LONDON — If Carl von Clausewitz was right that war is a continuation of politics by other means, then perhaps the reverse is also true: politics can become a form of war. By that logic, China has waged a “good war” in recent decades, precisely because so few in the West grasp that we are in the middle of one.

There have been no battlefields and no burning cities. Yet for years, the Chinese Communist Party has conducted espionage, deployed aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy and stolen intellectual property from Britain and other liberal democracies with near impunity.

It has managed this in large part because British officials lack the vocabulary to diagnose the problem clearly. The establishment view was neatly summed up by Ben Bland, director of the Asia-Pacific program at the think-ta

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