New Book Tracks China's 'Total War' amid Fentanyl, COVID Deaths

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National security veterans accuse China of waging hybrid war through fentanyl, cognitive warfare, and engineered pathogens

By TRH Global Affairs Desk

NEW DELHI, August 7, 2025 — In a provocative new report that’s sending shockwaves through security and policy circles, a team of US national security and intelligence veterans have claimed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is conducting a covert, state-directed biochemical war against the West using synthetic opioids, pandemic pathogens, and psychological operations.

In their book China’s Total War Strategy: Next-Generation Weapons of Mass Destruction, authors Dr. Ryan Clarke, LJ Eads, Dr. Robert McCreight, and Dr. Xiaoxu Lin argue that over 75,000 American deaths from fentanyl in 2022 were not just the result of addiction or failed drug enforcement — but casualties in a modern, asymmetric war.

“This is strategic activity that is driven by hostile state intent,” the authors assert, directly linking China’s state-backed chemical supply chains to fentanyl trafficking networks in Mexico. They describe this crisis as “biochemical warfare against a highly clustered group of Western countries,” targeting members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance: the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

A Doctrine of Total War

The Bureau reported that the book outlines what the authors call a “total war doctrine” rooted in Chinese military strategy. Under this model, China’s leaders, unable to prevail in a conventional conflict, are said to favour asymmetric, non-kinetic tactics to destabilize adversaries. These include: Synthetic narcotics (like fentanyl) with mass fatality potential; cognitive warfare through digital disinformation campaigns; and weaponized pathogens developed via clandestine research networks

The authors paint a chilling picture: that synthetic opioids are being used as a non-traditional weapon to collapse societal resilience, undermine public trust, and overwhelm healthcare and law enforcement systems. “They claim the CCP’s trafficking infrastructure is robust, resilient, and closely tied to military and intelligence organs — making it a far more dangerous threat than traditional drug cartels,” The Bureau reported.

Fentanyl as a Weapon, Not a Product

Unlike traditional narcotics, fentanyl kills so quickly and thoroughly that it destroys its own market, the authors argue. “Fentanyl-laced heroin does not generate a stable population of consumers,” they note, adding: “It annihilates it.” Yet production is booming, a trend they see as indicative of strategic — not commercial — intent.

“This isn’t just crime. This is war,” the authors warn in the book.

From Wuhan to Islamabad: The Biological Front

Equally explosive are the book’s allegations about China’s biological weapons program. The authors claim the CCP has used the COVID-19 pandemic as a “field test” to assess Western crisis responses. Drawing on open-source intelligence and Chinese-language research, they alleged that “COVID-19 began with an accidental lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The CCP rapidly pivoted to use the crisis for strategic advantage, surveilling global responses. China has expanded covert research into high-fatality pathogens like Nipah virus and African swine fever.”

The book further claimed that “Beijing is pairing genetically engineered viruses with nanotech for next-generation, precision bioweapons.” “One facility linked to China’s bioweapons effort is located in Islamabad, Pakistan,” stated the report by The Bureau, quoting the book, suggesting a widening geographical footprint of clandestine research.

Hybrid War Through Influence

The book also details Beijing’s cognitive warfare strategy — manipulating information systems and media narratives to destabilize democracies. Citing operations across Latin America, Africa, and Europe, the authors argue that China is exploiting naivete and elite capture to hide its most dangerous activities behind a smokescreen of influence.

“Feckless leaders are too naive to grasp the insidious assassin’s mace approach,” they write, referring to covert operations cloaked as diplomacy, trade, or academic partnerships.

Dangerous Claims or Dire Warning?

While the thesis may sound conspiratorial to some, the authors argue their claims are based on intelligence methodology and forensic evidence. The book pushes an unsettling idea: that the war may already be underway — not with missiles, but with molecules, memes, and mass overdose.

With over a million dead globally from COVID-19 and hundreds of thousands lost to fentanyl, the authors urge governments in the Five Eyes and beyond to treat China’s shadow war as a clear and present danger.

Total War Strategy reframes some of the 21st century’s most devastating crises — the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic — not as disconnected public health disasters, but as deliberate, strategic assaults waged by a hostile regime. The authors argue that failing to confront this threat as warfare, rather than crime or accident, would be a dereliction of duty by Western governments.

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