China’s ‘Three Warfares’ and India

For the past decade, China is known to have actively used ‘three warfares’ (3Ws) strategy—media, psychological and legal warfare—to weaken its adversaries in regions constituting what it perceives to be its ‘core interests’. While a wide range of tools have been deployed, the attacks have remained mostly confined to Taiwan and South-East Asian states involved in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. But with Beijing’s influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) growing, there is evidence emerging of the 3Ws strategy being put to use against India. The evolving Chinese 3Ws strategy goes beyond mere propaganda wars and misinformation campaigns. Expanding conventional war dynamics into the political domain, the 3Ws appear aimed at undermining India’s organizational foundations and target military morale. More disquietingly, the strategy appears designed to subdue India without even needing to fight.