Warfare by Other Means: China's Economic Lawfare

Lawfare—the use of legal tools to achieve goals that would normally be gained via armed conflict—has become both a frequently used tool among state and non-state actors and has garnered a great deal of scholarly attention. Yet there is one area of lawfare that it is frequently employed but has not attracted a high degree of interest among researchers: economic lawfare. Broadly defined, economic lawfare is the utilization of legal tools connected to economic activity to either harm an adversary’s economic standing or to coerce states into compliance. In recent years, China has become one of the largest utilizers of economic lawfare. This article considers the means, methods, and scope of China’s current lawfare campaign, while also offering predictions on what future economic lawfare tools Beijing might employ. I argue that thus far, China has largely rooted its economic lawfare campaign through a series of restrictions on trade. This is largely due to the fact that China has immense power over international commerce, and also has few other economic lawfare tools at its immediate disposal. In considering China’s future economic lawfare strategies, however, I suggest that Beijing may look beyond mere trade-related tools. As tensions with the West continue to deepen, President Xi Jinping’s government may look to expand its economic lawfare arsenal as a way to counter the U.S. and its allies without resorting to kinetic action. Chinese leadership may, for example, attempt to use more finance-based tools or might begin to wage economic lawfare in the Global South.