Mention China to a typical foreign-policy “expert” on the left or right, and they’ll describe it as a formidable adversary with a chance to challenge the U.S. But that conventional wisdom is way out-of-date: Communist China’s war on the U.S. has already begun. The trick is that Beijing is trying to make sure Americans never realize they’re under attack.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is working to undermine the U.S. across economic, technological, informational, diplomatic, and gray-zone military domains. Especially since Xi Jinping’s rise, Chinese leaders have committed to diminish American superpower without triggering a U.S. military response. The Chinese don’t want a shooting war today, or ever, if they can help it. Instead, they’ve chosen to erode the foundations of American power by coercing U.S. allies, commandeering global supply chains, and bending international institutions toward Chinese interests. Beijing wants to do all this while keeping the U.S. reactive, fragmented, and unsure about how seriously to take the threat.
China’s most destructive maneuver has been to subvert the miracle of free-market capitalism by turning international investment and trade into a weapon against the U.S. and its democratic allies. Through subsidies, forced technology transfers, and state-directed investment, the CCP has planted itself on choke points in global manufacturing. That includes rare-earth minerals, battery components, active pharmaceutical ingredients, solar panels, steel and aluminum, and even advanced technologies like cutting-edge sensors.
