Blinken’s Visit to China Signals Ongoing Hybrid War Against Growing World Power

One analyst claims the US is increasingly engaged in a “full spectrum hybrid war” against Beijing, including punitive economic measures and control of the information space.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China this week amid a period of strained diplomatic relations between the United States and the growing Asian power. In a reversal of roles the two countries played only decades ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken on the mantle of global defender of free trade practices, criticizing tariffs imposed by former US President Donald Trump and continued by President Biden.

The United States has protested Chinese dominance in electric vehicle manufacturing and other areas, accusing the country of “overproduction” and unfair trade practices. The US has also criticized China’s continued trade with Moscow as the Ukrainian crisis continues. The US Congress passed a raft of military spending bills over the weekend, including $8 billion for authorities in Taiwan and some $61 billion to support Kiev’s war effort.

Author and journalist KJ Noh claimed leaders in Beijing were unlikely to be alarmed by the development, but would continue to prepare for what they view as an intensifying “hybrid warfare” campaign launched by the West. The geopolitical analyst offered his thoughts on Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Thursday.

“They're actually not even paying much attention to it,” said Noh. “The hypocrisy is off the charts. But as they say, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

“They're going to send $8 billion to Taiwan to weaponize it… And then they're talking that China is using non-market practices against the United States, etcetera. I mean, they think they're talking to children. The Chinese know exactly what the score is,” the analyst emphasized.

Noh added that China has asked the United States to meet commitments agreed to at a summit in San Francisco late last year.

Meanwhile, Noh claimed the US and its NATO allies fear a loss in their proxy war with Russia as observers warn Ukraine’s front lines are in danger of imminent collapse. The author insisted the West is in search of a scapegoat to blame for the development, with Beijing increasingly filling the role.

“The fact that Russia has been able to defeat the US/NATO against their best war doctrine, their best strategy, their best intelligence, their best trainers, their best weaponry and a decade of preparation – this has been a huge shock to the ruling imperial elite in Washington,” he claimed. “That's a clear warning in case they go to war with China because China's watching the Ukraine war very, very carefully.”

“Anytime the US loses a war it always makes excuses for itself,” he added. “Because that exceptional nation, how could they lose a war? And they say ‘we tied our own hands behind our backs’ or ‘there was unfair, underhanded foreign support and influence.’ And then this becomes a license for even more unbridled, unrestrained aggression, and even more severe hate-mongering and information warfare. And that's part of this calculation.”

Noh claimed the criticism of Beijing’s trade with Moscow forms another part of a “hybrid war” being waged against China on multiple fronts.

Hybrid warfare is defined as a strategy in which conventional military force is combined with elements of “soft power” in order to undermine an enemy state. Elements of hybrid war may include cyberattacks, covert action, deceptive media narratives, political subversion, election interference, punitive economic measures, and diplomatic and judicial pressure, as well as irregular security threats and military provocations.

In 2020 the National Endowment for Democracy, a US government organization instrumental in carrying out so-called “color revolution” operations, admitted it had been funding Uyghur separatist groups in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region since 2004. Western media has frequently attempted to discredit China by criticizing its conduct in the region as Beijing responds to a spate of terrorist attacks launched by religious extremists.

To further #humanrights & human dignity for all people in China, the National Endowment for Democracy has funded Uyghur groups since 2004. #NEDemocracy #HumanRightsDay https://t.co/C0LJEyWxq1 pic.twitter.com/OqZdehdxXN

— NEDemocracy (@NEDemocracy) December 10, 2020

Warnings about China’s “social credit” system have also reemerged online recently as the United States prepares to implement repressive surveillance controls on social media. Such sensational claims have been repeatedly debunked in Western media as distorted and exaggerated. But US intelligence agencies have a long history of media manipulation, recently adapting their tactics to influence online narratives.

“This is all hybrid warfare,” said Noh, drawing a straight line from Trump’s tariffs against Beijing to recent anti-China media narratives. “This trade war is simply a harbinger of a total full-spectrum hybrid war, including information warfare. This is why there is this fight over TikTok. Because the US considers [the] information space, mental space to be a domain of war. And they want to be able to manipulate and monopolize it.”

Noh said Beijing would be prepared in case of increased US sanctions and attempts at decoupling, claiming China has worked to strengthen internal demand and economic links with other countries.

“From China's standpoint, yes, they will pivot back to internal consumption, they will also pivot to the Global South,” he predicted. “This is all their work that they're doing, building up the BRICS and the Belt and Road so that they can continue to trade and develop with the multipolar Global South.”

“They are planning for the worst,” Noh added. “Like the US plans on Russia where they expected Russia to collapse the moment that they put sanctions on it, I think they will find out that China is a much, much tougher nut to crack, not the least of which is the fact that the global supply chains are largely linked to China.”

“The world's largest banks on the planet are Chinese, and they will simply withdraw from the US market. They will stop using the US dollar – they already are. And then the blowback will be extreme for the United States… This quarter, growth was 1.6% [in the US] if we tweak and tap with the numbers. And China's growth was 5.1%. China's growing three times the rate of the United States. It really isn't rocket science. It's very clear what the writing on the wall is,” the analyst emphasized.