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Views of Psychological Warfare in Modern China
Both Western and Chinese historians have concluded that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) effectively used psychological warfare against their nationalist opponents during the Chinese civil war. The communists knew their nationalist opponents and the terrain intimately, thus fulfilling the first essential precondition for action. They also had considerable ability to control the flow of information. In the end game that led to the final communist victory in 1949, communist leaders exploited nationalist beliefs that their opponents were stupid, cowardly, weak and in retreat, and then used a complex blend of maneuver, propaganda and rumors, while maintaining secrecy, to encourage nationalist leaders to split their army and attack from the wrong direction.11
The relative isolation of China from the West from the 1950s through the 1970s provided little opportunity for deception in day-to-day, government-to-government issues. However, in a broader perspective, much of the propaganda directed against Moscow and Washington during the 1960s and 1970s after the Sino-Soviet split appears to have been primarily a deterrence strategy aimed at achieving long-term behavior modification in a form of psychological warfare.12 China had lost its major ally and lay weakened by the economic chaos and internal political struggles of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The propaganda of that period was one element of a successful national strategy that kept both potential adversaries at bay while gradually engineering the rapprochement with the United States that resulted in readmission to the United Nations and diplomatic recognition by Washington. In 1981, Harlan Jencks predicted that as China expanded contact with the outside world and gained more "foreknowledge" of potential adversaries, China would likely use deception more frequently and effectively.
Since the late 1970s, China has focused on building up its national strength, wealth, international prestige and power. Tens of thousands of China's brightest students have studied abroad, the largest number in the United States. Thousands of official, academic and business-oriented Chinese delegations travel abroad annually. The global village of the electronic age, from CNN to the Internet, has provided China with unprecedented access to knowledge about the world. Thus, the essential precondition for action and foreknowledge, has become a concrete reality.
Moreover, the world media is now presenting China as a far stronger nation than at any time in the last two centuries. Although Chinese official spokesmen often critique the Western press as being anti-China, in fact a drumbeat of positive press emphasizes China's growing economic and military strength. One of the earliest examples of this genre coincided with the US election in November 1992, that The Economist predicted if China's economy continued to grow at the same rate for the next 20 years that it had over the previous 14, it would become the largest on earth.13 A year later, former New York Times Beijing Bureau Chief Nicholas Kristof published an article in Foreign Affairs titled "The Rise of China," predicting that within a decade China's "rapidly improving army" might have the strength "to resolve old quarrels in its favor."14 In the war of words, such appraisals are considerable force multipliers.
New Proposals for Psychological Warfare
A recent Chinese proposal to promote psychological warfare revealed the military implications of media-control programs. The details are laid out in a November 1994 article in the Liberation Army Daily, the flagship publication of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The article, written by Liu Yinchao, PLA 65th Group Army commander, states that psychological warfare is now the "fourth kind of warfare," after ground, sea and air warfare.34 Liu indicated that psychological warfare will play a major role in China's strategic policy in the new era. While the article appears to be a proposal, the fact that it appeared in the Liberation Army Daily, and Liu's senior status in the PLA strongly implies that the ideas have complete official support.
Liu outlines four basic objectives of psychological warfare:
Modern communications technology, which keeps the battlefield commander informed of major political and diplomatic developments and military movements, can also be harnessed to raise the influential power and deceptiveness of psychological warfare operations. Higher-speed, more destructive precision weapons enhance psychological warfare's deterrence and coerciveness. Liu suggests that the PLA develop a psychological warfare doctrine, adopt enhanced training and carry out supporting research to build up an elite cadre of specially trained personnel and psychological warfare units assigned to the group armies and divisions. Using new communications technology, they would be linked by a psychological warfare command system network. Liu further proposes enhanced training programs in which troops incorporate psychological warfare operations during live-fire exercises.
Although Liu's article stresses incorporating modern weapons and communications technology into the development of psychological warfare doctrine, traditional Chinese views on strategy and deception support his proposal. Liu emphasizes the objective of forming a force to defeat others without fighting. In his view, the traditional axiom that "it is better to attack the enemy's mind than to attack his fortified cities" will still be the "infallible law" of the military strategist.
Another byline article in the October 1996 Liberation Army Daily reiterates these views. This article notes that although the "content" of US psychological warfare during the Gulf War differed from that used by China, the forms are similar. The author also stresses that China should learn how to apply psychological warfare techniques within the realm of information warfare.35
Psychological Warfare in the Taiwan Straits
The first news leaked to the world press in early 1996 regarding China's alleged plan to launch a "limited attack" on Taiwan of one missile strike per day for 30 days following Taiwan's elections if Lee Teng-hui, the leading Kuomintang candidate, was elected. China officially denied the story, leading some observers to assess the threat as "merely psychological warfare." A commentator from Singapore who used the term "psychological warfare" to describe these threats believed China was unlikely to carry out the missile attacks because China had a very low probability of success in a full-scale invasion of Taiwan and attacks on Taiwan after the election would be pointless. The purpose of the threats, he reasoned, was to rattle Taiwan's leaders, temper Lee Teng-hui's efforts for greater official recognition and perhaps intimidate the US Congress so that it would refrain from inviting Lee for an official visit after his election.36
In some respects China's actions and policy lines seemed baffling and contradictory. For example, as China launched its live-fire exercises in the Taiwan straits in March 1996, a typical commentary carried the headline, "Is China Being `Reckless' or Calculating?" This sense of confusion arose because China's show of force and bellicose jargon were carried out against a backdrop of careful planning. China had fully prepared for the exercises by giving its Asian neighbors, shipping companies and airlines advance notices as required under international law. China further upheld international law by treating Taiwan as a sovereign nation; it avoided crossing into what Taiwan considers its territorial waters or airspace.37 The United States responded with its "prudent" and "precautionary" deployment of two carrier battle groups in the waters off Taiwan during the live-fire exercises, sending a signal to Beijing of its intention to defend its valid interests in the region.38
Immediately after the election of Lee Teng-hui, who won decisively, China suspended its exercises and switched to more conciliatory rhetoric toward Taiwan. The official Xinhua News Agency made a point of declaring Lee's win a big victory for reunification forces and declared that Lee had disavowed Taiwan independence during his campaign, omitting the fact that Lee has always disavowed Taiwan independence.39
A most insightful analysis of this series of events was presented by noted China scholar Andrew Nathan of Columbia University. In his view, China planned the exercises as part of a coercive strategy to escalate military pressure, test US resolve and locate Taiwan's breaking point. The Chinese have assessed that only the United States can frustrate their ambitions. The timing may have been planned to confront Taiwan before the US delivered 150 F-16 fighter aircraft to Taiwan in 1998.
Nathan suggested that China's key objectives included the following:
Nathan describes China's threats and actions as "psychological terror" against Taiwan. Indeed, most of his conclusions fall neatly within the psychological warfare objectives specified by the 1994 Liberation Army Daily article. For example, Nathan's assertion that China was testing US resolve matches Liu's first objective of causing US policy makers to waver. The threats of missile attacks were clearly intended to create panic and the fear of war among both the civilian population and the military. Finally, China's actions to isolate Taiwan diplomatically follows the guise of obtaining sympathy and support among neutral states and solidifying support among allied states.
https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDgQFjAC&url=http://www.c4i.org/china-murray.html&ei=m7dPU-SFEMb4rQeKpoHIBQ&usg=AFQjCNG_F2JnxOeSpYiPLj6ugSg0ex9ULA
@Capt.Popeye @Dillinger @sandy_3126 @sancho @XiNiX
Both Western and Chinese historians have concluded that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) effectively used psychological warfare against their nationalist opponents during the Chinese civil war. The communists knew their nationalist opponents and the terrain intimately, thus fulfilling the first essential precondition for action. They also had considerable ability to control the flow of information. In the end game that led to the final communist victory in 1949, communist leaders exploited nationalist beliefs that their opponents were stupid, cowardly, weak and in retreat, and then used a complex blend of maneuver, propaganda and rumors, while maintaining secrecy, to encourage nationalist leaders to split their army and attack from the wrong direction.11
The relative isolation of China from the West from the 1950s through the 1970s provided little opportunity for deception in day-to-day, government-to-government issues. However, in a broader perspective, much of the propaganda directed against Moscow and Washington during the 1960s and 1970s after the Sino-Soviet split appears to have been primarily a deterrence strategy aimed at achieving long-term behavior modification in a form of psychological warfare.12 China had lost its major ally and lay weakened by the economic chaos and internal political struggles of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The propaganda of that period was one element of a successful national strategy that kept both potential adversaries at bay while gradually engineering the rapprochement with the United States that resulted in readmission to the United Nations and diplomatic recognition by Washington. In 1981, Harlan Jencks predicted that as China expanded contact with the outside world and gained more "foreknowledge" of potential adversaries, China would likely use deception more frequently and effectively.
Since the late 1970s, China has focused on building up its national strength, wealth, international prestige and power. Tens of thousands of China's brightest students have studied abroad, the largest number in the United States. Thousands of official, academic and business-oriented Chinese delegations travel abroad annually. The global village of the electronic age, from CNN to the Internet, has provided China with unprecedented access to knowledge about the world. Thus, the essential precondition for action and foreknowledge, has become a concrete reality.
Moreover, the world media is now presenting China as a far stronger nation than at any time in the last two centuries. Although Chinese official spokesmen often critique the Western press as being anti-China, in fact a drumbeat of positive press emphasizes China's growing economic and military strength. One of the earliest examples of this genre coincided with the US election in November 1992, that The Economist predicted if China's economy continued to grow at the same rate for the next 20 years that it had over the previous 14, it would become the largest on earth.13 A year later, former New York Times Beijing Bureau Chief Nicholas Kristof published an article in Foreign Affairs titled "The Rise of China," predicting that within a decade China's "rapidly improving army" might have the strength "to resolve old quarrels in its favor."14 In the war of words, such appraisals are considerable force multipliers.
New Proposals for Psychological Warfare
A recent Chinese proposal to promote psychological warfare revealed the military implications of media-control programs. The details are laid out in a November 1994 article in the Liberation Army Daily, the flagship publication of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The article, written by Liu Yinchao, PLA 65th Group Army commander, states that psychological warfare is now the "fourth kind of warfare," after ground, sea and air warfare.34 Liu indicated that psychological warfare will play a major role in China's strategic policy in the new era. While the article appears to be a proposal, the fact that it appeared in the Liberation Army Daily, and Liu's senior status in the PLA strongly implies that the ideas have complete official support.
Liu outlines four basic objectives of psychological warfare:
- To attack and influence the target's policy makers, causing their position to waver and make them choose a policy which is in fact disadvantageous to themselves.
- [I believe the intrusions on our in ladakh is part of this strategy.]
- To instill fear and awe in the minds of enemy soldiers, destroy their mental equilibrium and boost the morale of one's own troops.
- To create panic among the adversary's civilian population by inducing fear of war, war weariness and antiwar feelings.
- To obtain the sympathy and support of neutral states, solidify coalitions among allied states and strengthen the desire for victory in one's own country.
Modern communications technology, which keeps the battlefield commander informed of major political and diplomatic developments and military movements, can also be harnessed to raise the influential power and deceptiveness of psychological warfare operations. Higher-speed, more destructive precision weapons enhance psychological warfare's deterrence and coerciveness. Liu suggests that the PLA develop a psychological warfare doctrine, adopt enhanced training and carry out supporting research to build up an elite cadre of specially trained personnel and psychological warfare units assigned to the group armies and divisions. Using new communications technology, they would be linked by a psychological warfare command system network. Liu further proposes enhanced training programs in which troops incorporate psychological warfare operations during live-fire exercises.
Although Liu's article stresses incorporating modern weapons and communications technology into the development of psychological warfare doctrine, traditional Chinese views on strategy and deception support his proposal. Liu emphasizes the objective of forming a force to defeat others without fighting. In his view, the traditional axiom that "it is better to attack the enemy's mind than to attack his fortified cities" will still be the "infallible law" of the military strategist.
Another byline article in the October 1996 Liberation Army Daily reiterates these views. This article notes that although the "content" of US psychological warfare during the Gulf War differed from that used by China, the forms are similar. The author also stresses that China should learn how to apply psychological warfare techniques within the realm of information warfare.35
Psychological Warfare in the Taiwan Straits
The first news leaked to the world press in early 1996 regarding China's alleged plan to launch a "limited attack" on Taiwan of one missile strike per day for 30 days following Taiwan's elections if Lee Teng-hui, the leading Kuomintang candidate, was elected. China officially denied the story, leading some observers to assess the threat as "merely psychological warfare." A commentator from Singapore who used the term "psychological warfare" to describe these threats believed China was unlikely to carry out the missile attacks because China had a very low probability of success in a full-scale invasion of Taiwan and attacks on Taiwan after the election would be pointless. The purpose of the threats, he reasoned, was to rattle Taiwan's leaders, temper Lee Teng-hui's efforts for greater official recognition and perhaps intimidate the US Congress so that it would refrain from inviting Lee for an official visit after his election.36
In some respects China's actions and policy lines seemed baffling and contradictory. For example, as China launched its live-fire exercises in the Taiwan straits in March 1996, a typical commentary carried the headline, "Is China Being `Reckless' or Calculating?" This sense of confusion arose because China's show of force and bellicose jargon were carried out against a backdrop of careful planning. China had fully prepared for the exercises by giving its Asian neighbors, shipping companies and airlines advance notices as required under international law. China further upheld international law by treating Taiwan as a sovereign nation; it avoided crossing into what Taiwan considers its territorial waters or airspace.37 The United States responded with its "prudent" and "precautionary" deployment of two carrier battle groups in the waters off Taiwan during the live-fire exercises, sending a signal to Beijing of its intention to defend its valid interests in the region.38
Immediately after the election of Lee Teng-hui, who won decisively, China suspended its exercises and switched to more conciliatory rhetoric toward Taiwan. The official Xinhua News Agency made a point of declaring Lee's win a big victory for reunification forces and declared that Lee had disavowed Taiwan independence during his campaign, omitting the fact that Lee has always disavowed Taiwan independence.39
A most insightful analysis of this series of events was presented by noted China scholar Andrew Nathan of Columbia University. In his view, China planned the exercises as part of a coercive strategy to escalate military pressure, test US resolve and locate Taiwan's breaking point. The Chinese have assessed that only the United States can frustrate their ambitions. The timing may have been planned to confront Taiwan before the US delivered 150 F-16 fighter aircraft to Taiwan in 1998.
Nathan suggested that China's key objectives included the following:
- Control over Taiwan's access to arms that could be used in self-defense against China.
- Veto power over diplomatic activity to consolidate Taiwan's international status.
- Keeping Chinese options open, rather than resolving the issue immediately.
- Demonstrating to Taiwan that the US aid might not be forthcoming in a crisis.
Nathan describes China's threats and actions as "psychological terror" against Taiwan. Indeed, most of his conclusions fall neatly within the psychological warfare objectives specified by the 1994 Liberation Army Daily article. For example, Nathan's assertion that China was testing US resolve matches Liu's first objective of causing US policy makers to waver. The threats of missile attacks were clearly intended to create panic and the fear of war among both the civilian population and the military. Finally, China's actions to isolate Taiwan diplomatically follows the guise of obtaining sympathy and support among neutral states and solidifying support among allied states.
https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDgQFjAC&url=http://www.c4i.org/china-murray.html&ei=m7dPU-SFEMb4rQeKpoHIBQ&usg=AFQjCNG_F2JnxOeSpYiPLj6ugSg0ex9ULA
@Capt.Popeye @Dillinger @sandy_3126 @sancho @XiNiX
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