JUN KAJEE | Beijing’s influence operations continue, from South China Sea to SA

While the international community remains hyper-focused on kinetic conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, a far more sophisticated conquest is quietly taking shape in the Indo-Pacific.

Over the past five decades the People’s Republic of China has systematically expanded its maritime empire. It has successfully seized reefs, constructed massive military bases and enforced blockades inside its neighbours’ waters.

This expansion has taken place in the shadows of public attention, unhindered by any meaningful international sanctions or even cursory threats of retaliation.

The secret to Beijing’s success lies in an ancient maxim from Sun Tzu: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” While Western strategists rigidly focus on conventional military indicators, they are blind to the true mechanisms of Chinese ambition.

China’s grey-zone operations succeed because they are paved by sophisticated political warfare machinery ashore. By weaponising information and capturing domestic elites, Beijing systematically erodes a nation’s collective will to resist without a single Chinese warship ever anchoring in their harbours.

The playbook

To bypass the natural suspicion directed at state-run media, the Chinese Communist Party relies on a doctrine known as “borrowing a mouth to speak” (jiè zuǐ shuō huà). Since its blatant propaganda lacks credibility abroad, Beijing recruits local, independent-looking voices to deliver its messaging.

Open democracies are uniquely soft targets for this strategy. Deep-seated institutional commitments to free speech, press freedom and academic autonomy allow foreign influence networks to hide in plain sight under the guise of “civil discourse”.

The psychological endgame of this playbook is brilliant: it deliberately shifts a high-stakes dispute over national sovereignty and international law into a mere ‘business decision’

Operating behind this protective shield is China’s “united front work department” (UFWD). The UFWD meticulously maps and targets localised, native language media syndicates, elite business chambers and cultural organisations within target nations.

The psychological endgame of this playbook is brilliant: it deliberately shifts a high-stakes dispute over national sovereignty and international law into a mere “business decision”.

Local proxies are conditioned to tell their own public that defending “barren rocks at sea” is an act of economic self-harm. By manufacturing a sense of absolute futility, the Chinese neutralise any domestic resistance that might feel inclined to voice its opposition.

From maritime frontiers to elite capture

China’s “invisible” front is perhaps most vividly apparent in the Philippines, where the administration’s pushback against maritime aggression has been met with an escalation of influence operations.

Consider the elite echo chamber. Chinese-linked entities frequently organise lavish, highly visible gala events disguised as historical or cultural commemorations. Attended by hundreds of influential local business and civic leaders, these events feature speeches deeply aligned with Beijing-sponsored propaganda.

Crucially, the content is then broadcast uncritically over local networks and spread via social media. This creates a powerful narrative loop among community elites, marginalising opposition voices and making China’s regional ambitions appear widely accepted.

Beijing deliberately makes the defending nations look like the aggressors whenever attempts are made to protect their own sovereign waters

Parallel to these public galas is the academic front. Beijing actively invests in recruiting, credentialing and promoting local academics, influencers and security analysts through scholarships and junkets at prestigious Chinese universities.

Once back home, these individuals are positioned as authentic, authoritative local experts. They routinely appear on television news panels to push Beijing’s exact talking points — namely that alignment with the West is an unnecessary and dangerous provocation.

This political warfare on land serves as a vital protective screen for aggressive manoeuvres in the South China Sea. By deferring to government-subsidised maritime militias and the China coast guard rather than the formal People’s Liberation Army navy, Beijing operates safely beneath the threshold of Western military intervention.

Beijing deliberately makes the defending nations look like the aggressors whenever attempts are made to protect their own sovereign waters.

Weaponising the Global South narrative

Consider the elite echo chamber within South Africa’s own political establishment. Chinese-linked entities frequently sponsor high-level political retreats, civil service training programmes and closed door “dialogues”.

Attended by big business and senior politicians in lockstep, these forums present state-aligned propaganda wrapped in the rhetoric of “Global South solidarity” and “anti-imperialism”.

Crucially, this messaging is then amplified across local “independent” media networks, frequently through media houses in which Chinese state firms hold significant equity. This creates a powerful narrative loop among South Africa’s political elites, marginalising dissenting voices and framing total alignment with Beijing as the only viable path to economic development.

The message is clear: traditional diplomacy and defence pacts are strategically obsolete if a nation’s internal information ecosystem is compromised. True sovereignty cannot survive solely on paper.

If South Africa is to maintain its constitutional independence, it must secure this front before its democratic institutions are permanently reconfigured as pulpits for Chinese talking points.

• Kajee is a lecturer at Southern Utah University, a nonresident research fellow at the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, and a researcher for the SeaLight maritime transparency initiative at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.