Why Should We Care About China's Political Warfare Against Taiwan? | with Peter Mattis

In this episode, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso welcome Peter Mattis, President of the Jamestown Foundation and former CIA analyst, to dissect the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) "political warfare" against Taiwan. Mattis argues this is not merely diplomatic maneuvering, but "United Front work playing out on a global scale" - a comprehensive campaign to reshape the international order by recreating China’s domestic political controls abroad.​

War by Other Means

Mattis grounds the political warfare concept in George Kennan’s Cold War definition: the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in peacetime. For Beijing, unification is a political objective requiring total control over Taiwan’s social, economic, and political life - goals that military force alone cannot secure. The CCP seeks to "pull in" global interests, ensuring th ...