The latest riff from state-run Chinese media attacks the Group of Seven (G7) for pointing out the ongoing Chinese aggression in violation of international law in the South China Sea.
This would be just another mundane and run-of-the-mill diatribe from official Chinese media that occurs daily in advancing communist China’s geopolitical and economic interests worldwide. However, the focus on a key phrase—that the G7 statement condemning the Chinese military’s actions is “a part of the carefully planned cognitive warfare against China” [emphasis added]—is at the very least a slip of the tongue if not an outright blunder on the part of Chinese tabloid Global Times.
Let us examine the issue.
Disrupted Territories
The list of disputed territories in East Asian waters is long: Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, Senkaku Islands, Ryukyu Islands, and a host of artificial and natural reefs, shoals, and other land features in the South China, East China, and West Philippine Seas. Many countries in the region have competing claims, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and China.
Beijing’s claim rests with its long-standing unilateral declaration of a “maritime border”—referred to as the “nine-dash line” that demarcates most of the South China Sea and other contested waters as exclusively part of China’s maritime zone. On Aug. 28, China elevated its claim when its Ministry of Natural Resources released a new “standard” national map that depicted the “nine-dash line”—as well as the “ten-dash line” that falls east of Taiwan—as the limiting lines within which China exerts control.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has routinely ignored the 2016 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) decision that granted maritime jurisdiction of the disputed area in the South China Sea to the Philippines, as well as protests by many nations in the region, in militarizing disputed islands. This is part of the standard process of “colonialism with Chinese characteristics” that has been repeated in Tibet, Inner Mongolia, East Turkmenistan, and now the South China Sea: stake a legal claim, secure the claim with Chinese personnel and infrastructure, militarize with “defensive” capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and defend via non-kinetic and kinetic means as necessary.
Chinese Actions
The Chinese regime has been occupying disputed land features and building island bases on coral atolls in the South China Sea for over 10 years to extend its territorial and military control over the entire area, including Woody Island (Paracel Islands), Scarborough Shoal, and three artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, including Mischief Reef.
The regime has frequently violated the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone with impunity, including interfering with a routine Filipino ship resupply mission to their outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, deploying 48 Chinese fishing vessels to swarm Iroquois Reef and harass Filipino fishermen, ramming a Philippine coast guard ship by a Chinese maritime militia craft during a routine Filipino resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in October, and an incident on Dec. 9 in which Chinese coast guard and other vessels “used water cannons at least eight times” to fend off Filipino fishing bureau ships on a routine humanitarian resupply mission to Scarborough Shoal.
Increasing PLA and Chinese coast guard presence within the waters delineated by their “nine-dash line,” as well as the escalating confrontations with vessels and aircraft from other countries, accomplishes three CCP geopolitical and economic goals in the area: to gain complete control over the region’s natural resources on Chinese terms, to intimidate its neighbors into de facto submission to China’s regional goals and objectives, and to increase potential hazards in the routine deployment of U.S. military forces and those of allied nations in the Western Pacific over time—in short, to turn the waters inside the first island chain into a “Chinese lake.”
International Response
A Philippine National Security Council press release on Dec. 10 quoted a statement from the National Task Force West Philippine Sea that condemned “China’s latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous maneuvers against a legitimate and routine Philippine rotation and resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal [Second Thomas Shoal] that has put the lives of our people at risk.”
Furthermore, the statement questioned Beijing’s past calls for “peaceful dialog,” noting that Philippine claims to the area were already settled in 2016, and demanded that China “demonstrate that it is a responsible and trustworthy member of the international community.”
On Dec. 9, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson immediately condemned China’s latest “aggressive and unlawful actions” in its use of water cannons at Scarborough Shoal. Ms. Carlson posted on X (formerly Twitter): “This (Chinese) behavior violates international law and endangers lives and livelihood. ... We stand with our Philippine friends, partners, allies in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
On Dec. 6, the G7 “issued a pointed warning on China’s militarisation of the South China Sea” and stated that “there was no legal basis for Chinese maritime expansion” there, as the South China Morning Post reported. The statement called on China to respect the 2016 UNCLOS arbitration decision that was made in The Hague’s Permanent Arbitration Court, which “declared China’s assertion of historical rights within its nine-dash line legally baseless.” [emphasis added]
China’s Complaints of ‘Cognitive Warfare’
This brings us back to Global Times’s crocodile tears about the cognitive warfare being waged by the G7 against poor, little, old China, as noted at the beginning of this commentary. Hmmm. The G7 and other civilized nations respond verbally (non-kinetically) with public condemnation, while the communists take kinetic action against peaceful and lawful Philippine resupply vessels.
A Chinese coast guard ship (R) blocks a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources's (BFAR) ship (L) while its personnel aboard a rigid hull inflatable boat sails past the Philippine ship as it neared the Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on Sept. 22, 2023. (Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)
China knows a lot about “cognitive warfare”—an element of the CCP’s Three Warfares concept that focuses on eternal non-kinetic political warfare, which is sometimes also referred to as information warfare and psychological warfare. Cognitive warfare can be defined as “the intent to influence specific individuals and groups on political matters” and “the use of psychology … to target individuals or groups precisely,” according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
The goal is to “win without fighting”—to convince others through the incessant use of propaganda, influence-peddling, and other non-kinetic actions that the CCP’s solution is the correct one. That is precisely what the CCP has been waging for the past decade in trying to establish total sovereignty within its self-defined “nine-dash line.”
Concluding Thoughts
Global Times is projecting onto the United States and G7 nations the CCP’s own continuing cognitive warfare in attempting to influence sovereignty outcomes in the South China and West Philippine Seas. What chutzpah! Their very use of that phrase is a reminder that communist China has been conducting hybrid warfare against the United States in particular for decades, as noted by many China watchers (here, here, here, and here). Hybrid warfare refers to unconventional non-kinetic activities, including cognitive warfare, that are taken to disrupt and disable an adversary’s actions without engaging in open hostilities.
China’s use of water cannon in violation of settled international law at Ayungin Shoal stands in stark contrast to the soothing encouragement by supporters of “China engagement” after the APEC summit last month. Chinese actions speak louder than their words and are ignored at the world’s collective peril. China cannot be rewarded with new foreign direct investment while engaging in acts of aggression in the South China and West Philippine Seas. Who is next in line to lose territory and treasure if the CCP’s nine-dash line claims are allowed to stand? It starts with a “T.”
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Stu Cvrk retired as a captain after serving 30 years in the U.S. Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. Through education and experience as an oceanographer and systems analyst, Cvrk is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education that serves as the key foundation for his political commentary.
