China is set to build an empire where its economic, strategic and security interests in Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Arctic will be safe guarded for generations to come. Using the concepts of hybrid warfare and grey-zone warfare, this article argues that the implementation of China’s 2015 military strategy of active defence 1 and the territorial objectives in the 2019 Defence White Paper 2 are being informed by examples of contemporary Russian warfare approaches.This article compares the present Chinese aggressive foreign policy approach in the South China Sea with the precedents of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing aggression in the Ukraine. It concludes with a call for decision-makers in Australia and other Western democracies to learn from these lessons in order to counter such hybrid threats.