We can never underestimate China with a game plan of doing whatever it takes to be number one. That includes spying, cyber warfare and many other methods. The difference between the CCP and the USA is humanity: we believe in it, and the CCP doesn’t; it’s power first.
Xi puts on a calm, not threatening aura, but beneath it all, he is CCP and will approve whatever it takes to gain an advantage over the U.S. We are the only deterrent to them leading the world, and we can no longer depend on the EU, which has lost their way.
As soon as Iran is done, we need to focus on Cuba, then China. We should all be grateful that China needs external partners around the world to survive, and Trump is breaking many of those links, like the Panama Canal that China would own if not for him. Never fear, though; the CCP continues on its path. All IMO.
https://spectator.org/chinas-unrestricted-warfare-the-ccps-blueprint-for-victory-without-fighting/
“In some respects, the ideas in Unrestricted Warfare are consistent with the ancient counsel of Sun Tzu that the acme of skill is to defeat an enemy without fighting. But Qiao and Wang do not foresee the end of kinetic war. They see a type of warfare that combines kinetic and non-military means to defeat an opponent. The domains of battle are expanding from air, land, sea, and space to cyber and information and electromagnetic battlefields. It is, they write, “warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits; in short: unrestricted warfare.”
In unrestricted warfare, the warrior is joined by the computer hacker (the digital soldier), the software engineer, the systems analyst, the social media influencer, the culture warrior, the financier and banker. The battlefield, they explain, is everywhere. Future combat will be “omni-dimensional” combat. The breadth of the authors’ vision of unrestricted warfare is brought home by this stand-alone paragraph from the book:
Atomic warfare Diplomatic warfare Financial warfare
Conventional warfare Network warfare Trade warfare Economic aid
Bio-chemical warfare Intelligence warfare Resources warfare
Ecological warfare Psychological warfare Economic aid warfare
Space warfare Tactical warfare Regulatory warfare
Electronic warfare Smuggling warfare Sanction warfare
Guerrilla warfare Drug warfare Media warfare
Terrorist warfare Virtual warfare (deterrence) Ideological warfare
Some of these types of warfare are not new, others are. But it is the combination of those means that produces unrestricted warfare. Addressing their own CCP leadership, the authors write: “If we want to have victory in future wars, we must … be ready to carry out a war which, affecting all areas of life of the countries involved, may be conducted in a sphere not dominated by military actions.” The authors credit not Sun Tzu but Machiavelli for their key advice to “achieve objectives by fair means or foul … [i]t means using means … without restraint to achieve an objective.”