The cold war between the Chinese regime and the United States has many dimensions, but it is fundamentally an ideological one caused by the regime’s communist ideology.
Communism is innately aggressive by its own logic, as it must destroy alternative political ideologies and polities. It is brutal in its suppression of human freedoms and liberties because it knows it is an illegitimate political system that has no mandate from the people. It may only stay in power by coercion of the people.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot accept other ideologies and must confront and defeat them. Yet communist regimes must also be aggressive as they are illegitimate forms of government. They must always have internal and external enemies to motivate their believers and sustain and justify their totalitarian grip on power.
For the Chinese regime, what is now termed the new cold war with China is actually the continuation of the war against the West waged by Communists since the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917.
U.S. leadership and the American people must understand the CCP’s ideology in the context of this long-term ideological struggle. The Chinese regime seeks confrontation with the United States in order to achieve its conception of victory—the fulfillment of its ideological goals and the replacement of the United States by China as the dominant power in international politics.
By its logic, the CCP will fight the United States because it is the single major impediment to China’s strategic objectives. The U.S. model of political liberalism, capitalism, and a society and future defined by freedom, remains the most significant threat to the regime’s own existence and its justification for perpetual one-party rule.
These objectives have been boldly and transparently advanced by CCP leader Xi Jinping in his conception of a hegemonic China. The United States is the obstruction to the realization of China’s ambitions and its principal ideological opponent. Thus, it is the focus of the CCP’s enmity.
Xi’s address at the 20th Party Congress in October last year was momentous and provided key insights into his leadership and impact on the CCP. From a historical perspective, this Congress will be seen as a significant development with lasting implications for the CCP, China, and the risk of war in international politics.
First, in his address, Xi proclaimed that the CCP had achieved its first centenary goal, building a moderately prosperous society, and has now moved on to achieve the second centenary goal of building China into a modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Americans should interpret this as an indication that China now perceives itself, first, as capable of achieving its aims of supplanting the United States and replacing the liberal international order, and, second, these actions will be legitimate. The modern socialist country gets to set the rules.
Second, Xi was steadfast that the ideology of the CCP remains firmly anchored in Marxism and its guiding role for the Party. Xi is a firm believer in communist ideology. He seeks to strengthen the ideological purity of the CCP while strengthening its control over China and influence in the world.
Third, belligerence was the order of the day in Xi’s speech, as we have witnessed thereafter in March 2023, for example, with a series of major speeches and pronouncements. His aggressive discourse was directed against the United States with its denunciations of hegemonism and implicitly its allies, like Japan, and partners, like India. Most explicitly, Xi’s aggressive intent was directed against Taiwan and also the United States.
The world must grasp that Xi fervently believes in Marxism-Leninism and address the implications. His image of China—that China is now able to lead the world—his ideology—as a true believer in communism—and its consequence—his belligerence expressed against the United States, its allies, and Taiwan mean that Xi and the CCP will seek to cause ever more forcefully the change they want.
Like Joseph Stalin at the outset of the Cold War, Xi has provided the world with his vision for the CCP, China, and international politics. He has explained his reasoning for why the CCP is at war with the United States, its allies, and its partners. Now these states must recognize the gravity of the threat and respond with far greater alacrity than they have.
In response, the United States and the American people must grasp their ideological motivation: the United States must struggle to maintain its ideological principles of political liberalism defined by individual rights to liberty, freedom, private property, the duties and obligations of citizenship—and thus are the foundation of Western political institutions. The power of government is controlled and limited through, first, our Bill of Rights, the separation of powers through federalism, periodic popular elections, and the rule of law.
The struggle with the Chinese regime will define the 21st century and compel the United States to employ every tool at its disposal. A U.S. victory will require many steps, but the most important is the most fundamental: to motivate the American people and their allies to understand, enjoin, and sustain the fight. This requires understanding the CCP’s ideology but also compels Americans to understand the ideas that our Founding Fathers created and sustained generations so that the United States once again triumphs over a tyrannical foe.
The CCP is aggressive and ruthless in no small measure because it knows it is illegitimate. While it should never be underestimated—indeed, this struggle defined the 20th century—it is vulnerable because its ideology, in theory and its application, is inhuman and dehumanizing.
Communism has inflicted a horrific blood price on great peoples and civilizations from China to Cambodia, Angola to East Germany, and Russia to Spain. It is past time for Americans to understand its threat and once again defeat the ideology in the 21st century, as Americans did in the last.
