Beijing’s Doctrine on the Conduct of “Irregular Forms of Warfare”

[Norfolk]

PRC intelligence, espionage, IO, and the like in many Western countries, the U.S. in particular, reached a critical level at least a decade-and-a-half ago, perhaps even as far back as nearly 20 years ago. This intelligence campaign has, over the 15-20 years since it more or less hit its stride (after a testing of the waters and subsequentl build-up of about the same length of time), reaped rewards that would have made the old KGB and GRU green with envy over much the same time period.

Critical, not just significant, information, technology, intelligence, etc., has come into PRC possession. Similarly, PRC use of, and infiltration into, the political lobby system has been strikingly effective in influencing some U.S. Government policy-making or execution. The Chinese Government has the U.S. Government reasonably-well "framed" if you will in many respects; the U.S. Government, by contrast, is not unaware of this, but its own internal divisions (successfully and subtly exploited to a certain extent by the PRC) impede its ability to fully grasp the scale of the problem and especially to deal effectively with it.

The PRC Government does not want to become an enemy of the U.S. Government any more than the U.S. wishes to become an enemy of China. Chinese strategic manoeuvering, of both its own position and that of the U.S., is of course in order for the former to gain a position of relative advantage over the latter; fortunately the PRC does not conceive of its strategic competition with the U.S. as necessarily a relationship of hostility.

But Chinese strategic miscalculation and American strategic erraticism can lead to serious misunderstandings. PRC intelligence penetration of the U.S. on the scope and scale as it presently exists (so far as we know) does not meet with the same equanimity on the U.S. side (which tends to see such as an attack) as it does on the PRC side (which tends to see the same as just a part of diplomacy - a non-violent jockeying for advantage).