The CCP’s ten strategies for winning its ‘global struggle’
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ten key strategies in its aim to overtake the United States (US) as a global superpower
The Investigator | No. 05/2025
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employs a variety of strategies in its aim of superseding the United States (US) as the pre-eminent global superpower, via the ‘second Centennial Goal’.
The ‘Two Centennial Goals’ first emerged as a CCP slogan in 1997, but they entered front of stage only under Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CCP. The first centenary goal aimed to transform the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into a ‘moderately prosperous society’ [小康社会] by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party, which was in 2021. The second aims to establish a ‘modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious’ by the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the PRC, which falls in 2049. Behind this reassuring language lies a more muscular intention: to ensure that the PRC replaces the US as the world’s leading superpower, and to reorder global governance better to suit CCP interests and values.
To achieve that, the CCP under Xi sees itself engaged in a fierce ‘struggle’ against ‘hostile foreign forces’. As Xi has said, ‘competition between systems is an important aspect of competition for comprehensive national power’, and the dominance of a system gives a country the dominant position in winning the ‘strategic initiative’ – a stronger term than the English translation suggests.
In order to achieve its aim of superseding the US as the pre-eminent global superpower, the CCP employs a number of strategies. At least ten can be identified, although they overlap.
A contest between economic systems, characterised by, among other things, unprecedented levels of state subsidy, a lack of openness and reciprocity, and a willingness to flout established, as well as agreed, rules. Winning would create great dependencies.
The use of economic ‘sticks and carrots’ as a diplomatic tool. Those countries which go against CCP interests are threatened with exclusion from Chinese markets and investment; those who align are promised participation in the PRC’s large market or in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
External propaganda. The CCP spends prodigious amounts of money (£5.3 billion in 2009, but likely to be far higher now) on spreading its narrative abroad. Xi has shown a strong interest in ‘strengthening and improving international communication work’, devoting a Politburo study session to the issue in 2021. A recent development is the establishment in most provinces and many cities of ‘communication centres’ aimed at gaining global influence.
Activities of the United Front Work Department (UFWD). If external propaganda aims to persuade from the outside, united front work aims to align foreigners’ views with those of the CCP by mobilising assets inside their own countries, often covertly, coercively and corruptively. The united front strategy identifies the main enemy (in foreign affairs, the US) and seeks to move its allies to a neutral position and the non-aligned to support the PRC.
Military build-up. The CCP has embarked on an extensive build-up of hardware and training. The effectiveness of this increase in military might is more about what the People's Liberation Army (PLA) – the PRC’s armed forces – could do than what it will do: menace can be as effective as actual combat, and is far less dangerous.
Changing global governance by: repurposing the United Nations (UN) and other international organisations, while keeping their façade; ensuring that standards and norms in new areas (for example, space or the poles) align with CCP interests; and setting up alternate groupings of countries which the CCP can build up to challenge the existing world order (for example, BRICS countries, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the New Development Bank).
Co-opting the so-called ‘Global South’. The CCP declares that it will always be a member of the Global South. It puts great effort into detaching countries from alignment with the US and its allies, and calls for small countries to have the same say in global matters as large ones. This form of ‘global democracy’ lies behind the CCP’s constant calls for a ‘multipolar world’.
Data. ‘Data is the new oil’ – there is a reason for clichés. The CCP has set about collecting, and developing the capability of collecting, vast amounts of data, both legitimately and illegitimately (its efforts – and successes – devoted to cyber attacks are enormous). It collects encrypted data against the day that developments in quantum computing may allow it to read the contents.
Dominating the new sciences and technologies. This prioritises dominating the new industries which grow from the data driven technological revolution. Internally, policies of subsidy, but also cut-throat competition between Chinese industries, have made them highly effective; externally, acquisition, commissioning research, espionage, hacking and other dubious practices have put the PRC in a strong position.
Creating dependencies. CCP policies have not just given the PRC the ability to use dependencies on minerals such as rare earths, but to exploit dependencies on telecoms (Huawei), cellular Internet of Things (IoT) modules (Quectel), batteries and more.
Of these ten strategies, the last three are perhaps the most important. Xi and the CCP have long been clear that whoever dominates the new sciences and technologies will emerge as the winner in what they see as a global struggle for supremacy. As the minister of science and technology writing in the People’s Daily, the Party’s paper, bluntly put it in August 2024:
…the high-tech field has become the forefront and main battlefield of international competition, profoundly influencing the global order and development pattern…What is crucial is the competition of scientific and technological innovation capabilities. The underlying contest is about whose system is superior.
In judging the effectiveness of these ten strategies, governments of free and open countries should not be complacent. Nor should they assume that African, Latin American, and Asian countries will find them as threatening as the so-called ‘global North’. While free and open countries should maximise opportunities for working with Beijing, they should do so with their eyes well open to the ten CCP strategies listed above. Sadly, in many cases, that will require ‘de-risking’ or ‘de-coupling’. Protecting level playing fields and values – and to be honest, interests – comes at a price.
As this ‘Investigator’ points out, the CCP’s strategy to dominate the new sciences and technologies is perhaps the most part of its aims to overtake the US as a global superpower.
Next week, the Council on Geostrategy will publish the paper ‘China's use of science and technology to advance its geopolitical aims’ by the author of this piece, Charles Parton – keep an eye out for it!
Charles Parton OBE is Chief Advisor to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy.
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