PRC seeks ‘victory without war’ on social media

THE WATCH STAFF

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has invested billions of dollars to wage “cognitive warfare” against its adversaries, primarily through social media, according to a recent analysis by the U.S. government-funded Defense One website.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) considers cognitive warfare equal to other warfare domains, including land, sea and air, and it seeks to dominate the international narrative about the PRC to achieve “victory without war.”

A recent PLA Daily website article laid out four social media tactics, dubbed “confrontational actions.” They are information disturbance, discourse competition, public opinion blackout and block information.

The tactical and strategic goal is to achieve an “invisible manipulation” and “invisible embedding” of information production “to shape the target audience’s macro framework for recognizing, defining, and understanding events,” Duan Wenling and Liu Jiali, professors of the Military Propaganda Teaching and Research Department of the School of Political Science at China’s National Defense University told Defense One.

To try to sway global opinion, the PRC uses official and controlled social media accounts to coordinate persuasion campaigns to either “troll” or to portray the PRC as a victim. The PRC also actively tries to stifle dissent either by intimidation of U.S. tech companies such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and Meta, and by using bots to make the PRC narrative go viral and block dissenting views.

“China did not invent the internet, but it seeks to be at the forefront of its future as a means of not just communication and commerce but conflict. Its own analysts openly discuss the potential power of this space to achieve regime goals not previously possible. The question is not whether it will wage cognitive warfare, but are its target’s minds and networks ready?” the Defense One analysis concludes.