How China Uses Strategic Preconditioning in the Age of Great Power Competition
By Munoz Mosquera and Sascha Dov-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann
China is resolved to rebuild its empire. This time, it will be an empire of influence that relies on creating situations that once settled, are difficult to change or overcome. In other words, China projects and creates “preconditions”— domains of conflict and competition--to form an irreversible political, economic, and cultural reality that can later be exploited to achieve operational objectives. China is well-prepared for the world it seeks to build, and is positioned as a smart player in hybrid-threat environments. This article briefly introduces China’s strategic preconditioning as a precursor to today’s conflicts and great power competition. Such preconditioning has been taking place over the last twenty years, and creating awareness among the Western allies is crucial for building resilience against China’s actions in the hybrid threat domain of great power competition of today.
China’s view is ancestral and founded in ancient China, but its recent background dates to 1998, when Chinese Air Force colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui published Unrestricted Warfare. They argued that potential “battlefields” are limitless and that several types of warfare—including environmental, financial, trade, cultural, and legal— would be useful for achieving Chinese objectives. Qiao Liang noted that unrestricted warfare has no rules, and therefore nothing is forbidden. This standpoint transcends any understanding of war that has been waged in the last centuries in the West. The two authors wrote their piece out of frustration, arguing that systems from the post-World War II era did not bring the peace that was promised. For them, the new international order was a failure, and especially so for China.
Today, China is focusing on the “perceptual domain” of information operations and aiming to precondition the political, strategic, operational and tactical arenas in the short and long run. China achieves its foreign policy and military goals with evolving strategies, including propaganda at horizontal and vertical levels. It emphasizes “influence operations,” which are materialized in the “three warfares” (san zhong zhanfa). In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC) approved the concept of the three warfares, which consist of: 1) Public Opinion, which intends to project a positive image of China domestically and abroad; 2) Psychological Warfare, which seeks to undermine an enemy combat operations by deterring and demoralizing enemy military personnel and supporting civilian populations; and 3) Legal Warfare, which uses national and international law to support Chinese interests.
The main goal of these instruments is to provide the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the capacity to conduct information warfare. This strategy aims to give China a privileged position in strategic competition, supplemented by the country’s various instruments of power, investments, and technology.
China’s preconditioning often takes the form of misleading political and legal statements or supporting fait accompli situations like in the South China Sea, which cannot be reversed without the use of military force. In these situations, China projects a favorable result for its interests. Also, China ensures precondition by ensuring its information superiority in all its activities, which eventually bring in off-battlefield supremacy.
Preconditioning Chinese activities, while complex, are not difficult to identify. One example is China’s lawfare actions in its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the South China Sea. China claims the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not provide a comprehensive approach to law enforcement issues. Actually, China considers that it may enjoy rights to protect its sovereign rights and interests as a coastal state in places like the South China Sea, East China Sea, and other maritime areas where conflict and disputes exist with non-coastal states, namely, the United States. Most of the tools China uses for preconditioning these areas are related to national and international laws.
China’s preconditioning is not limited to the sea, but extends to all domains that may help to legitimize Chinese activities. The current COVID-19 pandemic shows how Beijing is not only trying to shift any ‘blame’ for the virus, but also to present itself as the only state and society capable of containing the virus while providing humanitarian aid abroad.
The three warfares are enablers of the above-described preconditioning and they are an integral part of the Politburo’s propaganda system. China currently applies influence operations on all historically claimed or disputed territories, as well as on its “capitalist” and cultural interests around the world. The U.S. and its allies around the globe have to develop a comprehensive response aimed at raising both awareness and resilience against this preconditioning as part of the three warfares.
Mr. Munoz Mosquera is a veteran of the Spanish Armed forces, and is now one of the three NATO senior legal advisors. He joined NATO in year 2000 as a civilian and has been the NATO Commander’s Legal Advisor (Director of the ACO/SHAPE Office of Legal Affairs) since 2014. He holds a honoris causa Master in International Relations from the Universidad Iberoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología (UNICIT). He is also a Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts) graduate, and has graduated from the NATO Defence College (GFOAC).
Dr. Sascha Dov-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, State Exam (Ludwig Maximillians Universität, Germany), Ass. Juris, LLM (Stell, RSA), LLD (UJ, RSA), FHEA, Rechtsanwalt, (Barrister/Solicitor is an international legal scholar author of over seventy academic publications (articles/books and scientific submissions) and also a regular contributor to NATO’s Legal Advisor Web (LAWFAS) with his publications often being used as NATO reference documents. Sascha holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserves (GE-A) and served on three NATO missions. He joined Canberra Law School, University of Canberra, Australia as Professor in Law and Justice in 2019 and is a Fellow NATO SHAPE Asia Pacific (Hybrid Threats and Lawfare). Email: sascha.bachmann@canberra.edu.au.
Cover photo is by the U.S. Pacific Fleet and is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
