How China’s ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ Theory Shapes Its Global Strategy

In 1999, former PLA Air Force colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui published ‘Unrestricted Warfare,’ a treatise proposing that modern wars will combine traditional combat with a wide array of non-military measures such as economic pressure, information campaigns, and cyber attacks. U.S. experts have described the text as a strategic guide for China’s effort to challenge American leadership across economic, political and ideological domains.

The authors, now retired senior officers, continue to teach and advise, with Qiao serving as deputy secretary-general of the Council for National Security Policy Studies and Wang directing the Center for Strategic Studies at Beihang University. Their analysis references classic strategists like Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, but stresses that future victories will require coordinated action by soldiers, hackers, financiers and cultural actors across multiple domains. The work has sparked discussion in Western security circles about how to counter a China that may pursue conflict without conventional battlefield engagements.