China uses social, psychological and legal warfare to win.
Weifa, or legal warfare, is a way to defeat an enemy and accomplish a goal without actually going to war. Legal warfare uses the premise that "we are right and you are wrong" and is a psychological tactic that is effective. Legal warfare is a sophisticated control measure that uses non-traditional and complicated dynamics to accomplish a task.
Legal warfare may or may not be accompanied with force. It may also stifle actions by dissidents before they develop a resistance. Declaring that a region was previously your property, as is often asserted with islands in the South China Sea is a common tactic.
Legal warfare is becoming more prevalent in the recent years. It is often the work of an empty suit, and is often ignored. In the age of the COVID-19 panemdic and resultant lockdown, legal warfare is being used to manage a population of over a billion. Social credit systems that manage basic rights and propaganda are warfare methods that have been very effective.
This great Valuetainment video from YouTube goes into detail about the way war is waged by China:
Sources:
Image from Pixabay.
https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/winning-without-fighting-chinese-legal-warfare