In the future . . .China’s use of critical infrastructure to control downstream water supply will threaten vital economic activities and life.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will leverage rail and road networks to strengthen its positions near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India. China’s military-civilian dual-use infrastructure will continue to encroach on disputed lands while posturing the country’s forces to project coercive power and gain an advantage in the next border clash.
Regional states will no longer harbor Tibetan refugee camps, while also adopting increasingly authoritarian practices made possible by surveillance systems exported by China.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is actively using diplomatic, intelligence, military, and economic tools to influence, deter, and compel countries to act in the PRC’s interest. These tools are derived from a combination of the hybrid strategy and gray-zone tactics that have defined Xi Jinping’s China.
The tactics cover operations ranging from corporate cyber theft to international development infrastructure projects.1 But while U.S. policymakers’ attention is fixed on great power competition, the PRC is also active in periphery zones and even within their own territory. In fact, the infrastructure the PRC seeks to export through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development projects emerged from efforts within China’s frontier.2
China is fundamentally redefining infrastructure as a tool of coercion. Under the guise of economic development and increasing connectivity,
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is constructing a coercive architecture across the Tibetan Plateau. This includes dams that can choke water flow to downstream states, railways that enable rapid military mobilization, and digital networks that are already exporting surveillance and repressing dissent. These projects are not neutral investments. They are latent instruments of state power—dual-use nodes that allow Beijing to pressure neighbors without triggering open conflict. As infrastructure becomes a strategic enabler of compellence and deterrence,
the United States and its partners must reframe how they assess and respond to China’s actions. Failing to do so will leave the region vulnerable to incremental gains that add up to irreversible strategic shifts.
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