Three Warfares

The Three Warfares (三战, san zhan) is a concept formally adopted by the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 2003, when the Central Military Commission and CCP Central Committee approved revisions to the PLA's Political Work Regulations. It groups three mutually reinforcing non-kinetic instruments:

• Public opinion warfare (舆论战): shaping domestic and international media narratives to build support for Chinese positions and erode adversary morale.
• Psychological warfare (心理战): targeted messaging, deterrence signaling, and influence operations aimed at decision-makers, militaries, and populations.
• Legal warfare (法律战, lawfare): using domestic law, international law, and selective legal interpretation to legitimize Chinese actions and constrain opponents.

The doctrine is rooted in older PLA political-work traditions but was systematized during the Hu Jintao era as part of preparations for "informationized" conflict. It is treated as a peacetime as well as wartime activity, blurring the line between the two — a feature analysts associate with broader Chinese thinking on unrestricted warfare and what Western writers later called the "gray zone."

The concept has drawn sustained attention from Western analysts. A frequently cited 2013 study commissioned by the U.S. Office of Net Assessment, written by Stefan Halper of the University of Cambridge, examined how the Three Warfares were applied in the South China Sea and East China Sea disputes, including around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and through the 2009 Chinese submission of nine-dash line maps to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Operationally, the Three Warfares are conducted by multiple actors, including PLA political officers, the former General Political Department (reorganized in 2016 under the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission), state media outlets such as Xinhua and CGTN, and government legal advisors. For MUN delegates and IR researchers, the concept is useful when analyzing Taiwan Strait tensions, maritime disputes, Belt and Road diplomacy, and Chinese behavior in international institutions.