OPINION:
Early on the morning of Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists savagely massacred roughly 1,400 Israelis and took hostage about 400 more, the press was in place, ready — and seemingly eager — to record the action. News media collaboration with Hamas is not unprecedented, but this time, America must pay attention. In the not-too-distant future, we will see such media collaboration with China’s forces attacking American troops and installations as part of its much broader political warfare playbook. We are not prepared.
According to Reporters Without Borders, photojournalists affiliated with CNN, Associated Press, The New York Times, and Reuters knew where to be when the Hamas butchery began. Some were apparently embedded with the terrorists as they infiltrated Israel on their mission of sadistic mass murder and abduction. International news organizations published the reporters’ images and reports, in effect assisting Hamas’ psychological warfare and propaganda campaign.
Like these news organizations, China is also supporting Hamas’ psychological warfare and propaganda. While news media collaboration with Hamas is not without precedent, Beijing’s increasingly sophisticated political warfare support for Hamas is unprecedented. Beijing has not condemned Hamas’ mass murder and hostage-taking, and its propaganda platforms block all reports about Hamas’s savage attack while sensationalizing Israel’s military response. Further, anti-Israeli propaganda on Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-affiliated TikTok is having a global impact. Finally, China is coordinating its propaganda campaign with Russia and Iran, complicating efforts to detect and defeat it.
In fact, Hamas’ co-option of the news media is straight out of China’s political warfare playbook. George Kennan defined political warfare as all means a nation uses to achieve its strategic objectives short of kinetic war. China’s political warfare includes media warfare, legal warfare, psychological warfare, United Front operations, active measures like assassination, and a seemingly endless array of unrestricted warfare. As China’s playbook unfolds in the Hamas-Israel conflict, we see what will unfold when Beijing initiates kinetic war. Like Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, that war may come faster than expected.
True, it seems fashionable lately for some U.S. officials and celebrity China hands to proclaim that “Everyone knows China prefers to win without fighting, so Xi Jinping is not going to attack (fill in the blank).” The first clause is true: who wouldn’t want to win a war without fighting? But the second clause reflects dangerously wishful thinking.
China has indeed achieved notable strategic victories without fighting. Declaring sovereignty over the South China Sea and militarizing manmade islands, there is one such victory achieved after years of preparation that ensured a feckless global response. However, if Beijing perceives that political warfare alone will not deliver what it wants, it will start a war. Take Mr. Xi’s word on that: The CCP’s top theoretical journal, Qiushi, reports that Xi’s recent speeches strongly emphasize preparation for war, a war he expects to initiate and win.
Chinese doctrine is to strike first, so China will conduct a deliberate surprise attack. But China could also inadvertently ignite a war as a result of the over-zealous People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or maritime armed forces attacking South China Sea claimants or its dangerous air intercepts of U.S. and other nations’ military aircraft. Regardless of what sparks the war, China’s fight for public opinion will be its second battlefield.
Before firing the first missile, China’s highest-level officials will closely plan and direct political warfare operations. The goal is to generate public support worldwide, weaken the U.S. and allies’ will to fight, and hyper-nationalize Chinese and the global Chinese diaspora. Its wide-ranging political warfare apparatus will be primed and ready, with propaganda, disinformation, and deception products prepared well in advance.
China will strike first, and it will be the first to broadcast. Its narrative will dominate the airwaves, frame the narrative and subsequent debate, and define the subsequent coverage. It will closely coordinate with co-opted foreign news media to supplement its already formidable global propaganda platforms such as Xinhua and China Global Television Network.
Through such means as purchasing news media outlets and coercion, China has co-opted most Chinese-language news media globally. Further, it controls many news media organizations across the Global South, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas. Beijing will exploit this co-opted media to distract, deceive, and demoralize America and coalition partners and sway public opinion to China’s side.
As part of its media warfare, China will embed its own propagandists and selected foreign journalists into its attacking force. Once combat begins, the embedded journalists and propagandists will be expected to do the PLA’s bidding. For example, they will be required to celebrate PLA victories, highlight coalition setbacks and defeats and report falsified allegations of U.S. and coalition war crimes, civilian casualties caused by coalition forces, and the surrender of coalition forces. Meanwhile, the PLA’s Strategic Support Force, roughly 300,000 strong, will conduct media warfare and psychological warfare against U.S. and coalition forces. In a form of civil-military fusion, it will conduct cyberattacks that reinforce social media warfare by China’s so-called netizens and 50-Cent Army.
There are many other ways that China will wage political warfare during combat operations. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack provides forewarning. For example, like Hamas, China routinely takes hostages, so in wartime, it will take hostage Americans living there and in territory it occupies to wring concessions from the United States. Like Hamas, Beijing will also instigate mass protests and rallies in cities globally to divide its opponents, as well as at ports and other transport facilities to disrupt the coalition war effort. And like Hamas, China will use legal warfare and its supporters in international organizations to try to paralyze coalition operations.
Hamas may have surprised some with its media co-option on Oct. 7, but China’s political warfare during a war against America is clearly foreseeable. This threat deserves far greater attention than the executive branch has afforded it, so it must begin intelligently planning for it, along with friends and allies. Failure to do so will likely result in America’s failure to achieve our wartime objectives, regardless of the outcome on the kinetic battlefield.
• Kerry K. Gershaneck is a specialist on hybrid threats and fellow at the NATO Allied Command Operations Office of Legal Affairs. He is the author of the book Political Warfare: Strategies for Combatting China’s Plan to ‘Win Without Fighting.’
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