The rising threat of global conflict was recently brought into focus by China’s launch of a vast amphibious assault ship. This adds to Beijing’s unprecedented military buildup, as detailed in the Pentagon’s latest China Military Power Report. As the Trump administration prepares to assume office, attention is rightly turning to the inadequacies of the U.S. defense industrial base. However, we must not overlook the full scope of the threat that China poses to U.S. national security.
China is undoubtedly an existential hard-power threat that must be countered. However, it is also an ideological adversary, advancing rapidly in the realms of information and cognitive warfare — domains the People’s Liberation Army regards as its “fundamental function” and the “basis” of its operational success. Since President Xi Jinping assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, he has pushed the PLA to expand an “ideological concept of information warfare,” a strategy it has pursued with notable results.
Central to this approach is discourse power — the ability to shape global narratives. Yet Washington, still tethered to anachronistic, kinetic-centric notions of warfare, seems to have largely dismissed this tactic. The Pentagon report itself concedes the PLA “probably intends to use” information operations as an “asymmetric capability” against America and its allies.
Probably? Such hedging reflects a dangerous complacency in the face of an increasingly clear and escalating threat.
The desire of global powers, both established and aspiring, to control narratives is, of course, hardly novel. However, Beijing’s efforts stand apart for their scale and sophistication. After all, crafting a new world order is not just a matter of force but of shaping how the world perceives itself. For China, the closer global perceptions align with its own, the more effectively it can entrench its influence.
China’s narrative control efforts take many forms, from the overt to the more insidious. In Africa, for instance, nearly every major CCP-affiliated news agency has a foothold. The China Global Television Network, overseen by Beijing’s Central Propaganda Department, has 35 bureaus across the continent’s 54 nations. Its reach extends further still, with programming across Europe and the United States. Other CCP-run outlets such as China Daily, Xinhua, and China Radio International have similarly expanded their global presence.
In the Czech Republic, China Radio International has been known to supply prewritten scripts to local radio stations, parroting Beijing’s views on matters such as Taiwan and the war in Ukraine and pushing glowing portraits of Xi. In France, China Radio International content frequently appears on BFM TV, the country’s most-watched news channel, reinforcing pro-China narratives and encouraging inbound investment. French investment in China surged 585.8% year-on-year in the first two months of 2024 before tapering slightly amid China’s economic challenges.
This approach, which the CCP terms “borrowing a boat to reach the sea,” stretches beyond traditional media into print and social platforms such as TikTok. There, Beijing strategically positions content to “tell China stories well” — and, by extension, America’s poorly. Each year, it trains thousands of journalists from the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and Africa in pursuit of the very same aim.
Were it merely a matter of competing journalism, it might be dismissed as a battle of narratives. However, it is not. Beijing has long made clear its rejection of Western ideals of free and independent reporting. This is information warfare — a front on which Washington currently finds itself outflanked. Confronting the threat not only demands clear recognition but also decisive institutional reforms.
These reforms must ensure that U.S. global messaging is firmly accountable to national security imperatives. This could involve the creation of an agency resembling, though not replicating, the U.S. Information Agency, which operated from 1953 until its closure in 1999, with the goal of shaping foreign public opinion in service of U.S. interests. While these functions have traditionally been housed within the State Department, there is a strong case for shifting them to the Department of Defense, where they could be better integrated with broader national security policy. The DoD’s capabilities in areas such as cyber and artificial intelligence would further enhance the operational effectiveness of such an agency and strengthen its ability to counter Beijing’s evolving “intelligentized warfare” tactics.
Regardless of its eventual location, the head of such an agency should hold a statutory position on the National Security Council, ensuring effective cross-government coordination. This would encompass the U.S. Agency for Global Media and its outlets, such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, as well as the State Department’s Global Engagement Center and its Office of Public Diplomacy — all of which should operate under this new agency’s purview or, in some instances, be fully absorbed into its structure.
It goes without saying, too, that any such agency must distance itself from the leftist, diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda that has undermined U.S. strategic objectives over the past four years.
What is needed is a U.S. whole-of-government approach to information warfare. Needed, too, are creative, cohesive national security strategies. China’s media training programs, for example, are often bundled with infrastructure development or joint military exercises, offering both financial appeal and strategic coherence. Why not adopt a similar approach within U.S. policy? Enhanced coordination between the DoD, USAID, and the Development Finance Corporation, for instance, could produce effective, multifaceted approaches that integrate information warfare with other security tools. Such efforts would also go some way in signaling Washington’s resolve in the information domain, however justified.
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That said, prioritizing information warfare must not come at the expense of advancing U.S. kinetic capabilities, nor should it devolve into an overly interventionist posture.
Yet the uncomfortable truth remains: Should we fail to counter this challenge, we risk a world increasingly defined by Beijing’s worldview — one where threats to our national security are far graver than those today. We must be smart, and we must be swift. This is war — certainly, not probably.