Cognitive Domain Operations Against Vietnam Hint at Broader Ambitions

Executive Summary:

• Translation forms a crucial part of People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-directed research. This is done to support influence operations, enhance cooperation with the Russian military, and even understand US policy discussions on social media.
• Recent research from institutions such as the PLA Strategic Support Force’s (PLASSF) Information Engineering University indicates that the PLA can conduct cognitive domain operations against not just Taiwan or the United States, but almost anywhere—including authoritarian states such as Vietnam.
• The PLA has spent at least five years building corpora of foreign language texts to train machine translation tools, though the scarcity of quality resources has been an issue in creating useful tools. The extent to which LLMs will become an additional tool in this research is unclear.
• At least some PLA machine translation efforts rely on foreign open-source tools, such as Google Translate and DeepL.

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Editor’s note: the PLA Strategic Support Force dissolved after this article was drafted. The piece retains a PLASSF-centric analysis, though does not diminish the utility of the content.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is updating and expanding its long-standing efforts to target countries with cyber-enabled influence operations (IO). It is already planning for IO against Vietnam, while similar efforts are likely underway against Burma, India, and others. Vietnam provides a useful case study as it demonstrates that Chinese efforts go beyond what is most often captured in the headlines and because the PLA rarely states so blatantly that it is employing specific operational concepts against specific adversaries.

Cognitive domain operations (CDO; 认知域作战) is the new primary operational concept for Chinese military IO. It serves as a technologically-driven update to the more widely known “Three Warfares (三战)”—psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare (see China Brief, September 8, 2023). [1] The US Department of Defense (DoD) defines CDO as “combin[ing] psychological warfare with cyber operations to shape adversary behavior and decision making,” with the assessed intention to “use CDO as an asymmetric capability to deter US or third-party entry into a future conflict, or as an offensive capability to shape perceptions or polarize a society” (DOD, October 19, 2023). DoD further explains that the PLA is interested in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies such as big data and brain science for CDO, as the PLA “perceives that these technologies will lead to profound changes in the ability to subvert human cognition” (see also, RAND; June 1, 2023; September 7, 2023, February 1).

PLA IO Planning Against Vietnam

Direct evidence of PLA planning for IO against Vietnam comes in the form of a 2022 master’s thesis from the PLA Strategic Support Force’s (PLASSF) Information Engineering University (IEU; 战略支援部队信息工程大学) that translates part of a Vietnamese military text. [2] The source text is a 2020 book titled “Characteristics of Vietnamese Military Culture (越南军事文化本色),” published by the Vietnam Institute for Military Social Sciences and Humanities and edited by a Vietnamese senior colonel. [3] As the thesis explains, the book is “highly concise and authoritative, reflecting the mainstream thinking of the Vietnamese military and academia on military culture, and has high reference value.”

The purpose of the translation is to “provide research as a basis to better conduct cognitive domain operations against Vietnam (更好地开展对越认知域作战)” in the context of geopolitical competition in the “great power game (大国博弈).” The author adds that she wanted to “enable domestic academic circles to better understand Vietnam’s views and positions, and to provide reference for our external propaganda work, cognitive domain operations, etc.” Such explicit linkage between graduate student research supporting PLA CDO efforts raises the possibility that other similar work could also support IOs in a more structured arrangement.

This master’s thesis is unusually authoritative and likely provides a rare glimpse into Chinese military planning and activities. The author’s school, IEU, falls under the PLASSF Network Systems Department (NSD) (now the Cyberspace Force [网络空间部队] following the April 2024 elimination of the PLASSF). [4] The author was previously at the PLA’s University of Foreign Languages (外国语学院) in Luoyang, which is responsible for training the PLA’s foreign language professionals. These are institutions one would expect to provide linguistic support to foreign language IOs, such as CDOs. Interestingly, the author offers a preemptive disclaimer, writing that the translation does not represent her own views and that “the translator does not agree with what it says about China.” This suggests that the PLA can be sensitive about what can be considered politically acceptable, even within the bounds of academic translation.

Vietnam was the adversary in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) last major conflict (1979) and, until the 2020 border clash with India, its last major use of force (in 1988 over Johnson South Reef). Nevertheless, Western research has paid less attention to PLA operational planning against Vietnam than to other regional contingencies—a 2015 RAND conference volume on PLA contingency planning does not address Vietnam, for instance. [5] This is despite publicly available research that suggests PLA planning against Vietnam, such as a research effort over 2016-2017 by Southern TC PLAAF researchers on aerial power projection for maritime operations for what is clearly a South China Sea (SCS) contingency. [6]

The history of IO conducted by the PRC against Vietnam, however, has been well documented by foreign researchers. Recent reports have documented PRC efforts to shape Vietnam’s information environment and gray-zone coercion against regional countries, including in the information domain (CNA, September 2020; RAND, March 30, 2022). Moreover, Ryan Martinson has shown that PLA Navy wargaming for Vietnam includes planning for psychological warfare. [7]

Researchers at Base 311 under the PLASSF NSD (now the Cyberspace Force; CSF)—the PLA’s only known unit for foreign IOs—have also written on Vietnam over the years, suggesting Hanoi is a focus of its efforts. 2014 saw an uptick of research when the PRC and Vietnam had a low-level crisis over Beijing moving its HY981 oil rig into disputed waters in the SCS. Base 311 researchers that year documented Vietnamese views of the PRC and Vietnamese propaganda about the SCS. [8]

Broader Translation Efforts Suggest Grander Ambitions

Additional PLASSF IEU theses suggest a specific PLA effort since at least 2019 to train machine translation tools based on acquiring foreign language texts. This could be intended to support AI-driven CDO against other countries. [9] PLASSF IEU produces many master’s theses and PhD dissertations that involve some translation, primarily focused on the United States, Russia, and South Korea. The breadth of translations that are explicitly focused on supporting machine translation, however, suggests the PLASSF may be undertaking a broader effort to build up corpora to support AI-driven CDO. [10]

PLA analysts have noted the role of machine translation and building corpora in supporting PLA IO. A 2021 article by two NUDT researchers as part of a research grant on “national defense language capabilities (国防语言能力)” argued that the PRC “can rely on ‘cloud’ technology to build a comprehensive service platform for the ‘critical languages’ of our military’s public opinion struggle,” in part involving machine translation, to “solve the problems faced by our military’s news and communication departments at all levels” (Military Correspondent, May, 2021). Similarly, a 2023 article by PLASSF IEU Luoyang campus researchers highlighted the role of machine translation in IO, namely fueling the “Great Translation Movement” as a targeted Western IO against the PRC (Military Correspondent, January, 2023). Building corpora is also a widely recognized enabler of PLA IO. One 2017 article argued, “We can rely on currently relatively mature corpus technology, data mining technology, open source intelligence information technology, and subliminal information technology” (Military Correspondent, March, 2021; China Military Online, October 21, 2020). [11] This PLA effort dates to at least 2005 with an “Intelligent English-Chinese Machine Translation System (英汉智能型机器翻译系统).” [12]

Figure 1: Information Engineering University Translation Theses and Dissertations by Target Country (2001-2022)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 2020 PLASSF IEU master’s thesis explains that a large corpus is important for neural machine translation (NMT). [13] Ideally, there would be a “large number of parallel corpora,” making it preferable to use a “neural network machine translation model based on reinforcement learning on supervised algorithms.” However, if a smaller corpus available—“low resource conditions”—then the author calls for using “transfer learning technology to prevent neural networks from overfitting during training and improve the generalization ability.” Lastly, if the “parallel corpus is extremely scarce but sufficient in a monolingual corpus,” the last resort is to use “unsupervised machine translation technology,” which the author leaves as a topic of future research.

The PLA has apparently lacked sufficient corpora to target many of these countries in the past few years. Theses on India, Russia, and the United States lament having to rely on transfer learning “in order to solve the low resource (or language variants) problem,” [14] note that Russian-Chinese translation “is still in the experimental stage,” [15] and affirm that “quantity and quality of corpora are the basic conditions for training neural network machine translation models.” [16] A 2021 thesis focused on supporting machine translation of Japanese military texts acknowledges that some human involvement is still necessary for superior translation. [17] It suggests using “Machine Translation + Post-Editing,” as machine translation outputs “cannot be put into use directly.” The thesis’ stated aim is to “understand the current situation of research on Japan’s military strategy so as to take corresponding countermeasures.”

A key question in the era of generative AI is whether the PLA will embrace LLMs for this type of translation work or remain focused on NMT, both of which have strengths and weaknesses. If LLMs are being embraced, it is possible that novel tools have been able to partially resolve some of these issues.

Other Dissertations Focus Further Afield

The role of these translation-focused PLASSF IEU theses in supporting IO is given further credence by a 2022 MA thesis focusing on Burmese. [18] The thesis links its purposes to supporting propaganda, specifically writing that “Burmese foreign language translation is … a key measure for China to ‘build’ a good image in Myanmar.” The thesis frames this in broad terms, noting that “discourse is power” and that the PRC must “build a set of external discourse systems (对外话语体系) that have distinctive Chinese characteristics and can be understood and accepted by the international community.” A 2019 thesis, meanwhile, built an “Indian English-Chinese neural translation system” and focused on Indian social media discourse. [19] While this thesis does not obviously frame its efforts in support of IOs, social media is a known focus of PLA CDO efforts (DOD, October 19, 2023; China Brief, April 12, 2021; RAND, September 7, 2023).

Not all PLA translations serve IO, however. A 2022 thesis instead explains it is supporting growing PRC-Russia military cooperation, [20] while a PhD thesis from that year apparently supports of enhanced bilateral military cooperation with Türkiye—an important strategic Belt and Road Initiative partner. [21] Both theses discuss the scarcity of data and the need to reduce communication barriers to facilitate cooperation, including overcoming a shortage of human professional translation staff currently in the PLA. In the latter thesis, the author also makes a vague reference to “fulfilling military mission requirements (满足未来军事任务需),” though this is left unexplained.

Other PLASSF IEU work focuses on understanding US policy conversations, specifically on social media. One 2022 master’s thesis scraped data from the Twitter accounts of 30 Biden administration senior officials, including President Biden and at least 15 cabinet members, as well as the official accounts of over 30 US government organizations (e.g., CIA, NRO, NIC, etc.). [22] The researchers explained their methodology as “tagging the linguistic features of social networks in the military-political domain, constructing a word segmentation model based on the BPE algorithm, splicing and aligning the linguistic features of English and Chinese training data at the encoding and decoding ends, and incorporating the features into fine-tuned neural network structures based on mBart pre-trained model and transformer neural network structures.”

The value of the analysis, the thesis explains, is that “a large amount of valuable information can be extracted from the political opinions, policies, and mission deployments released by military and political figures and institutions through social networks, thereby obtaining open-source intelligence.” It also notes that, “in the context of big data, the traditional manual translation model can no longer meet the requirements for high-quality and on-demand translation of data in the military-political domain in social networks.” The thesis frames itself in the context of “social media warfare (社交媒体战),” which has “opened up a new dimension of warfare in the information age, and social networks have become a battlefield of public opinion where countries compete fiercely.”

Insights

This batch of PLASSF IEU dissertations and theses reveals several insights. First, PLA CDO efforts go beyond merely targeting Taiwan and the United States and can likely target anyone. Earlier evidence comes from Base 311 research on other countries, such as the Philippines and Japan. [23] If Beijing is using resources to target Vietnam, there is a good chance Beijing is also targeting US allies and partners in Asia. A recent Microsoft report found that just one PRC IO actor—Spamouflage—produced content in 58 languages targeting a wide range of countries, including Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, just within the past year (Microsoft, April 4).

Multiple Chinese military instructional texts on psychological warfare highlight the importance of targeting adversary alliances. [24] Since at least 2004, PLA texts have acknowledged the PRC’s intention of targeting adversary alliances in wartime as part of the PLA’s Three Warfares strategy. For example, a 2014 PLA National Defense University textbook notably calls for “Disintegrating (瓦解) enemy military alliance (车事同盟) relations.” As modern wars usually rely on certain military alliances and it is difficult for enemy military alliances to achieve complete coordination of interests, the textbook argues, “unbalancing the levers of interests among allies or alliance forces (联盟力量) has become an important means of weakening their overall combat potential.” [25] For a real-world example, Japan has long been worried about Chinese IO efforts targeting Okinawa to support local pro-independence sentiment and eject US forces based there (CSIS, July 23, 2020).

Second, these CDO efforts target both democratic and authoritarian countries. This means that efforts to counter malign influence are germane to all states concerned by the PRC’s rise. So far, the United States and European countries have focused their counter-disinformation outreach almost exclusively on other global democracies. This overlooks authoritarian swing states that are also important to great power competition. Indeed, the thesis’ acknowledgement that CDO against Vietnam was in the context of great power competition, clearly against the United States, highlights the PRC’s big picture view of its IO efforts.

Third, at least some PLA machine translation efforts rely on foreign open-source tools, such as Google Translate and DeepL. [26] While this is very difficult, if not impossible, to restrict in practice, it highlights the risk of open-source tools as LLMs become more powerful. Overall, this reaffirms the understanding that CDO is the PLA’s preferred operational concept for IOs and can have a global reach to support the PRC’s growing ambitions.

Notes

[1] For some PLA texts, see: Ye Zheng [叶征], ed., Lectures on the Science of Information Operations [信息作战学教程], Beijing: Military Science Press [军事科学出版社], 2013; Wu Jieming [吴杰明] and Liu Zhifu [刘志富], An Introduction to Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Legal Warfare [舆论战心理战法律战概论], Beijing: National Defense University Press, 2014.

[2] Yu Caixian [余彩仙], “Vietnamese-Chinese Translation Report Based on Vinay & Darbelnet’s Translation Model——A Case Study of Characteristics of Vietnamese Military Culture (Excerpts)” [“基于维奈和达贝尔内模式的越汉翻译实践报告”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022.

[3] We were unable to locate the original book in Vietnamese, but the PLASSF IEU thesis gives the book as Duong Quoc Dung [杨国勇], ed., Characteristics of Vietnamese Military Culture [越南军事文化本色], Vietnam People’s Army Publishing House [越南人民军队出版社], 2020.

[4] The school merged with IEU in 2017 as part of the educational component of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s broader military reforms, though it was transferred to NUDT’s School of International Relations in 2023. For more on Luoyang’s support to PLASSF NSD operations, see: Joe McReynolds and LeighAnn Luce, “China’s Human Capital Ecosystem For Network Warfare,” in Roy Kamphausen, ed., The People of the PLA 2.0, pp. 327-371. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/944/.
See also: Kenneth Allen and Mingzhi Chen, The People’s Liberation Army’s 37 Academic Institutions, Washington, DC: China Aerospace Studies Institute, June 2020. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/Research/Other-Topics/2020-06-11%20PLA%20Academic_Institutions.pdf

[5] Andrew Scobell, Arthur S. Ding, Phillip C. Saunders, and Scott W. Harold, eds., The People’s Liberation Army and Contingency Planning in China, National Defense University Press, 2015. https://ndupress.ndu.edu/portals/68/Documents/Books/PLA-contingency/PLA-Contingency-Planning-China.pdf.

[6] For the most explicit discussion, see: Zhu Guang [朱光], Wang Hui [王辉], Liu Yonghua [刘永华], Zhao Wang [赵旺], “Joint Projection Support of Maritime Military Operation” [“海上方向军事行动联合投送保障研究”], Journal of Military Transportation University [军事交通学院学报] 19:2, February 2017, pp. 6-9. See also: Zhu Guang [朱光] and Liu Yonghua [刘永华], “Construction of Strategic Projection Capability for Dealing with Major Unexpected Incidents” [“应对重大突发事变的战略投送能力建设”], Journal of Military Transportation University [军事交通学院学报] 18:1, January 2016, pp. 1-5; Zhu Guang [朱光], Zeng Wangcheng [曾王成], Wang Hui [王辉], and Liu Yonghua [刘永华], “Constructing Motorized Transportation Support Capability of Our Air Force” [“空军部队摩托化机动运输保障能力的建设”], Journal of Military Transportation University [军事交通学院学报] 18:8, August 2016, pp. 19-22. For other research by PLA Guangzhou Military Region (now Southern TC) that was probably thinking about South China Sea disputes, see: Su Xuejun [苏学军] and Wu Hongqiang [吴宏强], “Legal protection of the military’s protection of national border rights and interests” [“军队维护国家边防权益的法律保障”], Journal of Xi’an Politics Institute [西安政治学院学报] 24:3, June 2011, pp. 77-81.

[7] Ryan D. Martinson, “Counter-intervention in Chinese naval strategy,” Journal of Strategic Studies, March 2020, pp. 1-23: “A 2016 PLA Navy Command College scenario began with red’s (i.e., China’s) deployment of oil/gas drilling equipment in disputed waters, resulting in a confrontation with ‘blue’ (probably Vietnam) that spiraled out of control. Red quickly seized the upper hand. It conducted strikes on blue’s military bases and airports. The game introduced a ‘green’ side (i.e., the United States). The blue side used a variety of measures to persuade green to provide support. Red responded by using propaganda, psychological attacks, and military saber rattling to communicate its ‘power and determination’ [to] respond if green intervened. Red’s effort at deterrence ultimately failed, as green responded by sending two carrier strike groups to the area on the pretext of ensuring freedom of navigation. Green also sent a surface action group to menace red’s sea lines of communication.”

[8] Wei Qiang [韦强], “Strategic Interactions between Japan and Vietnam on the South China Sea Issue” [“日本与越南在南海问题上的战略互动”], International Study Reference [国际研究参考], January 2014; Wei Qiang [韦强], “Vietnam’s Public Opinion Propaganda Strategy on the South China Sea Issue” [“越南在南海问题上的舆论宣传策略”], International Study Reference [国际研究参考], April 2014; Wei Qiang [韦强] and Mou Shan [牟珊], “Discussion and Analysis of the Vietnamese Populace’s Attitudes Toward China” [“越南民众对华心态评析”], International Study Reference [国际研究参考], December 2014. Wei lists his affiliation as the Huaqiao Broadcasting Company, which is a known Base 311 front company. For more on this, see: Mark Stokes and Russell Hsiao, The People’s Liberation Army General Political Department: Political Warfare with Chinese Characteristics, Arlington, Va.: Project 2049 Institute, October 2013; and Paul Charon and Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, Chinese IOs: A Machiavellian Moment, Institute for Strategic Research at the Military School, October 2021. For additional Base 311 research on Vietnam, see: Zeng Tianyi [曾添翼] and Xie Jiewei [谢捷维], “image construction strategies of Luoyang [City] in Vietnam’s mainstream online media and its enlightenment” [“越南主流网络媒体的洛阳形象建构策略及其启示”], Journal of Luoyang Normal University [洛阳师范学院学报], December 2019.

[9] There was an earlier round of PLASSF IEU interest in machine translation in the mid-2000s. See: Li Jian [李剑], “Sentence pattern conversion and translation generation in English-Chinese machine translation” [“英汉机器翻译中的句型转换和译文生成”], master’s thesis for PLA Information Engineering University [解放军信息工程大学], 2005; Ma Fang [马芳], “Research on English Clause Identification for Machine Translation System” [“机器翻译系统中英语从句的识别研究”], master’s thesis for PLA Information Engineering University [解放军信息工程大学], 2006; Guo Yonghui [郭永辉] “Research on Key Technologies of English-Chinese Machine Translation System” [“英汉机器翻译系统关键技术研究”], PhD dissertation for PLA Information Engineering University [解放军信息工程大学], 2006.

[10] For example, some other recent PLA MA thesis translations include: Ukrainian research on cognitive warfare: He Hongjiang [何泓江], “’Cognitive Warfare in Social Media, Popular Culture and Mass Communication’ (Excerpt) Translation Practice Report” [《社交媒体、大众文化和大众传播中的认知战》（节选）翻译实践报告”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022; Russian research on social media and IOs: Lai Mingwu [赖明武], “Social Networks as Tools of Political Power: Impact on International Security” Translation Practice Report” [“《社交网络作为政治权力的工具：对国际安全的影响》翻译实践报告”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022; a 2020 CSBA report: Guo Chuwei [郭楚微], “A Report on the Translation of “Selective Disclosure: A Strategic Approach to Long-Term Competition” from the Perspective of Chesterman’s Translation Norm Theory” [“切斯特曼翻译规范论视角下《选择性披露：长期竞争的战略方法》翻译实践报告”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2021; and a 2019 NBR report: Ji Zhen [姬振], “A Translation Report on China’s Security Activities in Tajikistan and Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor” [“《中国在塔吉克斯坦和阿富汗瓦罕走廊的安全行动》翻译报告”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2020.

[11] Liu Jifeng [刘戟锋], Lu Xiao [卢潇], and Liu Yangyue [刘杨钺], “Technological Support for Strategic Psychological Warfare” [战略心理战的技术支撑], National Defense [国防], February 2017. For other references to corpora and IO, see: Li Qiang [李强], Yang Dongsheng [阳东升], Sun Jiangsheng [孙江生], Liu Jianjun [刘建军], Fei Aiguo [费爱国], and Wang Feiyue [王飞跃], “Societal Cognitive Warfare: Backgrounds, Concepts, Mechanisms and Leading Technologies” [社会认知战:时代背景、概念机理及引领性技术], Journal of Command and Control [指挥与控制学报], June 2021.

[12] Li Jian, 2005.

[13] Li Zhen [李真], “Research on End-to-end Neural Network Machine Translation” [“端到端神经网络机器翻译技术研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2020.

[14] Li Qike [李启可], “Research on Indian English-Chinese Neural Machine Translation with Language Features” [“融合语言特征的印度英语-汉语神经机器翻译研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2019.

[15] Yang Zheng [杨政], “Research on Key Problems of Russian-Chinese Military Speech-to-speech Translation Based on Sequence-to-Sequence” [“基于Seq2Seq模型的俄汉军事语音翻译关键问题研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2019.

[16] Xia Rongjing [夏榕璟], “Research on English-Chinese Neural Machine Translation of Social Networks for Military-political Domain” [“面向军政领域的社交网络英汉神经机器翻译研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022.

[17] Yang Zheng, 2019.

[18] Yang Yuheng [杨宇恒], “Research on machine translation errors and post-translation editing strategies under the guidance of the ‘function + loyalty’ principle” [“‘功能+忠诚’原则指导下的机器翻译错误及译后编辑策略研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2021.

[19] Su Yu [苏昱], “Burmese Translation for China’s International Communication from An Intercultural Perspective: A Case Study of the Burmese Translation of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China” [“跨文化视域下的缅甸语外宣翻译研究: 以《习近平谈治国理政》缅译本为例”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2021. For another on Burmese, see: Li Siyuan [李思源], “A Study on the Translation of Chinese Cultural Images in the Burmese Translation of Fortress Besieged under the Guidance of Relevance Adaptation Theory” [“关联顺应理论指导下《围城》缅甸语译本中的中国文化意象翻译研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022.

[20] Li Qike, 2019.

[21] Xing Mengyang [幸梦阳], “Research on Russian-Chinese Military Speech Translation Based on Transformer” [“基于Transformer的俄汉军事语音翻译研究”], master’s thesis for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022.

[22] Zhang Guilin [张贵林], “Research on Key Problems in Turkish-Chinese Neural Machine Translation for the Military Domain” [“面向军事领域的土-汉神经机器翻译关键问题研究”], PhD dissertation for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2022.

[23] Xia Rongjing, 2022.

[24] On the Philippines, see: Mou Shan [牟珊] and Zuo Yi [左伊], “Analysis on the Civil and Military Operations of the Philippine Army” [“菲律宾军队民事与军事行动探析”], Theoretical Studies on PLA Political Work [军队政工理论研究] 17:1, 2016, pp. 131-134. On Japan, see: Jing Yan [景艳] and Xu Hongliang [徐宏亮], “The impact of Japanese colonial rule on the ‘national identity’ of the Taiwanese people” [“日本殖民统治对台湾民众“国家认同”的影响”], conference presentation at “The 65th Anniversary of Taiwan’s Restoration and the Historical Facts of the Anti-Japanese War” [台湾光复六十五周年暨抗战史实学术研讨会] hosted by Taiwan History Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences [中国社会科学院台湾史研究中心], Chongqing Historical and Cultural Research Center of the Chinese Anti-Japanese War Rear Area [重庆市中国抗战大后方历史文化研究中心], and Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences [中国社会科学院近代史研究所], 2010. Authors list affiliations as Voice of the Strait [海峡之声广播电台编辑部] and Huayi Broadcasting [中国华艺广播公司华广网], both known Base 311 front organizations. See also: Wei Qiang [韦强], “Strategic Interactions between Japan and Vietnam on the South China Sea Issue” [“日本与越南在南海问题上的战略互动”], International Study Reference [国际研究参考], January 2014; Xi Haiying [席海英] and Zhao Ruofei [赵若飞], “The reasons, approaches and choices for Japan’s pursuit of “national normalization”” [“日本谋求“国家正常化”的根由、途径与选择”], Economic Research Guide [经济研究导刊], December 2014, pp. 314-317. Authors list affiliation as Haifeng Publishing House [海风出版社].

[25] See for example: Cheng Baoshan [程宝山], Basic Issues in Public Opinion Warfare, Psychological Warfare, and Legal Warfare [舆论战心理战法律战基本问题], Beijing: Military Science Press [军事科学出版社], 2004, pp. 117, 282, 284; Ye, 2013, pp. 104, 187-188; Wu & Liu, 2014, pp. 19, 51, 56, 68-69, 187.

[26] Wu & Liu, 2014, p. 56.

[27] For Google Translate, see: Guo Wanghao [郭望皓], “Research on English-Chinese Military Machine Translation Integrating Conceptual Networks and Neural Networks” [“融合概念网络与神经网络的军事领域英汉机器翻译研究”], PhD dissertation for PLASSF Information Engineering University [战略支援部队信息工程大学], 2021; Zhang, 2022. For DeepL, see: Yang, 2021.