Threat Actor: China

Since Xi Jinping assumed chairmanship, the Chinese Communist Party has been tightening its grip on all aspects of Chinese society and has been increasingly using tactics honed domestically to project China’s power beyond its borders. Targeting democratic nations across the world, the Chinese government has orchestrated cyber-attacks against public and private institutions, opaquely funneled financial resources to those willing to defend its interests, silenced its critics, and invested in a propaganda apparatus to “tell China’s story well” that regularly resorts to manipulated narratives and disinformation. With the often implied, but increasingly explicit threat of economic coercion, all these aspects of the Chinese state’s interference in democracies reinforce each other and are progressively constraining democracies’ ability to fight back and safeguard their values and autonomy.