The term gaslighting originates from the 1938 British stage play Gas Light. Set in Victorian-era London, the play tells the dark story of Jack, a husband who systematically manipulates his wife Bella into questioning her own sanity. His method is deceptively simple: when he secretly goes to the attic each night to search for stolen jewels, the gas-powered lights in the rest of the house dim. But when Bella notices this unmistakable change, Jack insists that she's imagining things and losing her mind.​

The play gave us a new term for a timeless form of psychological abuse: the deliberate manipulation of someone into questioning their perception of reality. Today, gaslighting has become recognized as a form of psychological manipulation where one party—typically holding more power—undermines another's confidence in their own understanding of events, often for purposes of control.

In this century the Chinese Communist Party has elevated gaslighting to a sophisticated state-level gray zone tactic--from psychological manipulation to psychological warfare--to make the world doubt the reality plainly visible before our eyes. This isn't mere propaganda or spin--it's a systematic effort to replace observable facts with an alternative reality that serves Beijing's expansionist maritime ambitions.

Consider this increasingly normal occurrence--a PRC state media outlet releases video footage showing a large China Coast Guard vessel ramming a much smaller Philippine ship, while claiming that what you clearly see on your screen is actually the exact opposite:

This is not new, nor is it restricted to the Philippines. In April 2020, the China Coast Guard preposterously claimed that a small (10-15 meter) wood-hulled Vietnamese fishing boat intentionally "rammed into" its 111-meter steel-hulled patrol ship before sinking, and that the "rescued" eight-man Vietnamese crew later "confessed to...dangerous maneuvers" while in Chinese custody.

This is gaslighting at an industrial scale. The PRC doesn't merely deny its aggressive actions—it inverts them completely, presenting itself as the aggrieved party responding to aggressions and provocations. It does this often in defiance of all reason and, increasingly, of overwhelming visual evidence to the contrary.​

In fact, Beijing's characterization of the Philippines' assertive transparency campaign as the true provocation in the South China Sea is itself an especially audacious form of gaslighting. ​This framing, in which the victim becomes the aggressor simply because he refuses to be bullied in the dark, has become a core element in China's gray zone strategy to dominate the West Philippine Sea.

This was precisely the argument presented to me by a Chinese academic at a conference in Vietnam earlier this month. My response--in which I analogized his argument to a rich neighbor who takes my flower bed by force, then has his thugs beat me up for "trespassing", and finally accuses me of "provoking" him to more violence when my wife takes a video of the abuses--struck such a chord with South China Sea watchers that it is now approaching a million views on Facebook:

My point began with the fact that China signed a 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) with its Southeast Asian neighbors--one which was supposed to constrain maritime aggressive expansionism of exactly the kind China is currently pursuing. It explicitly commits all signatories to maintain "respect for and commitment to the freedom of navigation"; to resolve disputes "by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force"; and to exercise "self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes".

In the same way as my analogous neighbor shouldn't get to maliciously appropriate my property and then demand that I be silent about it, an aggressor state shouldn't get to violate its signed agreements then claim that any documentation of those violations is the actual aggression. 

Yet that is precisely how China's gaslighting tactic works. 

In fact, Beijing's constant inversion of the 2002 DOC is among its most farcical gaslighting efforts. Its official spokespeople and state media outlets consistently frame the Philippines' maintenance and resupply of its outpost at Second Thomas Shoal aboard the derelict BRP Sierra Madre as somehow violating the DOC's prohibition on occupying new features:

In this tortured formulation, failing to scuttle the BRP Sierra Madre--grounded in 1999, before the DOC's signing, in response to China's 1994 occupation of Mischief Reef--by towing it off of Second Thomas Shoal constitutes a violation of its terms. Meanwhile, blocking, swarming, ramming and water-cannoning the small wooden boats and their coast guard escorts that have resupplied it for a quarter century is just fine (as is turning Mischief Reef into an island fortress).

Why does the PRC invest so heavily in narrative inversion? Because gaslighting serves multiple strategic purposes in gray zone operations.

First, it sows confusion and doubt. Beijing floods the information environment with competing narratives knowing full well that readers of this blog post will simply roll their eyes ... but of course we are not its targets. Instead, it seeks to create just enough room for conflict-averse audiences to conclude that maybe the victim really is at least as responsible for the problem as the perpetrator, and that maybe "all parties" just need to calm down.

Second, it delays and diffuses international response. When China claims it's actually the victim, this forces the real victims to spend time and resources debunking false narratives rather than building coalitions for meaningful response. The gaslighting tactic turns every incident into a "he said, she said" dispute that appears to require investigation rather than action.

Third, it provides China with just-plausible-enough deniability and justification for its own needs. By inverting reality—claiming the Philippines violated the DOC, claiming transparency is provocation, claiming the rammed did the ramming—Beijing creates a narrative framework sufficient for its own citizens and committed supporters to keep backing its expansionist agenda.

Fourth, it demoralizes the victim. Just as Jack sought to drive Bella to the edge of sanity by denying the reality of dimming lights, China's systematic reality inversion is designed to exhaust and demoralize its opponents. When every documented incident is met with brazen counter-narrative and each defensive action is reframed as aggression, the psychological toll accumulates. The gaslighter wants the victim to give up, to stop speaking the truth because the effort of constantly defending obvious reality becomes overwhelming.