PerspectiveWhy China's Coronavirus Lies Don't Matter If It Plays the Long Information Game

The world will never be the same after COVID-19 –but Mark Payumo writes in the National Interest that this will not be because people sheltered in place and reacquainted themselves with traditional family bonding, but because China opened a new front in information warfare. “This front is global in scale and one that Beijing has laid the groundwork for a decade prior to the pandemic,” he writes. “As it unravels, it underscores one fact that we already know: that the world, especially truly-functioning West democracies, continues to fail in responding to Chinese global statecraft that may threaten civil liberties as we know it.”

He adds:

Information warfare precisely poses this threat, where those on the receiving end of damages are primarily a nation’s populace, the government, and its military, arguably in that order. Contrary to the West’s popular conception of war since World War II, the twenty-first-century has introduced new rules of warfighting where kinetic military movement has become merely secondary to achieving victory. Rather, the employment and protection of information flow is paramount.

The problem today is that ordinary citizens—regardless of nationality—are utterly unaware of this threat. In an era where life’s comforts can virtually be achieved through the speed of a smartphone tap, what is there to be scared about from information technology? Terrorist bombings, mass shootings, or an epidemic are more of an existential risk than strategic harm. Yet, both governments and non-state actors such as terrorists draw their legitimacy from the people.