Analyze the Great United Front 

Concept”), 中共社会主义学院 (Central Socialism Institute) (8 May 2017), http://archive.vn/y0uh7. “从2015统战工作

会议 看 “大统战” 思维的升级” (“An Analysis of the Promotion of the Great United Front Concept since the 2015 

Central Conference of United Front Work”), 中国农工民主党 (Website of the Democratic Party of the Peasants and Workers 

of China) (24 Sept. 2015), http://archive.vn/1Gvkg. 

20. Gerry Groot, “The CCP’s Grand United Front abroad,” Sinopsis, (24 Sept. 2019), 2. 

21. See also: Gerry Groot, “United Front Work after the 19th Party Congress,” Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, 

17:17 (22 Dec. 2017); Peter Mattis and Alex Joske, “The Third Magic Weapon: Reforming China’s United Front,” War 

on the Rocks (24 Jun. 2019). 

39

I

their relatives in mainland China; individuals of Chinese ancestry throughout the world (dias-

poras) and their relatives in mainland China; and all the other individuals requiring “unity and 

connection.”22 This list illustrates the continuity between domestic spaces and the rest 

of the world: the only meaningful distinction for a United Front that operates every-

where, inside and outside of the country, is between the Party and the rest. The goal is 

to control this dozen priority targets, to prevent them from doing harm on the one hand and, 

on the other, to incite or force them to act as representatives of the Party.

In this respect, the goals of the United Front should also be understood in light of the 

2015 National Security Law (中华人民共和国国家安全法).23 As Peter Mattis rightly not-

ed,24 Article 2 of the law defines security as the absence of domestic or external threat 

(没有危险和不受内外威胁的状态), which legitimates preventative actions to reduce any 

threat. The law furthermore adopts a particularly extensive definition of national security 

– much broader than the 1993 version of the law which mostly focused on protection 

against espionage. This law also includes culture since the Party fears “cultural infil-

tration” (文化渗透),25 in other words the penetration into China of Western values that are 

deemed subversive (rule of law, democracy, liberalism), but also ideas that could weakened 

the CCP’s legitimacy and monopoly. It is therefore fundamental for the Party to control 

the realm of ideas and, consequently, the narratives that construct China’s image abroad 

and which shape the environment in which it evolves. In this interpretative framework, it 

is understood that the diaspora constitutes a priority target for the Party; Chinese of 

the diasporas, via their command of local cultural codes, are indeed the most likely 

to import democratic values into China and thereby to threaten the Party.26 Control 

over these diasporas, and by extension the elimination of all cultural threats, makes the 

United Front’s missions an absolute priority for the Party. To this end, United Front activi-

ties are coordinated by the UFWD but can be carried out by a broad spectrum of actors in 

the Party, a nexus that can be referred to as the “United Front system.” 

IV. The infrastructure: A “United Front system”

Actors implementing the work of the United Front can be found wherever the Party 

exists – from the Central Committee to provincial and municipal offices, youth leagues to 

unions, diplomats posted overseas to branches of the Xinhua press agency, but also inside 

the large state-owned companies and numerous universities and research centers. 

The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is the highest 

supervisory and coordinating body of the United Front system. The UFWD is required to 

follow its directives. Then, numerous organizations are directly subordinate to, or maintain 

close ties with, the UFWD. It is not easy to draw up an exhaustive list as these ramifications 

can be sprawling – and they have been since the creation of the regime: a 1957 CIA report, 

declassified in 1999, presented an instructive list that revealed the United Front’s capacity 

22. “中共中央印发 ‘中国共产党统一战线工作条例(试行)’” (“The Central Committee of the Communist 

Party of China Issued a Provisional Regulations on the Activities of the United Front”).

23. Text available here (in Chinese) at http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-07/01/content_2888316.htm. 

24. Peter Mattis, “China’s Digital Authoritarianism: Surveillance, Influence, and Political Control,” Hearing before 

the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington (16 May 2019). 

25. See: 李士珍 (Li Shizhen), 曹渊清 (Cao Yuanqing), 杨丽君 (Yang Lijun), “警惕西方对我国 的文化渗透” 

(“Beware of Western cultural infiltration”), 红旗文稿 (Red flag manuscripts) (May 2018). 

26. Ibid.

40

to penetrate all social spaces.27 Organizations supervised by the United Front can be 

found in all sectors, and first of all in:28

• The Media:

The China News Service (中国新闻社), the party’s main press agency, which has dozens 

of bureaus worldwide and organizes, together with foreign outlets, a biennial Forum on 

the Global Chinese Language Media; the journals China Religion (中国宗教), China Tibet 

(中国西藏), and so on. 

The Western Returned Scholars Association

The Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), founded in 1913 by Chinese re-

formist intellectuals, and which name literally means the association of students in Europe 

and America (欧美同学会)29 currently brings together 40,000 Chinese students and scholars 

and it has branches in 15 countries including in France (its headquarters are in Marseille). Its 

secretary general is a UFWD executive. It is used, for instance, to develop relationships with 

foreign think tanks and to contribute to recruiting foreign researchers for Chinese research 

centers and companies via the “Thousand Talents” program put in place in 2008 (→ p. 292). 

The WRSA also created the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a self-described 

“non-governmental” think tank based in Beijing, and whose president, Wang Huiyao (王辉

耀), also a member of several United Front groups, is a UFWD advisor and one of the think-

ing heads behind the Chinese strategy of international recruitment.30 According to Intelligence 

Online, which cites a few names, “in order to expand its network, CCG has recruited as consul-

tants former foreign officials from the political, economic and academic worlds.”31

• Education and Research:

Here, we can mention the Beijing Chinese Language and Culture College (北京华

文学院), dedicated to students of Chinese origin who have returned to China; Jinan 

University (暨南大学), based in Guangzhou, which is one of the oldest Chinese uni-

versities, one of the first to have welcomed foreign students and currently one of the 

universities in China hosting the most of them; Huaqiao University (华侨大学), based 

in Xiamen and Quanzhou, in Fujian – whose name literally means “Overseas Chinese 

University”; the China Tibetan Language High Institute of Buddhism (中国藏语系高

级佛学院), which teaches a “patriotic” Tibetan Buddhism, and so on. Besides, most 

Chinese universities host local UFWD branches that monitor students as well as 

instructors, handle student informers and establish databases on everyone.32 The 

27. “The United Front in Communist China. A Technique for Controlling, Mobilizing, and Utilizing Non-

Communist Masses,” Central Intelligence Agency (May 1957), https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA- 

RDP78-00915R000600210003-9.pdf 

28. “中央统战部直属事业单位2019年度公开招聘应届高校毕业生公告” (“2019 Recruitment UFWD 

Organizations”), UFWD (17 Apr. 2019), http://archive.vn/u09Ts; “中央统战部直属事业单位2020年度公开 招聘

应届高校毕业公告” (“2020 Recruitment of UFWD Organizations”), 中央和国家机关所属事 业单位公开招聘

服务平台 (Recruitment platform of Party and State organizations) (14 Apr. 2020), http://archive.vn/ fneI3; “国家机构改革

后,暨南大学归属中央统战部、国务院侨办领导” (“With the Reforms, Jinan University is Now Supervised by the 

UFWD and the State Council”), Sohu (29 Jun. 2018), https://archive.vn/2d4YV; “中国藏语系高级佛学院” (“China 

Tibetan Language High Institute of Buddhism”), Baidu. 

http://archive.vn/2FhQU. 

29. In the early 2000s, the institution took on the name Friendship Association of Expatriate Students and 

Researchers (中国留学人员联谊会). 

30. Joske, “The Party Speaks for You,” 29. 

31. “Le China Center for Globalization en soutien de Pékin pour attirer des investissements étrangers” (“China 

Center for Globalization supports Beijing in attracting foreign investment”), Intelligence Online, September 15, 2021.

32. Joske, “The Party Speaks for You,” 13. 

41

Chinese Academy of Sciences also has an internal UFWD office that plays the same 

role regarding the more than 60,000 researchers working for the institution. And, across 

the world, the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs 中国学生学

者联合会) (→ p. 280) supervise Chinese students carrying out United Front work in 

coordination with the Ministry of Education in most universities: one of these CSSAs 

incidentally admitted that the UFWD is actually responsible for the “general orientation 

of student associations abroad.”33

• Diasporic affairs:

Since March 2018, the diaspora falls under the direct responsibility of the UFWD, 

whereas this responsibility was previously shared between the Office of Overseas 

Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.34 The diaspora being an imaginary com-

munity, since it is in fact extremely diverse, United Front efforts consist in shaping, 

controlling, and homogenizing its constituent groups. Also falling under the United 

Front are the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (中华全国归国华

侨联合会), the China Overseas Friendship Association (中华海外联谊会), Huangpu 

Military Academy Alumni Association (黄埔军校 同学会统战), the All-China Taiwan 

Compatriots Organization (中华全国台湾同胞联谊会), and the China Council for the 

Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (中国和平统一促进会), which manages 

a network of branches worldwide (→ p. 124).35

• Economy:

Several organizations contribute to the work of the United Front, including the Huaxing 

Economic Advisory Service Center (华兴经济咨询服务中心), which provides eco-

nomic consulting services, and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (

中华全国工商业联 合会).36 The large state-owned companies generally have an 

internal United Front section, such as the world’s leading steel manufacturer, China 

Baowu Steel Group, the former CEO of which (2007-2016) became vice-Minister of 

the UFWD. Chinese and foreign private companies are also increasingly a target. 

Deloitte China, for example, has had an internal United Front association since 2016, 

run by the CEO himself.37

• Culture:

The cultural sector is also the object of major United Front operations. The Chinese 

Literature and Art Federation (中国文学艺术联合会),38 and the Confucius Institutes 

(→ p. 299), are supervised by the United Front and represent powerful levers of mobili-

zation, intelligence gathering, and informational warfare across the world.

The actors of the United Front system sometimes tend, when acting abroad, to enter 

into partnerships with prestigious foreign institutions to “whitewash” their activities. This 

33. “历史沿革” (“History”), 高丽大学中国学人学者联谊会 (Chinese Scholars and Scholars Association of Korea 

University), https://archive.vn/dhFks; Joske, “The Party Speaks for You,” 30. 

34. Ibid., 14. 

35. John Doston, “The United Front Work Department Goes Global: The Worldwide Expansion of the Council 

for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China,” Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, 19:9 (9 May 2019). 

36. According to the Tianyancha page of the Huaxing Economic Advisory Service Center: https://m.tianyancha.

com/ company/3227616926. 

37. Joske, “The Party Speaks for You,” 18.

38. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 343.

42

is the approach taken, for example, by the China-United States Exchange Foundation 

(CUSEF → p. 125) in the United States, which entered into agreements with, among oth-

ers, Johns Hopkins University, the EastWest Institute, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 

the Atlantic Council, and the Brookings Institution.39

V. Typology of United Front operations

The work of the United Front consists first of all in identifying and classifying the 

targets and enemies of the Party. There exist, in particular, enemies of first or second 

rank, those that cannot be fought and those with whom it is possible to form an alliance 

before combatting them.40 This work is done via the recruitment of supporters for the 

Communist regime, attempts to influence individuals who are prominent in their 

respective fields or in their countries, controls exerted over groups challenging the 

Party’s authority, intelligence gathering, and the elimination, or at least disruption, 

of the Party’s enemies.41 The work of the United Front, inseparable from that of the 

Party-State, is nevertheless “hardly perceptible in its details,” as “everything pertaining to 

the activities of representative personalities is theoretically tied to the United Front.”42 

Besides, its operations have the distinctive characteristic of being frequently conducted by 

front organizations whose proximity to the United Front is not always obvious.43

The United Front has, in theory, total freedom to mobilize individuals and social groups 

in favor of the CCP’s objectives and ambitions. We can nevertheless identify three principal 

types of operations under which the other more or less fall. 

A. Mobilizing the diasporas

Overseas executives and agents of the United Front are primarily tasked with working 

with the Chinese diasporas in order to circulate the Party’s narratives and its interpretation 

of global affairs, but also in order to mobilize them when necessary. The diasporas are thus 

instrumentalized to exert pressure on governments whose policies contradict the Party’s 

interests. This can include protesting against visits by individuals like the Hong Kong activ-

ist Joshua Wong or the Dalai Lama, movements sympathetic to Hong Kong protestors, or 

events on Tibet or Xinjiang.44 Diasporas can also be “positively” mobilized to support the 

visit of a Chinese official in their host country.

39. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “This Beijing-Linked Billionaire Is Funding Policy Research at Washington’s Most 

Influential Institutions,” Foreign Policy (28 Nov. 2017). 

40. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 225-226. 

41. United Front operations have been widely documented. See, for example: Alexander Bowe, “China’s Overseas 

United Front work. Background and Implications for the United States,” US-China Economic and Security Review Commission 

Staff Research Report (24 Aug. 2018); Gerry Groot, “The CCP’s Grand United Front Abroad,” Sinopsis (24 Sept. 2019); 

Takashi Suzuki, “China’s United Front Work in the Xi Jinping Era – Institutional Developments and Activities,” Journal 

of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 8:1, (2019); Martin Hála, “United Front Work by Other Means: China’s “Economic 

Diplomacy” in Central and Eastern Europe,” Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, 19:9, (9 May 2019); Mattis, “China’s 

Digital Authoritarianism: Surveillance, Influence, and Political Control.” 

42. Jourda, Les usages postrévolutionnaires, 321-323. 

43. “The United Front in Communist China. A Technique for Controlling, Mobilizing, and Utilizing Non-

Communist Masses,” Central Intelligence Agency. 

44. Groot, “The CCP’s Grand United Front Abroad,” 12. 

43

B. Controlling the narratives about China

The United Front also aims to ensure that, throughout the world and in all languages, 

the way in which media, journalists, editorialists, researchers, instructors, etc. report on 

China conforms to the Party’s interests, particularly on the most sensitive subjects, such 

as the “five poisons” (Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, pro-democracy activists, Taiwanese 

separatists). This desire to control the narratives about China leads the Party to deploy 

its charms toward key opinion-shapers (researchers, journalists, businessmen, politicians, 

social media influencers). This strategy most often takes the form of leisure trips paid for 

by the Party during which Chinese leaders pull out all the stops. 

C. Building databases 

The United Front also takes on the work of collecting data profiling the political or reli-

gious preferences of university students, politicians, public figures, and others. Whether vast 

(one database is believed to contain information on 2.2 million Chinese scientists abroad) 

or very precise (another targets Chinese doctoral students in the United States originating 

from one particular town in China),45 the goal is the same: to provide the United Front with 

the means to expand, thus to extend the Party’s influence. Public and private companies 

play an important role in this collection of personal data (→ p. 129). 

45. Joske, “The Party Speaks for You,” 29. 

45

 

Chapter 3

THE “THREE WARFARES”

The “Three Warfares” strategy is one of the main doctrines of the People’s Liberation 

Army (PLA) but, like the United Front, it remains relatively unknown, or at least insuffi-

ciently taken into consideration, despite the publication of several books and articles on the 

subject.1 These “Three Warfares” – public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, 

and legal warfare – represent most of the Chinese political warfare, understood as all 

the forms of non-military confrontation that can be used to achieve a strategic objective.2 

This three-front strategy of political warfare was officially adopted in 2003 by the Central 

Committee of the CCP and the Central Military Commission (CMC) with the revised “PLA 

Political Work Regulations.” It noted that wartime political work ought to include the imple-

mentation of public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare.3 The 2010 

revision added that all members of the military had to be trained in the “Three Warfares” 

(Art. 14 §17); that military propaganda had to include public opinion warfare (Art. 14 §10); 

that liaison work had to include psychological warfare (Art. 14 §14); and that political, legal 

(Art. 14 §7) as well as judicial work (Art. 14 §9) had to include legal warfare.4

Political warfare is understood as a form of non-kinetic conflict. While it can take 

diverse forms, the logic remains the same: political warfare is used to win without fight-

ing (不战而胜) – or at least to achieve a broad victory with limited combats (小战大

胜) – so that enemy troops admit defeat without ever having fought (不战而屈人之兵).5 

It is undertaken in wartime as well as peacetime (平战结合). The “Three Warfares” 

1. Steven Halper, “China: The Three Warfares,” Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense (May 2013); 

Dean Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Legal Warfare,” Backgrounder, 2692, The Heritage Foundation (18 

May 2012); Dean Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Public Opinion Warfare and the Need for a Robust 

American Response,” Backgrounder, 2745, The Heritage Foundation (21 Nov. 2012); Dean Cheng, “Winning Without 

Fighting: The Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge,” Backgrounder, 2821, The Heritage Foundation (11 Jul. 2013); 

Timothy A. Walton, “China’s Three Warfares,” Special Report, 3, Delex Systems (18 Jan. 2012); Sangkuk Lee, “China’s 

“Three Warfares”: Origins, Applications, and Organizations,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 37:2 (2014); Elsa Kania, “The 

PLA’s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares,” China Brief, 16:13, Jamestown Foundation (22 Aug. 2016); 

Peter Mattis, “China’s “Three Warfares” in Perspective,” War on the Rocks (30 Jan. 2018). 

2. “政治战作为一种为了达成总体战略目标而采取的非军事行动的活力对抗形式, 其主要作战方式是 

舆论战心理战法律战.” See: 常艳娥 (Chang Yan’e), 欧立寿 (Ou Lishou), and 王芙蓉 (Wang Furong), “‘舆论战

心理战 法律战概论’ 课程教学探析” (“Analysis of the Lessons from the Book ‘Introduction to Public Opinion 

Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Legal Warfare’”), 国防大学 人文与社会科学学院军队政工研究所 (Institute 

for Research on the Political Work of the Army of the Academy of Human and Social Sciences of the National Defense University) 

(2007), http://archive.ph/IZsi7. 

3. Art. 14 §18: “战时政治工作 [...] 进行舆论战, 心理战, 法律战, 开展瓦解敌军工作, 开展发心 战, 反策反

工作, 开展军事司法和法律服务工作.” The text of the 2003 Revision of the PLA Political Work Regulations (in 

Chinese) (中国人民解放军政治工作条例) is available here: https://archive.ph/VBOoG. 

4. Art. 14 §17: “军事训练中政治工作。 [...] 会同有关机关组织开展舆论战、心理战、法律战教育训 练”; 

Art. 14 §10: “军事宣传工作。[...] 开展舆论战工作”; Art. 14 §14: “联络工作。[...] 开展心理战工 作”; Art. 14 §7: 

“政法工作。[...] 法律战和法律监督等工作”; Art. 14 §9: “军事审判、军事检察和司法行 政工作。[...] 开展法

律战工作.” The entire text in Chinese of the 2010 Revision of the Regulations is archived here: http://archive.vn/

zzrmu. 

5. Chang Yan’e, Ou Lishou, and Wang Furong, “Analysis of the lessons.”

46

are sometimes considered as a strategy of hybrid warfare to the extent that they blur the 

boundaries between war and peace, between combatants and civilians, and between mili-

tary and non-military means.6 Franck Hoffman’s definition echoes the “Three Warfares,” 

referring to the coordinated use of different types of warfare jointly employed and creating 

a synergistic effect between the physical and psychological dimensions of conflict.7 It is 

important, however, not to confuse them, especially because the concept of “hybrid war” 

itself is not precisely-defined. 

With the development of information and communication technologies, and the speed 

with which ideas can circulate worldwide, the “Three Warfares” are understood as a means 

to develop a discursive power (话语权), in other words the ability to influence the per-

ceptions of a target audience, control narratives and impose one’s own version of the facts.8 

For that reason they are also portrayed as a confrontation in the cognitive domain (认

知领域的对抗).9 Their goal is to influence potentially destabilizing actors to deter them 

from taking any action against China.10 The “Three Warfares” could also be understood as 

a form of psychological warfare in the broadest sense. Others have underlined that this 

strategy is comparable to the anti-access, area denial strategy (A2/AD), here applied 

to the realm of ideas.11 These three types of offensive operations in peacetime pursue the 

same goal, that of shaping an environment favorable to China (meaning to the Party) 

and unfavorable to its enemies in order to limit their freedom of action and to meet the 

regime’s objectives. Their mission is to allow the PLA to seize the decisive opportunity (先

机) and retain the initiative (主动). They are force multipliers.12

Last but not least, the “Three Warfares” must be understood as a strategy to strengthen 

the Party’s political power, in the same way as the United Front. As the CCP’s armed 

wing, the PLA’s principal mission is to guarantee the regime’s survival and augment the 

CCP’s power. For Peter Mattis, the “Three Warfares” could even be understood as an 

outgrowth of the United Front system and of the Party’s propaganda.13 As previ-

ously outlined, the United Front’s work consists in forming alliances with or neutralizing 

the groups outside the reach of the CCP to impose the Party as the one and only legitimate 

representative of the Chinese people. The “Three Warfares” need to be understood as part 

and parcel of this policy and these efforts complement those of the United Front. 

The conceptual origin of the notion is unclear. If its principles echo those of classical 

Chinese military strategy, notably Sun Zi, according to whom “to win one hundred victories 

in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the 

acme of skill,”14 nothing proves that these ancient roots have had a decisive influence on 

6. “Hybrid Warfare with Chinese Characteristics” is the title that Michael Raska chose for a short article describing 

the “Three Warfares” strategy in RSIS Commentary, 262 (2015). There is no agreement on whether the “Three Warfares” 

should be labelled hybrid warfare however. See, for example: Michael Clarke, “China’s Application of the ‘Three 

Warfares’ in the South China Sea and Xinjiang,” Orbis (Jan. 2019), 192.

7. Frank Hoffman, “Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars,” Potomac Institute for Policy Studies 

(2007), 8.

8. Nadège Rolland, “China’s Counteroffensive in the War of Ideas,” Lowy Institute (24 Feb. 2020).

9. Chang Yan’e, Ou Lishou, and Wang Furong, “An Analysis of the Lessons.”

10. See Peter Mattis’s remarks in: Tasha Wibawa, “China’s National Security and the ‘Three Warfares’: How Beijing 

Decides Who or What to Target,” ABC News (25 Feb. 2019); Mattis, “China’s ‘Three Warfares’ in Perspective.” 

11. The comparison is made in: N. Rolland, “China’s Counteroffensive in the War of Ideas.”

12. Kania, “The PLA’s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares.” 

13. Peter Mattis’s remarks in: T. Wibawa, “China’s National Decurity and the ‘Three Warfares.’” 

14. 孫子 (Sun Zi), “孫子兵法” (“The Art of War”) in: 中國大百科全書 (Encyclopedia of China), Vol. 2 (Beijing, 

2009), 1066-1069.

47

the development of the “Three Warfares.” A possible influence could however have been 

the Introduction to Psychological Warfare published in 1990 by the National Defense University.15

There is also an American root to a certain extent. When the Central Committee and 

the CMC adopted the “Three Warfares” strategy in 2003, it was not seen as a new strategy 

conceived to get a head start over others, but as a necessary step to make up for China hav-

ing fallen behind compared to other countries. From a Chinese perspective, the United 

States is the champion of public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal 

warfare. As they studied recent wars undertaken by Washington, from the 1991 Gulf War 

which “made China aware of the considerable limits of its own capacities” in this domain,16 

to the 2003 Iraq War (by way of the Balkans), Chinese analysts concluded that modern 

warfare could be won thanks to non-military operations and non-kinetic capabilities.17 They 

maintain that the United States was the first to employ propaganda and techniques manipu-

lating public opinions, psychological attacks, and offensive legal maneuvers in a coordinated 

manner to make their enemies fold.18 

The insertion of the “Three Warfares” in the 2003 revision of the “PLA Political Work 

Regulations” did not, however, mark the beginning of the use of these techniques by China; 

it was an official endorsement instead, and an injunction for their coordinated implemen-

tation at all levels. The execution of the “Three Warfares” strategy was coordinated by 

the Liaison Department of the former General Political Department (LD/GPD) which 

used to oversee political warfare. Since the 2015 military reforms, the Liaison Department 

of the new Political Work Department (LD/PWD) has probably inherited this mission. 

Theoretically, all levels of the PLA are called to carry out the “Three Warfares,” but 

at least one PLA base is specifically dedicated to this mission: Base 311, also known 

as PLA Unit 61716 located in Fuzhou, in Fujian province, which faces Taiwan (→ p. 89). 

The “Three Warfares” strategy addresses both external and internal threats, like 

the Taiwanese independence movement, which is one of its principal targets. It applies to 

members of the military but also to civilians, as the Party mobilizes all its branches along 

with intermediaries to strengthen its power. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example, 

plays a particular role in the diffusion of the Chinese discourse overseas via its network of 

embassies – a role falling at once under the United Front and the “Three Warfares.” 

The “Three Warfares” are considered as the three arms of the same body. They serve 

the same strategic objective, are employed with the same logic, and are reinforcing each 

other, each one paving the ground for the development of the other two. Public opinion 

warfare offers a combat platform to psychological warfare and legal warfare. Legal warfare 

provides the necessary legal bases for public opinion warfare and psychological warfare. 

Finally, public opinion warfare and legal warfare both require psychological influence over 

the public to be effective.19 

15. 温金权 (Wen Jinquan), 杜汝波 (Du Rubo), and 周敏 (Zhou Min), 心理战概论 (Introduction to Psychological 

Warfare), 解放军出版社 (PLA Editions) (1990); Mark Stokes and Russell Hsiao, “The People’s Liberation Army 

General Political Department: Political Warfare with Chinese Characteristics,” Project 2049 Institute (2013), footnote 

176, 67. 

16. Valérie Niquet, “La Chine: une modernisation des pratiques de guerre de l’information” (in “China: The 

Modernization of Information War Practices”) Céline Marangé and Maud Quessard, eds., Les Guerres de l’information à 

l’ère numérique (Information Wars in the Digital Era) (Paris: PUF, 2021), 152. 

17. Chang Yan’e, Ou Lishou, and Wang Furong, “Analysis of the Lessons”; Sangkuk Lee, “China’s ‘Three Warfares’: 

Origins, Applications, and Organizations,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 37:2 (2014). 

18. “美军无不是将舆论宣传, 心理攻击和法理斗争融为一体.” See Chang Yan’e, Ou Lishou, and Wang 

Furong, “Analysis of the Lessons.” 

19. Ibid.

48

I. Public opinion warfare

The goal of public opinion warfare is to win over target audiences – those of enemy 

countries but also the international community – on the position defended by the govern-

ment. The issue is not so much to know which armed forces will win, but which narra-

tive, which version of the facts will prevail in a public opinion. Concretely, public opinion 

warfare, as conceptualized by the Chinese, consists in carrying out the “cognitive ori-

entation” (引导认知) of the masses, to “excite their emotions” (激发情感) and to 

“constrain their behavior” (约束行为).20 This is an activity that can be carried at low 

intensity as it is a continuous, permanent, and long-term endeavor: its goal is to surrepti-

tiously shape the psyche.

All the media can be mobilized: the press, radio, television, social networks (Facebook, 

YouTube, Twitter, WeChat, Weibo, TikTok, Plurk, etc.), films, and books. They are used to 

impose a version of the facts as early as possible and to frame the debate – since the 

first impression makes more of a mark than the subsequent ones, even if it is a mistaken 

one (this is known as the anchoring bias in cognitive psychology). To carry out successful 

public opinion warfare, one must be the first to react and to multiply sources defending this 

version of the facts, while eventually (but not systematically) concealing the ties that might 

lead back to the acting political source, in order to influence the perceptions and behavior 

of target audiences. To impose their narrative, the protagonists of the Three Warfares 

can also lean on the illusion-of-truth effect, a bias according to which the probability of 

believing false information depends not on its logical nature but on an individual’s famil-

iarity with the idea.21 

By way of example, a video defending Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea was 

shown approximately 120 times per day on a 200-square-meter screen in Times Square in 

New York City between July 23 and August 3, 2016.22 Earlier, on July 12, the Permanent 

Court of Arbitration in The Hague had disavowed Beijing by indicating, among other 

things, that China did not have historical rights over the South China Sea. The 3-minute 

video subsequently broadcast suggested that the British MP Catherine West supported 

the Chinese position, even though she had accepted the interview only to express her 

support for a peaceful resolution of the tensions and did not expect the distorted use of 

her remarks.23 The video’s authors selected several words from her statement and placed 

them between those of three other individuals, whose remarks could not be clearer, and 

with whom the MP thus seemed to agree: Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute 

of South China Sea Studies; John Ross, introduced only as the former director of the 

Department of Economic Policy for the Mayor of London, while he was also a columnist 

for the website China.org, senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies 

20. Ibid.

21. Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, Thomas Toppino, “Frequency and the Conference of Referential Validity,” 

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16:1 (2017), 107-112.

22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4KIWLgUSmc.

23. Will Worley, “Labour MP Says She Was Misrepresented in China’s Times Square Propaganda Video,” Independent 

(31 Jul. 2016). Here are Catherine West’s remarks: “I think talks are crucial. And that’s why we have to be careful that 

yes, we need to resolve something very locally, and have a grown-up approach to dialogue.” And here is how she 

reacted after the video was published: “I was unaware that these comments would be used in this manner. Although I 

was of course happy to give an interview on my concerns regarding the militarization of the South China Sea and the 

need to work together to secure a peaceful resolution, I am not happy for the footage to be used in a way that suggests 

that I support the current approach adopted by China toward these islands.” 

49

at Renmin University, and a former member of a Marxist group;24 and Masood Khalid, 

ambassador of Pakistan to China.25 The narrative structure was deceptive and misled the 

audience.26 But, by diffusing its message repetitively in English in a public place frequented 

by some 350,000 tourists from across the world daily, China targeted an international audi-

ence and stressed that it was ready to invest the money needed to shape opinions. The 

maneuver’s effectiveness, however, was perplexingly limited given the concentration of bill-

boards in Times Square27 and the message’s lack of subtlety. 

Video defending Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea, broadcast in Times Square, New York, in 2016, with the British 

MP Catherine West (on the right). Source: taken from the video published by CCTV on YouTube (28 Jul. 2016), https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=XPe_TIYTn7c.

II. Psychological Warfare

Psychological warfare is used to demoralize and dissuade enemy forces, making 

them doubt, and even to terrorize them in order to undermine their ability and willing-

ness to fight. It is used to break the bond of trust between those governing and those 

governed and to disrupt the decision-making process of the enemy country. In other 

words, it is used to defeat the enemy without a fight. Strictly speaking, psychological war-

fare is more frequently employed in wartime than peacetime, unlike public opinion warfare 

which is constantly used whatever the level of tensions, and which targets a larger audience 

than psychological warfare.

A work released by the PLA publishing house distinguished four types of psychologi-

cal warfare: “coercion” (威慑), which seeks to force the other to adopt a certain behavior; 

“mystification” (欺诈), which spreads confusion and misleads; “division” (离间), which 

takes advantage of all potential weaknesses and disagreements within the enemy country 

and paralyzes its decision-making process, breaks the motivation of the enemy’s fighters 

24. See John Ross’s profile on China.org: http://archive.vn/ZaupG. John Ross was a member of the Trotskyist 

International Marxist Group. 

25. “South China Sea Video Playing in Times Square,” China Daily (27 Jul. 2016), http://archive.vn/OnCic. 

26. In Joseph Nye’s words: “all persuasion involves choices about how to frame information. Only when that 

framing shades into deception, which limits the subject’s voluntary choices, does it cross the line into coercion.” See 

Joseph Nye, “How Sharp Power Threatens Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs (24 Jan. 2018). 

27. Fang Bing and Zhang Zhen, “China Airs Propaganda Video Over New York’s Times Square,” VOA (7 Aug. 

2016). 

50

and the people’s confidence; and finally, “defense” (防护), to safeguard the morale of 

one’s own troops when they are the target of similar efforts by the enemy.28

The actions carried out by the Chinese communist regime against the Uyghur 

ethnic minority in China (and overseas), is an example of psychological (but also physi-

cal) warfare, which would correspond to the coercive type presented above. Random arrests, 

mass internment, forced labor, digital tracing, frequent inspections, forced Sinicization, 

“reeducation” of children, destruction of places of worship, harassment, settlement of 

nomads… the Uyghurs, a majority-Muslim Turkic ethnic group, are violently repressed 

in the name of the fight against religious extremism.29 It is estimated that one to three 

million Uyghurs are currently interned. Women are subjected to forced sterilization,30 but 

also other “impos[ed] measures [intend] to prevent births within the group”31 – all acts 

that legally constitute a crime of genocide.32 Prisoners have also presumably had organs 

removed (which Beijing did openly on persons sentenced to death until 2015 → p. 214). It 

feeds a lucrative traffic of “halal” organs exported to the Gulf countries.33 Numerous tes-

timonials prove that the Uyghurs are terrorized; they fear that the smallest gesture or word 

could be used against them, they do not dare to speak to strangers, and they do not know 

if one day they will see their relatives disappear. Fear of the central government follows 

them beyond the Chinese border, even when some manage to flee to another country.34 

This psychological warfare aims to force the Uyghurs to adopt the behavior desired by the 

central government: submission. This example reminds us that the “Three Warfares” are 

not limited to external threats: any threat to the Party, whether inside or outside of China, 

must be annihilated.

There are additional examples: the actions taken by Beijing to paralyze the enemy’s 

decision-making process during the Sino-Indian confrontation on the Doklam plateau, 

in the summer 2017, fit the different types of psychological warfare presented above. The 

Party-State did not hesitate to regularly utter threats such as: “military conflicts to escalate 

if India refuses to withdraw troops,”35 “India’s provocation will trigger all-out confron-

28. 郝唯学 (Hao Weixue), 心理战100例: 经典案例分析 (One Hundred Examples of Psychological War: Analysis of 

Classic Cases), PLA Publications (2011). For a more detailed presentation of these four categories, see Dean Cheng, 

“Winning without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge,” 6-9. 

29. See, for instance, Sylvie Lasserre, Voyage au pays des Ouïghours. De la persécution invisible à l’enfer orwellien (Journey to 

Uyghur Country: From Invisible Persecution to the Orwellian Hell) (Paris: Éditions Hesse, 2020); Sean R. Roberts, The War on 

the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020]; see also, the 

publications of human rights NGOs on the subject, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. On the 

Xinjiang, see the publications of Rémi Castets. 

30. Adrian Zenz, “Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur 

Birthrates in Xinjiang,” China Brief, 20:12, The Jamestown Foundation (Jun. 2020, updated 21 Jul. 2020). 

31. Article 6(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 

32. The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention, Newlines Institute for 

Strategy and Policy and Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (Mar. 2021); Peter Mattis, “Yes, the Atrocities in 

Xinjiang Constitute a Genocide,” Foreign Policy (15 Apr. 2021). 

33. Justine Reix, “Comment la Chine vend les ‘organes halal’ de ses prisonniers ouïghours aux riches” (“How China 

Sells the ‘Halal Organs’ of Uyghur Prisoners to Rich Clients”), Vice (19 Jun. 2020). 

34. Notably on this topic, see the China Cables and Xinjiang Papers published in 2019; Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 

“Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals For Mass Internment And Arrest By Algorithm,” ICIJ (24, Nov. 2019); Scilla 

Alecci, “How China Targets Uyghurs ‘One by One’ For Using a Mobile App,” China Cables, ICIJ (24 Nov. 2019); Austin 

Ramzy and Chris Buckley, “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of 

Muslims,” The New York Times (16 Nov. 2019); “Nowhere Feels Safe, Uyghurs Tell of China-led Intimidation Campaign 

Abroad,” Amnesty International (Feb. 2020). 

35. “Military Conflicts to Escalate if India Refuses to Withdraw Troops,” Global Times (21 Jul. 2017), http://archive.

vn/mwChi. 

51

tation,”36 “the countdown has begun,”37 especially via the Global Times. This newspaper 

also accused the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Sushma Swaraj, of having 

lied in front of the Parliament when she claimed that India had the support of the inter-

national community.38 China did not limit itself to mere words in an attempt to intimidate 

its opponent: videos showing Chinese military exercises in Tibet, not far from the Indian 

border, were broadcast; military equipment and logistic materiel were moved closer to the 

line of conflict, thus suggesting a possible escalation of the hostilities; and memories of 

the Chinese victory in the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict were revived to demoralize Indian 

soldiers.39 The role that this campaign of psychological warfare played in the conflict’s 

outcome was nevertheless uncertain and difficult to measure.

A third example of psychological warfare instrumentalizing military exercises can be 

found in the case study on Taiwan (→ p. 423).

III. Legal warfare

Several Chinese articles have defined legal warfare as the use of law as a “weapon of 

war” (以法律为武器), i.e. to dissuade, attack, counter-attack, coerce, and punish. 

Its implementation consists in instrumentalizing legal principles to achieve an advantage, 

acquire normative superiority, and allow the PLA to keep the initiative.40 Attaining this nor-

mative superiority is not only a question of positive law, but indeed of using all the legal 

and moral principles on which the Chinese can rely to justify their actions. Legal warfare 

is pursued throughout the war-peace continuum: before a conflict, it is used to set up the 

right conditions and allow China to have law “on its side”; during a conflict, it justifies the 

use of force and legitimizes the PLA’s actions; after a conflict, it is used to retain any gains 

or to claim its due. 

The practice itself is not new, but several factors, including the judicialization of inter-

national relations, the democratization of political regimes, as well as the rise of new infor-

mation and communication technologies, explain its increasing deployment.41 In the case 

of China, the most commonly cited examples are its actions in favor of a revisionist 

interpretation of maritime law to serve its interests in the South China Sea and prohibit 

access to the area, especially by the United States. Singapore-based RSIS researcher Collin 

Koh explained that, in practice, Beijing “tries to take advantage of its growing military 

power to constrain coastal states on the South China Sea to renounce exercising their legit-

imate rights, guaranteed by the UN Convention, to exploit the resources situated in their 

36. Duo Mu, “India’s Provocation Will Trigger All-Out Confrontation on LAC,” Global Times (18 Jul. 2017), http:// 

archive.vn/5gtJQ. 

37. “Countdown to India-China Military Clash Has Begun: Chinese Daily on Doklam Standoff,” India Today, (9 

Aug. 2017). 

38. Sutirtho Patranobis, “Sikkim Standoff: Chinese Daily Says Sushma Lied About Support from Other Nations, 

Warns India of War,” Hindustan Times (21 Jul. 2017). 

39. “PLA Brigade Holds Live-Fire Military Drills in Tibet: CCTV,” Global Times (16 Jul. 2017), http://archive.vn/ 

Y8EcH; Liu Zhen, “Was China’s Military Drill in Tibet Really Just an Exercise in Logistics?” South China Morning Post 

(18 Jul. 2017); Indrani Bagchi, “Doklam standoff: China Playing Out its ‘Three Warfares’ Strategy against India,” Times 

of India, (13 Aug. 2017). 

40. 刘继贤 (Liu Jixian), and 刘铮 (Liu Zheng), 新军事变革与军事法制建设 (New Military Developments and 

Military Legal Structure), 解放军出版社 (PLA Publications), (Beijing, 2005) 325. 

41. Julian Fernandez, “Lawfare: le droit comme continuation de la guerre par d’autres moyens?” (“Lawfare: Law as 

a Continuation of War by Other Means?”), Blog, Mediapart (7 Oct. 2019). 

52

Exclusive Economic Zones.”42 To the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Party-

State opposes “historical rights” that are devoid of any legal basis. It refuses to recognize 

the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague which stated in 2016 

that the “Nine-dash line” (the Chinese territorial claim) had “no legal basis”; nonetheless, 

China multiplies incidents, involving its civilian flotillas – including its coast guards43 – and 

maritime militias, as part of an offensive that falls within the “grey area” of “hybrid war-

fare.”44 Overall, this policy of the fait accompli puts China as a “revisionist state in interna-

tional maritime law.”45 This legal warfare also includes participation in the development of 

norms through international organizations, efforts within these to promote the emer-

gence of interpretations favorable to Chinese demands, to influence individuals playing a 

normative role, or to create precedents to serve as future normative bases.

Besides, the Party uses intermediaries to carry out the “Three Warfares.” In the case of 

the legal warfare, United Front organizations like the All China Lawyers Association (ANAC, 

中华全国律师协会) may be playing a role.46 The ANAC, for that matter, organized a Global 

Lawyer’s Forum in December 2019 with some 800 organizations and individuals, and it 

founded the Belt and Road International Lawyers Alliance (一带一路律师联盟) to promote 

legal cooperation between member states and the BRI.47 This type of platform could be serv-

ing as a relay for the Party to implement legal warfare, for example, by allowing it to impose 

its interpretation of international law more easily on its interlocutors. 

A recent example of defensive legal warfare is the initiative separately taken by two 

Chinese lawyers, Liang Xuguang in Wuhan and Chen Yueqin in Beijing, to press charges 

against the United States as part of the Covid-19 pandemic in response to complaints 

lodged by Americans accusing China of being responsible for the health disaster. Even if 

this type of complaints is unlikely to result in a conviction on either side, it is useful for the 

Chinese to supply a counter-narrative and turn the blame onto the actor slandering 

them. Liang and Chen for instance accused the United States of having concealed the 

epidemic’s emergence on its soil and undermined China’s image in naming Covid-19 the 

“Chinese virus.”48 In a hypothetical scenario of offensive legal warfare, China could be 

imagined as inciting Pacific nations threatened by rising sea levels to bring charges against 

the United States on the grounds that, due to insufficient respect of the environment, the 

US bears responsibility for its disastrous environmental consequences on these states. 

An additional example is the Hong Kong national security law passed by Beijing 

on June 30, 2020, and the extraterritoriality of Article 38 more specifically, which 

criminalized the least violation of the law committed by anyone, anywhere in the 

world. The first to be concerned are Hongkongers temporarily living overseas, especially 

the thousands of students who, on Australian, American, Canadian or European campuses, 

42. Nathalie Guibert, “La Chine, un empire à l’assaut du droit de la mer” (“China: An Empire Attacking the Law 

of the Sea”), Le Monde (5 Mar. 2021).

43. Benoît de Tréglodé and Eric Frécon, eds., La diplomatie des garde-côtes en Asie du Sud-Est (The Diplomacy of Coast 

Guards in South-East Asia), IRSEM Report, #73 (Mar. 2020).

44. Andrew S. Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson, eds., China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations, Annapolis, China 

Maritime Studies Institute / Naval Institute Press (2019).

45. Guibert, “La Chine, un empire à l’assaut du droit de la mer.” 

46. Here, the CCP undoubtedly drew from the Soviet experience. In 1946, the USSR created the International 

Association of Democratic Lawyers to bend international law toward positions more favorable to the Soviets. 

47. “Lawyers Association Serving BRI Established in Guangzhou,” Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China 

(10 Dec. 2019), http://archive.vn/rN68n; Zhang Yangfei, “Body for Belt, Road Lawyers Launched,” China Daily (9 

Dec. 2019), http://archive.vn/Ar8ih. 

48. “Chinese Lawyers Sue U.S. Over “Coronavirus Cover-up,” Radio Free Asia (26 Mar. 2020); “Civil Complaint, 

Lawsuits Led from Wuhan Against US Over Racist Terminology Hard to Proceed,” Global Times (29 Mar. 2020). 

53

expressed support for the pro-democracy activists, as well as all those who did so on social 

media, and who were hesitant to return home in case the law could be retroactively invoked 

by the authorities to pursue them. Certain instructors in Chinese studies reacted quickly, 

adapting their courses to limit the risks for these students without making concessions on 

the content.49 Certain universities, like Dartmouth College in the United States or Oxford 

University in the United Kingdom, took action: students are allowed to opt out from certain 

courses and to submit their work anonymously, which limits the risks of denunciation.50

This law applies not only to students but to everyone, everywhere: all those who crit-

icize the CCP, including this report’s authors, can now be arrested and pursued if 

they travel to Hong Kong, mainland China, or even third-party countries that allow 

Chinese authorities to act on their soil. Law Professor Donald Clarke concluded his 

analysis of Article 38 as such: “I do not recommend Thailand if you’re in the PRC govern-

ment’s sights.”51

More generally, the Chinese lawfare implies “the use or threat of legal action – to 

intimidate, silence and impose financial and psychological costs” on anyone (includ-

ing journalists and researchers) who work on topics Beijing hopes to dissimulate.52 

In France, for example, the researcher Valérie Niquet is being sued for defamation by 

Huawei France because she said, during a television broadcast (whose host and production 

company are also being sued), that “Huawei is directly under the control of the state and 

the CCP, which has a real power strategy.”53 In Taiwan, judicial proceedings or threats 

thereof are common intimidation tactics: “the Financial Times, Taiwan’s government-run 

Central News Agency (CNA), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General 

Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉), and He Qinglian (何清漣), the author of the book Red Infiltration: 

The Truth About the Global Expansion of Chinese Media (紅色滲透:中國媒體全球擴張的

真相), were the object of such ‘lawfare,’”54 recounted Canadian researcher J. Michael 

Cole, one of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese influence operations. He was him-

self pursued by the China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC) for having taken an interest 

in the role that this self-proclaimed “non-governmental” organization played in Chinese 

“political warfare.”55 The same thing happened to several of his colleagues in the Czech 

Republic, Slovakia, the United States, and Australia. There is another notable exam-

ple: the German researcher on social anthropology Adrian Zenz was one of the first to 

demonstrate the depth of the repression that fell on the Uyghurs, confirming, for instance, 

the existence of internment camps and a forced sterilization campaign on women. Zenz 

has since been in “Beijing’s visor” as the latter tries to “discredit the individual to deny the 

49. Dimitar D. Gueorguiev, Xiaobo Lü, Kerry Ratigan, Meg Rithmire, and Rory Truex, “How to Teach China This 

Fall,” China File (20 Aug. 2020). 

50. Kyle Mullins, “Dartmouth Encourages Faculty to Safeguard Students as Chinese Law Targets Free Speech 

Globally,” The Dartmouth (24 Sept. 2020); Bill Bostock, “Oxford is Asking Students Specializing in China to Submit 

Papers Anonymously so They Do not Fall Foul of Hong Kong’s Draconian National Security Law,” Business Insider 

France (29 Sept. 2020). 

51. Donald Clarke, “Hong Kong’s National Security Law: How Dangerous is Article 38?” The China Collection (3 

Jul. 2020).

52. J. Michael Cole, “China is using our legal systems against us,” National Post (12 Apr. 2021).

53. Brice Pedroletti, “Une chercheuse française poursuivie par Huawei France” (“A French Researcher Sued by 

Huawei France”), Le Monde (26 Nov. 2019). 

54. Ketty W. Chen and J. Michael Cole, “CCP and Proxy Disinformation: Means, Practices, and Impact on 

Democracies,” Sinopsis (26 Jul. 2019). 

55. J. Michael Cole, “Unstoppable: China’s Secret Plan to Subvert Taiwan,” National Interest (23 Mar. 2015); “Chinese 

Propaganda: Coming Soon to a Conference Near You,” The Diplomat (23 Sept. 2015).

54

C

repression.”56 In March 2021, Chinese media revealed that Zenz was being sued in Chinese 

courts by individuals and firms from Xinjiang (not named in the article however, but they 

acted as the Party’s cover).57 According to the Global Times, the BBC will be the next target 

of the legal warfare “for producing fake news [and] spreading rumors about Xinjiang.”58 

The aim of these charges is not to win but to “impose a cost.” These companies, with 

enormous resources at their disposal, can recruit the best law firms and finance long-lasting 

procedures. On the other side, the journalists and researchers they attack are alone, with few 

resources. The effect is dissuasive, first of all for the targeted individuals. J. Michael Cole 

admitted that, even though his case won up to the nation’s highest court, “in a way they win 

because to this day I’m reluctant to write about them.”59 The dissuasive effect also extends 

– which is in any case the desired goal – to the entirety of the field concerned: matters like 

this cause a sensation in journalistic and academic circles, reinforcing pre-existing tendencies 

toward self-censorship, as most do not wish to “have problems.” For that reason, it is not even 

necessary to go through with the lawsuits: the threat is sometimes enough. Hence, Chinese 

authorities and their mouthpieces, firms and media outlets, only mention the threat without 

following through. In France, for instance, the director of the digital version of the People’s 

Daily repeatedly threatened a number of journalists in March 2021.60 

56. See for instance: Adrian Zenz, “Break Their Roots: Evidence for China’s Parent-Child Separation Campaign in 

Xinjiang,” Journal of Political Risk, 7:7 (Jul. 2019); Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth Control; Coercive Labor and Forced 

Displacement in Xinjiang’s Cross-Regional Labor Transfer Program: A Process-Oriented Evaluation, The Jamestown Foundation 

(Mar. 2021).

57. Zhang Han and Fan Lingzhi, “Xinjiang Companies, Individuals Sue Rumormonger Adrian Zenz for 

Reputational, Economic Losses,” Global Times (9 Mar. 2021) (https://archive.vn/0vMzo).

58. “Xinjiang Residents to Sue BBC Over Fake News on Region,” Global Times (18 Mar. 2021) (https://archive.

vn/6uM2i).

59. J. Michael Cole, “A Conversation About China’s Sharp Power and Taiwan,” Brookings Institution (11 Sept. 

2018). 

60. https://twitter.com/QianHeParis/status/1369929474872016896; https://twitter.com/QianHeParis/

status/1378181148459732994. See also: https://twitter.com/QianHeParis/status/1377822477284298757 and 

https://twitter.com/QianHeParis/status/1373920150949273603.

55

This well-known practice, known as a gag lawsuit, or procedure, but also called a 

“strategic lawsuit against public participation” by the United States during the 1980s, is a 

classic tool of legal warfare, obviously not limited to China. Yet, it is a growing problem, 

especially for journalists, researchers, NGOs, and whistleblowers who, in numerous coun-

tries, are regularly targeted by private companies or public institutions who wish to silence 

them.

The Chinese concepts of influence fit into a global framework. The CCP indeed sees 

itself as engaged in an ideological rivalry with the West, first of all with the United States. 

Competition with Washington is thus not only about material superiority, but also about 

the imposition of values, norms, and institutions on the adversary. This is where the 

struggle between Beijing and Washington differs from the Cold War: The United States 

and China share the same world, they cannot live separately in two worlds with diver-

gent norms. The CCP’s aim is therefore to impose a globalization under the aegis of 

Chinese norms. It is precisely the essence of the Party’s leitmotif of “a common destiny 

for humanity” (→ p. 149).

57

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PART

The two most important concepts in Chinese influence operations are:

• The United Front, a CCP policy whose goal is to build up and reinforce its hegemony in 

shaping forces outside the Party and in “mobilizing the Party’s friends to strike its enemies.” The 

expression is relatively hard to define since it designates at once a dedicated organization (the 

United Front Work Department, UFWD, under the authority of the Chinese People’s Political 

Consultative Conference, CPPCC), an activity (the work of the United Front), and a system (the 

constellation of organizations, institutions, agencies, and individuals who carry out this work 

across all sectors: media, education and research, diaspora, economy, culture, etc.).

Concretely, its work consists in eliminating internal and external enemies, controlling the 

groups that could defy the CCP’s authority, building a coalition around the Party to serve its 

interests, and projecting its influence overseas to such an extent that even individuals and groups 

residing in liberal societies censor themselves or avoid taking a stance against the CCP. These op-

erations – across a broad spectrum ranging from “open” public diplomacy to clandestine actions 

– generally aim at one of the following three objectives: to mobilize the diasporas, to control the 

narratives about China, and to create databases.

• The Three Warfares, which represent most of the “political warfare” carried out by the 

PLA, is a form of non-kinetic conflictuality aimed at winning without fighting by shaping an 

environment favorable to China (i.e. to the Party) and unfavorable to its enemies. Undertaken in 

times of war as well as peace, it is made up of three arms from the same body:

- Public opinion warfare, whose objective is to unite the target audiences, mold psyches 

(“cognitive orientation” of the masses), “rouse their emotions,” and “constrain their behavior”;

- Psychological warfare, used to demoralize enemy forces, dissuade, sow doubt, and even 

terrorize them to undermine their ability and will to fight, to weaken the bond of trust between 

rulers and citizens, but also to disrupt the decision-making process in the enemy country;

- Legal warfare, which is the use of law as a weapon of war, meaning to dissuade, attack, 

counter-attack, coerce, and discipline, as shown in the revisionist interpretation of maritime law, 

the 2020 Hong Kong national security law, and a growing number of judicial proceedings. The 

CCP goes after any individual opposed to its interests, and as frequently as possible, most often 

via accusations of defamation (gag lawsuits whose goal is not to win but to impose a cost and 

thus have a deterrent effect). 

• The other relevant concepts to understand Chinese influence operations are the notion of 

cognitive-domain operations, which aim at “shap[ing] or even control[ing] the enemy’s cogni-

tive thinking and decision-making” and manipulating “a country’s values, national spirit/ethos, 

ideologies, cultural traditions, historical beliefs, etc. to encourage them to abandon their theoret-

ical understanding, social system, and development path”; the discursive power, which aims at 

reaching domination by imposing its language and narratives; the political warfare, which refers 

to the use of all means other than war available to a country to achieve its objectives; and the 

58

concept of active measures which, unlike the preceding concepts, did not originate in the Chi-

nese strategic thinking but in that of the Soviet Union. Notable components include disinforma-

tion, counterfeiting, sabotage, discredit operations, the destabilization of foreign governments, 

provocations, false-flag operations and other operations aimed at weakening the social cohesion 

of the enemy, as well as the recruitment of “useful idiots” and the creation of front organiza-

tions. Some experts have also included assassinations and terrorist actions in this.

Second Part

ACTORS

61

Behind the public face of Chinese influence – the activities of the media (→ p. 172) 

and of the diplomats (→ p. 205) primarily – which are analyzed in detail in the following 

part, we found institutional actors whose role and nature need to be understood.1 Their 

diversity, fragmentation, bureaucratic rivalries, and the occasional overlap in their missions 

support the understanding that, contrary to a widespread belief – generally assumed on 

authoritarian states – “China” is not a unitary actor.2 Numerous observers have indeed 

shown “an excessive propensity to assess the Chinese state according to the single criteria 

of its political regime.”3 But “the nature of the regime provides above all information on 

the foundations of its sovereignty and on the routes to power. Yet to build a more truthful 

image of the Chinese state, we must focus not on the regime but on the state as it consti-

tutes a political center,”4 in other words, a bureaucracy. To summarize: while the regime is 

strong, its political center suffers from a substantial fragmentation. And this fragmenta-

tion can impact the nature of influence operations carried out by Beijing.5 This is 

why we sought to devote numerous pages to dissecting, as much as possible, the role and 

nature of the different actors involved in these operations. In other words, before analyzing 

in detail the different actions (Part Three → p. 143), we need to understand who does 

what. As Anne-Marie Brady explained, “CCP political interference activities draw on the 

resources of the Party, the Chinese state, the PLA, and the private sector in China, as well 

as on Chinese companies abroad – what I refer to as the Party-State-Military-Market 

nexus.”6 We will therefore distinguish these four principal categories – Party, state, army, 

companies – and within each one, the agencies, departments and services most involved in 

influence operations abroad.

1. Antoine Bondaz, “‘Faire entendre la voix de la Chine’ : les recommandations des experts chinois pour atténuer 

la perception d’une menace chinoise” (“‘Make China’s Voice Heard’: The Recommandations of Chinese Experts to 

Lessen the Perception of a Chinese Threat”), Revue internationale et stratégique, 115/3 (2019), 106. 

2. See, for example, Mathieu Duchâtel, “La politique étrangère de la Chine sous Xi Jinping” (“The Chinese Foreign 

Policy under Xi Jinping”), Hérodote, 150/3 (2013), 172-190; Linda Jakobson, “Domestic Actors and the Fragmentation 

of China’s Foreign Policy,” in Robert Ross and Jo Inge Bekkevold, eds., China in the Era of Xi Jinping: Domestic and 

Foreign Policy Challenges, 2016; Huang Yanzhong, “The Sick Man of Asia: China’s Health Crisis,” Foreign Affairs (Nov./

Dec. 2011). 

3. Paul Charon, “Pour une sociologie de l’Etat chinois ou comment interpréter les faiblesses d’un géant” (“For a 

Sociology of the Chinese State, or How to Interpret the Weaknesses of a Giant”), Le Banquet, 31 (2013), 15. 

4. Ibid.

5. This fragmentation does not mean eo ipso that the Party is devoid of global ambitions or lacks the capacity to 

realize them. These fragmentations constrain the Party, influence its modi operandi, but without hindering its action. 

6. Anne-Marie Brady, Holding a Pen in One Hand, Gripping a Gun in the Other: China’s Exploitation of Civilian Channels 

for Military Purposes in New Zealand, Kissinger Institute, Asia Program (Jul. 2020), 4. 

63