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@ Samuel Gabriel
2025-06-17 02:38:38
The Theory of China’s Smokeless War
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How Beijing Seeks Global Dominance Without Firing a Shot
China’s rise as a global superpower has not followed the conventional path of military expansion or conquest. Instead, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has crafted a modern geopolitical playbook rooted in what some have termed a “Smokeless War”—a comprehensive, non-military strategy to expand influence, manipulate narratives, and reshape global systems in China’s favor.
This concept was crystallized by Manoj Kewalramani in his book Smokeless War: China’s Quest for Geopolitical Dominance, which explores how China avoids battlefield confrontations while still pursuing dominance through more subtle, often invisible, means.
I. Discourse Power (话语权 - Huayuquan)
At the heart of China’s strategy lies the pursuit of discourse power—the ability to control global narratives and influence international perception.
Objective: Redefine how the world talks about China, shifting from criticism to admiration or neutrality.
Case in point: China framed its COVID-19 response as a “smokeless war,” emphasizing its internal strength and foreign aid shipments while deflecting blame for the virus's origin and early spread.
Mechanisms:
State-run media (e.g., CGTN, Xinhua)
Aggressive social media diplomacy (the so-called “Wolf Warriors”)
Strategic diplomatic language in global forums
This form of narrative control seeks to position China not just as a legitimate power—but as a morally superior one.
II. Information and Hybrid Warfare
Drawing from its military’s Three Warfares Doctrine, China engages in psychological, public opinion, and legal warfare as tools of hybrid conflict:
Public Opinion Warfare: Shapes international and domestic sentiment through coordinated messaging.
Psychological Warfare: Weakens adversaries’ resolve by creating uncertainty, fear, or internal discord.
Legal Warfare (Lawfare): Leverages legal arguments and international norms to justify contested actions (e.g., claims in the South China Sea).
Tactics include:
Disinformation campaigns
Cyber intrusions
Amplifying existing social fractures in rival nations
While claims exist regarding covert funding of unrest abroad, especially in the U.S., such allegations remain speculative and lack verified evidence—warranting caution in attribution.
III. Economic Statecraft
Economic tools serve as the backbone of China’s non-kinetic coercion.
Strategy: Use access to markets, capital, and resources as leverage.
Tactics:
Conditional investment
Strategic control of supply chains (notably in rare earth minerals)
Punitive trade actions against countries critical of Beijing (e.g., Australia)
This method capitalizes on the profit motives of foreign companies, many of which resist geopolitical decoupling due to business interests—even as national governments reassess economic dependencies.
Academic analyses, such as those by Chen and Evers, underscore the long-term risks of China's economic coercion, especially as it intertwines global dependency with political compliance.
IV. Historical Continuity
The roots of this “Smokeless War” trace back to Mao Zedong’s savvy use of Western journalists, notably Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, to shape Western views of the Communist movement.
Today, Xi Jinping has updated the strategy for the digital age:
Global media expansion via CGTN and Belt and Road news networks
Sophisticated online surveillance and censorship at home
Coordinated international messaging across embassies and think tanks
China casts each challenge—from diplomatic criticism to global pandemics—as a battle, reinforcing a worldview of continuous, borderless struggle that does not require bullets.
V. Limitations and Critiques
Despite its ambition, the Smokeless War has clear limitations:
Backlash: Heavy-handed tactics (e.g., censorship, hostage diplomacy) often alienate public opinion in democratic societies.
Credibility issues: Accusations of covert influence operations are hard to prove and risk being dismissed as conspiracy without solid evidence.
Opportunism over planning: Rather than engineering conflict, China often exploits existing fissures in other nations—cultural, racial, political—without having created them.
VI. Conclusion
The Smokeless War represents a new form of strategic conflict—one in which words, laws, dollars, and data replace missiles and tanks. It reflects a long-term vision for reshaping the global order without firing a shot.
But its effectiveness is far from absolute. While China excels in manipulating perception and incentives, success remains context-dependent, and global resistance is growing. As nations wake up to this form of invisible influence, they must decide whether and how to mount a response to China’s quiet march toward dominance.