TOPIC SPONSOR: US Cyber Command
What is the Communist Party / Peoples' Liberation Army (CCP/PLA's) propaganda apparatus structure, strategy, and capabilities?
- Auten, Lt. Col. Graham C., "Harmonious America: The Tentacles of the Leviathan," AF Fellows paper (US Department of State), 2025.
- Auten provides insight into the CCP's propaganda strategy by tracing its roots to foundational ideological texts that guide Chinese influence operations. He highlights Wang Huning's book America Against America, which identifies perceived vulnerabilities in the U.S. sociopolitical system, and Document Number 9, an internal CCP directive that characterizes Western "universal values" and democratic institutions as existential threats to Party rule. Auten demonstrates that China operationalized these ideological perspectives—alongside the unconventional, whole-of-society tactics advocated in the PLA text Unrestricted Warfare—into a comprehensive capability that utilizes propaganda, economic coercion, and disinformation to discredit democratic governance and reshape global norms in Beijing's favor.
- Kraft, Maj. Michael, "Red Lines and Headlines: How the People's Republic of China Employs the 'Three Warfares' for Deterrence," ACSC thesis, 2025, 45 pgs.
- Randall, Justin, "National Instruments of Power at Risk: Mitigating the Effects of China's Cyber Strategy on National Security," GCPME thesis, 2024, 43 pgs.