CHINA’S ‘SILENT’ WAR FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE

“The Chinese board game Weiqi gives unique insight into their theory of statecraft. The game employs abstract strategy to encircle the stones of the opponent. The essence of its play is on encirclement through positioning strategy, rather than on destroying the opposing pieces as in Chess.” – Col RS Sidhu

 

Backdrop

“Of war, there is open war, concealed war, and silent war.” – Kautilya ka ‘Arthashastra’

Kautilya aka Vishnugupta aka Chanakya, the author of ‘Arthashastra’, the 3^rd century BCE ancient treatise on statecraft, is perhaps the first military strategist and master practitioner of realpolitik to theorise on ‘silent war’.

The ‘Arthashastra’ describes the ‘silent war’ as that where a country while maintaining overt peace with its target state, recruit fifth columnist to engage in subversion, orchestrate information war to create violent discord and rift in the body polity, sow misinformation to discredit national leadership, and employ spies for targeted killing of influential leaders of civil society and industry. Most such divisive activities underway today in India, and its bordering states of Myanmar, and now Bangla Desh can be safely traced to this doctrine.

China’s Sun Tzu, in his masterly treatise on statecraft, ‘The Art of War’, articulates the viewpoint that the supreme form of warfare is to win without fighting the enemy. Sun Tzu’s stress on engaging with the target country comprehensively through covert deployment of resources, is clearly discerned from the following extracts, “The wise warrior avoids the battle…supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting... win first and then go to war…greatest victory is that which requires no battle…subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

The Western philosophy on war, on the other hand, lays primary stress on use of brute force on the battlefield to destroy the enemy.

Evidently, ancient India and China followed a near common philosophy of war in their respective ancient past. But India was forced off course from its traditional war fighting doctrine due to the cultural onslaught under prolonged foreign rule. On attaining ‘peaceful’ independence, it inherited a military attuned to the war fighting doctrine of their erstwhile colonial rulers from the west. China, on the other hand, relied on the principles recorded in the ‘Art of War’ to regain their independence, and have been consistent in following the strategy of statecraft enumerated therein. Introspecting on the events of ‘Kargil 1999’ between India-Pakistan, and ‘Galwan 2020’ between India-China, is adequate to highlight the current dissimilarity in approach to war, of the two adversaries. 

China’s Path to Global Supremacy

“The fine line separating an audacious vision from dreams is the intensity of plans and tenacity in pursuit.” – ‘Elephant On The High Himalayas’

China is pursuing its world vision through parallel strategies of expanding the hard power of its armed forces, and developing an overarching economic strength. In pursuit of the latter strategy, China has rolled out two strategic programs, the ‘Made in China 2025’ to overtake USA leadership in key new age technology sectors of the economy, and ‘China Standards 2035’ to proactively standardise international technology and trade guidelines to facilitate its economic domination.

The Digital & Space Silk Road Initiative is their Special Purpose Vehicle to achieve the objective primarily through the Hongyan constellation of 320 low-orbit satellites slated to provide global two-way, real-time data transmission system along with other multimedia data services. It is intended to replace the existing ground-based communication networks, allowing uninterrupted global communication, and constant global coverage of all air, shipping, and overland routes, providing China the winning edge in both economic and geostrategic arena.

China’s AI assisted Quantum computing will enable it to conduct real time predictive analysis of the phenomenal amount of data it will be able to access through its world wide spread of data networks and space sensing assets.  China’s dominance in digital space, coupled with its technological advancement in AI assisted surveillance & analysis, data harnessing, computing and predictive analysis would also provide it with winning edge in future military conflicts. 

‘Influencing’ it’s Way to Global Dominance  

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

China balances the deployment of hard as well as soft power in pursuit of global dominance, with deftness. It should not, therefore, come as a surprise that acquiring ‘influence’ in key international agencies and countries, to manipulate favourable policies, is integral to their pursuit of geopolitical power.

It has been consistently expanding influence in UN and other multi-lateral bodies, by securing nominations through increased funding to head strategic bodies that shall be able to assist it in creating new global standards for technology, expanding its Silk Roads Initiatives in domains of Digital & Space, Belt & Roads, Health, and in global expansion of Chinese companies.  

Some of the critical multilateral bodies where China has secured a dominant position are, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that sets global communication standards, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) that encourages industrialisation in the developing world, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) responsible for global air navigation and safety standards, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that designs policies for food security and sustainable agriculture, and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that covers safety and all other standards of shipping.

China has also been able to secure the number two slot in other multilateral agencies vital to influence its key national interests. The more significant of these are, World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), World Health Organisation (WHO), and World Meteorological Organization (WMO). In all other multilateral agencies it has secured a place for its ‘influencers’.

The list of US clients of ‘China Daily’, a Chinese state controlled English news daily, is a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the US media houses, such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Policy Magazine, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe amongst others. It has paid millions of dollars over the past decade to these US media houses, as revealed from the mandatory semi-annual disclosures of financial activity of its US operations with the US Department of Justice, under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

As an example, China Daily in just the first six months of 2021, spent US Dollar 11, 002,628 on advertising in US newspapers and another US Dollar 265,822 on advertising with Twitter. This spending to project China favourably, is just from one source.

The ‘Influencers’ of China

“It is cheaper, faster, and simpler to deal through ‘influencers’ and ‘narratives’ than with governments and institutions.”

China has developed a time tested covert operational model to gain dominant influence in target countries and organisations to further its national interests. It first cobbles an easy to manipulate alliance of disparate but powerful organisations, amenable to pursue Chinese interests for selfish gains. Then it funnels substantial financial and organisational resources to this covert alliance. They identify emotive issues to mobilise ground support, and orchestrate civil unrest, and unleash violence to unseat the government of the day. Electoral processes are also manipulated by employing similar methodology, to ensure election of a bonafide government aligned to Chinese interests.

In an ongoing example, in a meeting held at Beijing on 22 July 2024, China has orchestrated a rapprochement between 14 different Palestinian organisations to unite them under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, the discredited longtime President/Chairman of PLO, Fateh, Palestine state, and Palestine National Authority of the PLO. It also used the opportunity to facilitate joining of hands between Fateh, and its rival Hamas currently engaged in open war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Then there are the political leaders facing allegations of pro-China bias in their respective countries. Some of them are, the Pakistan army hierarchy, Pushpa Kamal Dahal and KP Sharma Oli in Nepal, the Tatmadaw in Myanmar, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa brothers in Sri Lanka, Mohamed Muizzu in Maldives, Paul Keating in Australia, and an erstwhile Prime Minister in Italy. Such an allegation has also been raised against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in its Parliament.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as Director General of World Health Organisation has faced widespread criticism for not holding China accountable for the Corona virus global epidemic despite the public record of corroboratory sequence of events.

Within India itself, there are media reports of China’s interface mechanisms and special relationship with political organisations, and funnelling financial and other resources in ongoing insurgencies in several parts of the country.

China also holds considerable sway over segments of media houses and NGOs in India, to further its influence. One such media organisation NewsClick is already under official investigation in India for receiving substantial foreign fund from organisations linked to US IT millionaire Neville Roy Singham. He is linked, through his spouse Jodie Evans and others, to major NGOs such as United Company Fund, Code Pink, Justice and Education Fund, and is also under serious investigation in the US for orchestrating influence campaigns favouring Chinese viewpoint, and manipulating elections in the US, India, and several other countries.  

Kautilya Ka Bharat

“Every neighbourhood state is an enemy and the enemy’s enemy is a friend; for in the absence of a magistrate (dandadharabhave) the strong shall swallow the weak; but under his protection the weak resist the strong.” – Kautilya Ka ‘Arthashastra’

At the present China holds sway over the governments in India’s immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangla Desh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives. There are three primary reasons for this bleak state of affairs.

First is the comparative Comprehensive National Power (CNP) index of the two adversaries, which is heavily tilted in favour of China. Just a look at the defence expenditure confirms this observation. India’s defence expenditure is less than 1.9 % of its GDP against global average of 2.6 %, and its defence spending for 2024 is budgeted at 75 billion US dollars, as against 232 billion US Dollars by China, its principal adversary. In a similar vein, India’s GDP is a mere $ 4 trillion as compared to $ 18 trillion of China. It shall take more than a decade and a half of dedicated and unbroken effort to redress this imbalance to manageable proportion.

Continuing with the CNP factor, the Indian military, at its apex hierarchy as well as the grassroot structure, is currently in the throes of structural reforms, making it a period of strong vulnerability for the country. A more discerning concern, arising from the failures and delays in implementation is, that it is ad hoc rather than a planned approach. There is inherent organisational resistance to change, lack of clarity on the way forward, and a weak political interface to push the change through. It is therefore reasonable to assume that this vulnerable period is likely to stretch into the mid-term horizon.   

The second is the ‘influence operations’ of China to extend its sway over India’s immediate neighbourhood. With decidedly weak resources at its disposal, India’s current diplomacy mode of government to government approach is inadequate to counter China. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar, and mass scale violent disturbances in Bangla Desh leading to the fall of its duly elected government, are the latest case in point.

India needs to adopt two course corrections to counter China’s ‘influence operations.’  First is to adopt realpolitik pragmatism to pursue its geopolitical interests. Secondly, carry the ‘silent war’ into the enemy realm through a proactive stance.

‘Baggi Bagh’, is the name of an interesting analytical game played in the rural heartland of northern India, worthy of giving a run for money to the Chinese Weiqi board game. The game is played with stones wherein to win, the players adeptness at strategic encirclement must be combined with the art of isolate and kill. It holds all apt answers to the Weiqi.

In a similar vein, ‘Kautilya ka Arthashastra’ has within its pages all that is needed to counter the ‘Art of War’. A strong case exists for India to revert to the statecraft practices of ‘Kautilya Ka Bharat’.

But a word of caution is needed here. In geopolitics fear is the foremost key component of the CNP index. Apart from the Great Powers, Israel is the best example of this insight.

India needs to be more proficient in the art of implementation than the science of the theory of the ‘silent war.’

“Only a crooked finger can pull the trigger!”