Commentary
Chinese leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 7 that the United States would lose if it confronted China. The foreign ministry in Beijing delivered the message, so this was not just about trade, including Trump’s plan to impose at least 60 percent tariffs on China. The implied threat likely applied to the situations in Taiwan, the South China Sea, and many other places as well.
Trump is not the kind of guy to let such threats go lightly. It’s more likely that Xi’s threat will only provoke a more aggressive response on the part of the new U.S. president, who will have a majority in the Senate, a majority in the House of Representatives, a supportive Supreme Court, and a booming stock market behind him. U.S. allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia are numerous and strong.
Xi, on the other hand, faces economic problems at home, including a debt crisis at the local government level, property market collapse, unemployment, deflation, capital flight, and a declining stock market. Iran’s proxies are getting pummeled by Israel, Russia is struggling to hold what it took from Ukraine and is relying on inexperienced North Korean soldiers who are expected to get beat.
So Xi has very little latitude in starting his relationship with the newest U.S. president with a threat. But he did so, albeit paired with an offer of “cooperation” to China’s advantage. Trump is likely already taking advice from Vice President-elect JD Vance, a confirmed China hawk, on how to undermine the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) even more than previously planned.
Here are a few policies that could be implemented in response. Many more have been suggested.
First, break down the Great Firewall of China that keeps regular Chinese citizens in the dark about all the bad stuff that the CCP constantly does, from genocide against the Uyghurs and Falun Gong to the disastrous plan for an invasion of Taiwan. If only Chinese citizens understood the great damage that the CCP is doing to China, they might be more willing to democratize the country in any way they can manage, which would turn it into an ally rather than an adversary.
Second, start requisitioning China’s global assets in response to the trillions of dollars in value held by Americans that the CCP stole or destroyed over the last decades. This includes trillions of dollars from the COVID-19 pandemic, trillions from intellectual property theft, and trillions more from the costs of defending places like the South China Sea. To pay for all of this, China’s global assets could be seized, U.S. debt held by China canceled, and China’s global shipping fleet acquired or taxed. Given that China does not follow the law of the sea, there is no reason to afford it the privileges of freedom of the seas. The U.S. military still has the power to impose these solutions. Still, at some point in the near future, especially when China’s military has grown further in size and sophistication, those opportunities will be gone. Then, there will be little to stop the CCP from doing the same to the United States, followed by doing to us what it is doing to its own minorities today.
Third, consider assisting our closest allies in acquiring their own nuclear deterrents to create a containment ring around the country. China is supporting its “axis of evil” countries, including Russia, Iran, and North Korea, to fight in Europe and the Middle East, which is depleting U.S. defense stores, such as artillery shells and anti-missile defense equipment. If this goes on much longer, the United States will have little remaining to defend itself or U.S. allies and partners, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. Consistent with Trump’s suggestion in 2016 with respect to Japan and South Korea, some of these allies could better deter the Chinese regime and its “axis of evil” with nuclear weapons. This would improve our allies’s own deterrent credibility while decreasing risk to the United States.
Fourth, consider that in many cases, the best defense is a good offense, as Trump knows more than most. The Chinese regime is nickel-and-diming us to death around the world, to the point that it is quickly gaining on us economically and could leverage that global economic influence to wrest political control of the United Nations or European Union, for example, for use against some future U.S. government. Before that time comes, perhaps decades from today, the CCP threat could be nipped in the bud. This could be done quietly through cyber, for example, by degrading the People’s Liberation Army’s aerospace and naval assets, including with Trump’s Space Force. As China’s technological sophistication is developing rapidly, there is not much time left for defensive measures such as these.
Fifth, the CCP could be officially designated as an international terrorist organization. While many might think this and the other proposals listed here go too far, a deep understanding of the party’s origins, rise, and current methods demonstrates that it, unfortunately, fits the bill. In the context of a constant rise and fall of empires and alliance systems throughout history, those that failed to capitalize on their advantageous positions when threatened by a truly strong adversary, including many terrorist organizations, always fell from their formerly dominant, established, and seemingly impregnable positions.
For these and other reasons, the CCP is a threat and entirely inconsistent with American values and interests. As the CCP does not follow the normal rules of the game that most countries uphold, there is no good reason to play nice with the CCP, as we have done since before 1949. We bent over backward to build a “level playing field” for China. We engaged. But those decades of friendly overtures failed, and now the CCP is, in effect, killing Americans at the rate of tens of thousands a year with its failure to fully cooperate on counternarcotics. When it comes to the CCP, Trump has demonstrated through his business and political acumen, proposal for 60 percent tariffs, and other strategies that he has exactly the skills and smarts required to fight the CCP and win.
