According to a report by three analysts, China’s People’s Liberation Army is developing high-tech weapons designed to disrupt the brain and influence government leaders or even the entire population of the country.
The weapon can be used for direct attack or mind control using a microwave or other directed energy weapon placed on both a mobile and stationary platform.
“Unknown to many, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army ( PLA ) have established themselves as world leaders in the development of neurostrike,” weapons according to the 12-page report, “Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party’s Neurostrike Program.” A copy of the study was obtained by The Washington Times.
In December 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctioned the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 affiliated organizations that the department said were using “biotech processes to support the Chinese military’s efforts, including the development of alleged brain-controlled weapons.” However, there has been little public research or discussion regarding the PLA’s new forward military capability.
Neurostrike is a military term defined as the targeted impact on the brain of military personnel or civilians using non-kinetic technologies. The goal is to impair thinking, reduce situational awareness, cause long-term neurological damage, and hamper normal cognitive functions.
The study was written by Ryan Clark, a senior fellow at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. Other contributors to the study were Xiaoxu Shong Ling, a former army microbiologist now at Feitang College; and L.J. Eads, former Air Force intelligence officer and artificial intelligence specialist in the US intelligence community.
The authors of the study write that the Chinese leadership “views neurostrikes and psychological warfare as a major component of its strategy of asymmetric warfare against the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific.”
According to the report, neurostrike capabilities are part of the standard military capabilities and should not be considered as non-traditional weapons, the use of which is limited in extreme circumstances.
Likely areas of use for the weapons included Taiwan, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the disputed Sino-Indian border.
“Any breakthrough in this research would provide unprecedented tools for the CCP to forcibly establish a new world order, which has been [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s lifelong goal,” the report said.
Militarily, brain warfare can be used in what the Pentagon has called China ‘s “anti-access, area-denial” military strategy for the Indo-Pacific.
“Imagine (at least partially) immunized PLA troops being inserted into a geography where a specific weaponized bacterial strain has been released prior to their entry to prepare the ground and eliminate points of resistance,” the report states. “Any remaining sources of resistance on the ground are then dealt with through [Chinese] neurostrike weaponry that instill intense fear and/or other forms of cognitive incoherence resulting in inaction.”
