Chapter 1: China and the Communist Party of China
1. The Arrival of a New War
At this moment, China finds itself locked in a conflict with the free world. The gravest concern, however, is that many of the countries caught in this war remain oblivious to their involvement. South Korea, for example, is one of the principal targets, yet its citizens have little awareness that they are, in fact, engaged in a war with China. This conflict, however, is not the conventional kind of war that most people recognise. It is a form of warfare fundamentally different from anything we have known before. This is the nature of what has come to be known as “Unrestricted Warfare” (超限战, Chao Xian Zhan).
The unfamiliarity surrounding Unrestricted Warfare is a consequence of its radical departure from traditional conceptions of war. The world at large has failed to grasp the existence of this new form of conflict being waged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet, a handful of astute military and intelligence experts in the United States had already observed and warned about this emerging threat. For instance, Wilson C. Lucom, former Deputy Director of the non-profit media watchdog “Accuracy in Media,” cautioned that “China is secretly at war with the United States.” Similarly, Michael Collins, former Deputy Director of the CIA’s East Asia and Pacific Mission Center, remarked, “The United States is at war with China, but it just doesn’t realise it.” Collins framed the nature of this new war as a “cold war,” noting that, while there is no direct military confrontation, the struggle is nonetheless real and profoundly consequential.
It is essential to distinguish between the “cold war” of today and the Cold War of the 20th century, which pitted the free world against the communist bloc. The cold war that China is waging is not merely a continuation of that older ideological struggle; it is something entirely new. As Collins observed, the CCP has never sought peaceful coexistence within the international community. Instead, it has waged a low-intensity war, covert and multifaceted, with the objective of weakening the United States and ultimately securing global dominance.
The central problem is that, while the threat posed by the CCP has begun to be acknowledged, the true nature of this new kind of cold war or low-intensity warfare remains insufficiently addressed. The failure to recognise this ongoing conflict arises from the way in which its contours remain hidden from view. This blindness to the reality of Unrestricted Warfare helps to explain why it has yet to capture the attention it so clearly deserves.
Unrestricted Warfare is a war that knows no boundaries, no limits. But what are the limits it transcends? And what kind of war is this, exactly? To answer these questions, we must begin by revisiting the traditional understanding of war itself. In the conventional sense, war is seen as a violent clash between two or more nations, often accompanied by military mobilisation. Wars are typically initiated through formal declarations or through unprovoked acts of aggression, such as when Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, igniting the Pacific War.
Yet not all violent encounters are classified as wars. There are different types of military engagement, and war, in its classical sense, must be distinguished from civil war. A civil war occurs within a single nation, where different factions fight for control. As the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously remarked, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” In essence, war is a political contest that escalates into violent conflict, usually resulting in great human suffering. Nations seek to avoid war, if at all possible, preferring diplomacy and negotiation to violence.
Unrestricted Warfare, however, represents a radical departure from this familiar framework. It does not involve the mobilisation of regular military forces in the traditional sense. In fact, it deliberately avoids direct military confrontation. Instead, the goal is to achieve political objectives through means that do not require conventional warfare.
But why, then, is war waged? The fundamental aim of war is to defeat the enemy and compel them to conform to one’s own national interests, ultimately forcing them to submit to one’s will. There are many ways to achieve this goal, and military victory is but one option. If the enemy can be made to collapse without the need for armed conflict, then this is clearly the preferable course of action, since it avoids the costs and risks associated with war. This is the essence of Unrestricted Warfare. As Sun Tzu put it, “The best way to win is to fight without fighting.”
How, then, does one win without fighting? The answer lies in causing the enemy to collapse from within. The methods used to achieve this end are often harsh and transcend conventional moral limits. The strategies employed must be ones the enemy cannot even begin to imagine. If this approach is adopted, victory is assured without ever mobilising an army. The enemy, and perhaps even its own citizens, may not realise that they are in a state of war until they have already been defeated.
By adopting the principles of Unrestricted Warfare, China no longer needs to account for disparities in national power when waging war. A compelling example of this is the ongoing struggle between China and the United States. While China has yet to surpass the United States in terms of military, economic, technological, or cultural power, it is undeterred in its ambition to challenge and ultimately defeat the U.S. This is the strategic logic that underpins Unrestricted Warfare. The crucial question, then, is why is China waging Unrestricted Warfare against the world? To answer this, we must first examine the nature of China and the grand strategy of the Chinese Communist Party.