China's Lawfare and 'Xiaokang' Villages: Twin Strategies for Territorial Grab

In the past few years, China has launched nothing short of a blitzkrieg in settling the Han population in villages along its land border with India. Beijing calls these villages "Xiaokang" (well-off villages). They house multiple large, double-story buildings along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the northern border areas of Ladakh and far eastern border areas in Arunachal Pradesh. 

Strategic Implications of Xiaokang Villages

When viewed with Beijing's strategic prism in mind, the Xiaokang construction and population boom are problematic. They ostensibly form China's long-term foundational legal plank under its controversial Land Borders Law, which came into force in January 2022.

By enacting the law, Beijing demonstrated its intention to negotiate and settle land border disputes with neighbors on its own terms. Strategically, the Xiaokangs also suggest Beijing's intention to provide demographic support for the transplanted Han population and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as it expands its borders.

The Land Borders Law is part of China's broader strategy of legal warfare, also referred to as lawfare. Beijing churns out new laws domestically to support its territorial claims with its Asian neighbors internationally. Backed by robust military stealth, Beijing employs these legal legislations to win favorable settlement terms in all its territorial disputes across Asia.

Legal Warfare: An Overview

Lawfare as a subject was extensively debated in a paper titled "Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian Values in 21st Conflicts." The paper was published by the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2001. Its author Major General Charles J Dunlap Jr of the United States Air Force described "lawfare" as a term identifying the use of law as a weapon of war, the newest feature of 21st-century combat.

In fact, the term "lawfare" first appeared in a 1975 manuscript by John Carlson and Neville Yeomans entitled "Whither Goeth the Law — Humanity or Barbarity," cited in an edited volume. It has also been described as a method of warfare where law is used to realize a military objective.

As Dunlap Jr reasoned, for international law to remain a viable force for good in military interventions, lawfare practitioners cannot be permitted to commandeer it for malevolent purposes. The direction and momentum of Beijing's application of legislation further raise concerns about this point.

The concept and consequences of statehood play a crucial role in international law. However, historically, statehood has been an ambiguous amalgam of law and fact. Criteria for statehood and territorial borders in international law are increasingly strained by conflicts challenging the traditional doctrine of statehood, territory, and title.

Beijing's Application of Lawfare

China has a long history of lawfare (or "falu zhan"). It has been using domestic and international laws to shape the legal context to support its unilateral state actions. The 2016 book Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War by Orde F Kittrie asserts that China has a long history of gaming the international legal system for its own benefit. 

An essential component of Chinese warfare is "legal preparation of the battlefield." Governments have increasingly altered and deployed laws, both to augment their power and constrain that of the adversary.

China is approaching lawfare as an offensive weapon capable of hamstringing opponents and seizing the political initiative. As per Dean Cheng's 2012 report "Winning Without Fighting: Chinese Legal Warfare," Chinese planners are almost certainly preparing legal war plans aimed at controlling or restraining the enemy through the law. 

Exploiting Legal Vacuums

Beijing's lawfare becomes especially challenging when combined with the other two types of warfare in its "Three Warfares" (san zhan) strategy. These are cited often in Chinese writings. Interestingly, san zhan comprises:

1. Public opinion/media warfare
2. Psychological warfare, which provides the underpinning for both public opinion/media warfare and legal warfare
3. Legal warfare, one of the key instruments of psychological and public opinion/media warfare

Lawfare is being used by revisionist states, glaringly led by China, to exploit the existing vacuum in the international legal arena. 

It is more than about time that Asia's stakeholders take proactive steps to deal with China's cross-border legal warfare via strategic, operational, and tactical policy initiatives. These steps are necessary in both Beijing's land and maritime neighborhood spaces.

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Author: Dr Monika Chansoria

Learn more about Dr Chansoria and follow her column "All Politics is Global" on JAPAN Forward, and on X (formerly Twitter). The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the views of any organization with which she is affiliated.