China�s Military Strategy and Cyber Programme

General
The Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) organised a seminar on “China’s Military Strategy and Cyber Programme” on November 5, 2008 at the CLAWS campus. A large number of serving officers and members of the strategic community attended the seminar. The seminar was chaired by Lt Gen Shantonu Choudhry (Retd.). Mr. Timothy L. Thomas, an analyst at the TRADOC, Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) in Kansas initiated a discussion on “China’s Cyber Strategy: Should We be Scared?” Maj Gen Yashwant Deva (Retd.) and Brig Pradyot Mallick were the discussants.
 
Opening Remarks
Brig Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd), Director CLAWS, opened the proceedings with a quote by Winston Churchill stating that China was a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. Although China is opening up, many facets still remain clouded in secrecy. China has been through a doctrinal transformation from ‘limited war under high tech conditions’ to ‘conditions of limited war under informationisation’. Based on China’s national conditions and the PLA’s own conditions, the PLA is taking mechanisation as the foundation to promote informationisation. China, in all likelihood, will fight its next land war outside its territory and fully exploit new capabilities like ‘Acupuncture or Paralysis warfare’.

Chair’s Remarks
Lt Gen Shantonu Choudhry (Retd.) stated that China still has a great deal of mystique about it. Even though a lot of research and study has been done on China, it still manages to remain an enigma. From an Indian point of view, we would ask ourselves as to how does India view China’s future military strategy? India knows that China aspires to be a regional as well as world player by 2030. India also has concerns over the manner in which, the Chinese would play their cards, especially in terms of a future border conflict that may result from non-resolution of the territorial dispute. China has progressed a lot in the field of electronic reconnaissance and India will be on its radar. With high levels of sophistication, India certainly is vulnerable and needs to be better equipped in order to counter the threat.

Timothy L. Thomas
Timothy Thomas started by saying that although India and China share a 4,000 km long border, it is extremely difficult to put numbers on cyber borders. Clearly, China has integrated its military strategy with the cyber programme. A book titled The Science of Military Strategy, edited by Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi is one of the finest pieces of work that the Chinese have come out with on the subject. The book has been highly recommended for reading and gaining deeper insights into Chinese strategic thinking. It provides an understanding to the reader that the Chinese still depend a lot on the Marxian ideologies and concepts. The concept of People’s War is still open in today’s age. China follows a comprehensive approach inclusive of the following:

·    Comprehensive national power (CNP)
·    Comprehensive sea power (CSP)
·  Comprehensive strategic interest (CSI), Comprehensive strategic targets (CST), Comprehensive strategic benefits (CSB)
·    Comprehensive cyberised war (CCW)
·    Comprehensive confrontation capacity (CCC)
·    Comprehensive national defense construction (CNDC)
·    Comprehensive support efficiency (CSuE)
·    Comprehensive national strategy (CNS)

China defines ‘strategy’ as the analytical judgment of such factors as international conditions, hostilities in bilateral politics, military economics, science and technology, and geography as they apply to the preparation and direction of the overall military/war plan. If information superiority is “weak”, anti-information strategy technologies can make use of the weakness to find a turning point for countermeasures. Battlefield contests are different from sports, since there are no rules for the competition and any means can be used.

The Science of Information Operations (IO) is catching up rapidly in China and includes Basic Theory of IO, Applied Theory of IO and Technical Theory of IO. In addition, the Chinese are aiming to develop an objective strategy against the US and would take the prevailing objective conditions and subsequently manipulate them subjectively to suit their conditions. The Chinese are mastering the phenomenon of “plausible deniability,” two terms that are considered very essential in the terminology of cyber warfare.

Major General Dai Qingmin stated in China Military Science in February 2002:

·    Information Warfare (IW) has 6 forms: operational security, military deception, psychological warfare, electronic warfare, computer network warfare (CNW), and physical destruction.

·    Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW) is a point of focus; EW disrupts acquiring and forwarding of information and CNW disrupts processing and use of information. INEW is an overall concept, method and strategy for guiding IO.

·    The core of CNW is to disrupt the layers in which information is processed, with the objective of seizing and maintaining control of the network space.

·    INEW stratagems include interference and destruction, blockade and intimidation, luring and pinning down, creating falsehoods and paralysing, feigning attacks, sowing discord, making suggestions, overloading and suppressing, impeding transmission and utilisation of the network.

·    IW Computer network reconnaissance is the prerequisite for seizing victory in warfare. It helps to choose opportune moments, places, and measures for attack.

Stratagem is designed to mislead enemy processes of perception, thinking, emotion, and will. According to Major General Dai, informationised armies, together with information systems, sound, light, electronics, magnetism, heat and so on turn into a carrier of strategies. In the field of RMA, according to Li Bingyang, IW is using information networks or informationised weapons to attack an enemy’s cognition system. Cognition systems include knowledge systems plus belief systems. Li also says that knowledge systems refer to decision-making systems built to understand or observe verifiable phenomena and to change the phenomena into perceivable reality. Belief systems refer to systems that carry out guidance for empirical information that can be tested and for information and awareness that cannot be tested or is difficult to test. The patterns of guidance are restricted by the cultural traditions of the people.

In earlier days, military power was calculated by adding the number of army divisions, aircraft and carriers. Now there is an inevitable need to also vector in intangibles as well, such as computing capability, communications capability and reliability, and real-time surveillance. C4ISR systems and computer network security are the main targets of electronic attacks. GPS interference devices with 5 W power can prevent GPS receivers on cruise missiles from working in a 50 km radius. Moreover, 100 W can disrupt signals up to 1,000 km radius

This leads to a very significant query as to what is happening inside China today? China is transitioning from a mechanised to an “informationised” force. China has not fought for many years. China is conducting exercises under electromagnetic conditions against a ‘blue’ force. Significantly, an information rich battlefield is also a fertile place for cunning and deception. On the other hand, the Sichuan earthquake was an example of a non-military act with cyber implications—a practice session that was very crucially handled. The Sichuan earthquake saw the Chinese use joint and integrated command and control centres.

According to Maj Gen William Lord, Director of Information, Services and Integration in the Secretary of the Air Force Office of War Fighting Integration and Chief Information Officer, “China has downloaded 10 to 20 terabytes of data from the NIPRNet. They’re looking for your identity, so they can get into the network as you.” As far as the Network Warfare Deterrence is concerned, according to the Liberation Army Daily, March 2007, “We not only need to pay attention to raising our offensive operations capabilities in network warfare but also our defensive capabilities. We should make unremitting efforts to seek such a preemptive opportunity through developing network technology and systems.”

War with the objective of expanding territory or fighting for natural resources has already withdrawn from present history. War’s objective now is controlling the flow of financial capital. For instance, Gold farming companies employ people to play video games all day in order to accumulate in-game gold to sell to American gamers for real money, saving US people the time involved. “Exporting virtual items through the Internet is the same as transmitting Chinese labor to America,” stated the owner of a Gold farming company in China.

The speaker spelt out the following areas for future concern and concluded by stating that China’s cyber programme is an ever-expanding one;

• Use of electrons as stratagems or acupuncture war—Informationised arms, together with information systems, sound, light, electronics, magnetism, heat and so on turn into a carrier of strategies.
• Control financial flows—wars with the objective of expanding territory or fighting for natural resources have already withdrawn from present history. War’s objective now is controlling the flow of financial capital.
• Studies in offensive tactics
• Strategy
• Integrated Network-Electronic Warfare
• Reconnaissance
• Countermeasures
• Mobilisation

Maj Gen Yashwant Deva (Retd.)
Of the 36 stratagems discussed during the session, the one that stands out clearly is ‘warfare is nothing but deception.’ This holds true especially in the Chinese case. The concept of cyber warfare is primarily spoken of in terms of friction and chaos. We should not just be obsessed with technology and technological processes but should also assess the content part. Chinese emphasis on IW is immense. For instance, every single patrol near the border with India is equipped with a laptop. The Chinese place a lot of emphasis on virtual reality. In conclusion, mind warfare should be stressed upon the most.

Brig Pradyot Mallick
China is hacking into defence supplies. For instance, India has planned a $ 9 billion package for its IT roadmap and the Chinese threat looms large over the same. There is a need to look upon ‘unrestricted warfare’ with special reference to CI operations. China has always kept a close scanner on India and would continue to do so. On its part, India needs to be more pro-active in getting its act together.

Conclusion
As the Chinese economy grows, its strategies are all likely to expand especially in the cyber warfare arena. The Chinese certainly have the capabilities to wage war under high-tech conditions and according to Chinese assessment, China is placed at the sixth position in terms of Comprehensive National Power while the United States is placed on top. Beijing is gradually moving up this ladder. India should accept the emergence of Chinese cyber warfare capabilities so as to be better equipped and prepared to counter the threat. Cyber war would most certainly be a key component and feature of any future conflict involving China and India.

(Report prepared by Dr. Monika Chansoria, Research Fellow, CLAWS)