America may never go to war with China. But then again, with the way things stand at the moment, we could be at war with China any day now, simply through one small miscalculation on either country’s part. Most people know this, but they push it to the farthest reaches of their mind, because to really consider all that portends for the future of the world is purely mind numbingly horrific and a thing no one really wishes to see happen under any set of circumstances.

America is currently witnessing the early stages of what comes next — a China that not only seeks regional powers just as so many great powers do, but also a China that is preparing to shape the 21st Century in its image using social credit scores and an intrusive artificial intelligence operating its massive surveillance machine, totally different from the way the U.S. shaped the 20th Century, yet similar in the manner our leaders strived for dominance and superiority on the global stage, as we fought to preserve freedom and liberty both at home and abroad. Except China will be fighting for the rise of its power and the spread of Marxist-Maoist Communism and tyranny.

The competition is global, as both of our countries attempt to persuade various other countries to remain allied with them or make new alliances with countries previously uninterested and unengaged. The next ten years will be rife with consequences, both good and bad, and it will determine the direction for the world over the rest of this century, unless I miss my bet.

If there is any way to achieve such a thing, the Trump administration, or possibly a future administration, must find a way that convinces China to change and become a free and open society, because as things stand now, China’s actions since 2001 have threatened the American people and our prosperity, along with many other nation’s sense of safety and security. And it isn’t going to get done by softsoap diplomacy and appeasement as so many past administrations have used.

We have to address the China threat to America as it truly exists and stop treating China as if it is just a normal country. For the moment, President Trump and his people do seem to have a good grasp on this and they are moving in the right direction.

Just as an aside, 55 Days in Peking and The Sand Pebbles are two of the best movies ever made. Both give some good bit of historical background to our past tumultuous history with China, not in a totally accurate depiction but accurate enough. Even if our country made some initial missteps with China by forcing her to open her doors to our trade, the Opium Wars and such, after the fact, the U.S. recognized those mistakes and really did try to be a true friend to China, helping to liberate her from Japan during WWII.

But then Mao and the communists took China’s mainland in 1949, and our relations have been pretty much shit, from that point on.

The United States has had an interesting relationship with China, since 1899 and the Boxer Rebellion, and it devolved from friends to enemies and back again to frenemies, by 1972 when President Nixon decided it was time to “normalize” relations between the U.S. and the communist regime of China that was rising. President Carter added new dimensions to the dynamic between the two nations, when he gave China a “most favored nation” status on trade, forever changing the future of China and enabling the communists to enrich themselves and become ever stronger at the expense of the United States, as U.S. leaders hoped extensive trade relations would also allow U.S. principles to creep into Chinese society and eventually see China become more Westernized and more of a free society.

This was a foolish notion from the start. The Chinese simply went along for the ride, and they have used this relation over the past forty-five years to make their nation wealthy and strong, by cheating on every trade agreement and stealing Western technology, while maintaining their totalitarian system, even in light of the adoption of some aspects of capitalism, turning their system into more of a fascist state as opposed to a true Marxist communist state. And now, as China grows its military to surpass that of America’s, it is challenging us at every level, economically and militarily, presenting itself as the most extreme existential threat to America at this juncture in time, having aligned itself with Russia, Iran and North Korea in a military alliance and several other nations in regard to the BRICS financial system and the Silk Road Initiative.

China’s President Xi Jinping believes time and momentum are on his side. He believes America and the West are in a freefall and in decline, due to the many tumultuous years seen in the politics of these regions. He sees countries barely able to govern themselves, much less oversee the international world order they designed and coerced the rest of the world to accept after WWII.

The nations of the world are spectators of an emerging mammoth confrontation between the U.S. and China, as both jockey for position on the international stage, and we are in the early years of a fight that may well turn into a kinetic, full-blown, hot war between the two, even as President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping currently assure the world, that despite current tensions, this is far from what they wish to see. Both are competing for dominance on the international stage to be the one to shape the 21st Century in the image of their worldview and political ideology, and this battle will run over the next decade to determine the final outcome.

Much of China’s current Silk Road Initiative is focused on displacing the U.S. in every region around the globe, hopefully coming out the winner in this struggle without going to war. However, this hasn’t prevented China from resorting to massive cyber-warfare attacks, much like it did in between 2024 and the start of 2025, attacking the U.S. Treasury and our infrastructure systems. The recent rhetoric coming out of Beijing and the rush to a military expansion and build up in tandem with its aggressive actions in regard to international trade routes on the high seas and in hot spots in the world, such as the Red Sea and Ukraine — giving financial and weapons support to America’s enemies — exhibits that China is in fact at war with the U.S., and Xi really isn’t too worried about starting a major war right now, while moving to create a Chinese hegemony across all of Asia, including the sovereign nation of Taiwan.

In a 2018 speech delivered to the Central Affairs Work Conference, China’s President Xi Jinping stated:

“China now finds itself in the best period for development it has seen since the advent of the modern era; [simultaneously], the world faces great changes unseen in a century. These two [trends] are interwoven, advancing in lockstep’ each stimulates the other. Now, and in the years to come, many advantageous international conditions exist for success in foreign affairs“.

Just as many so-called “experts” misjudged the rumblings in Germany in the early 1900s, never believing there existed any overarching strategy within its government leadership which looked forward to the establishment of a German hegemony, first in Europe and eventually across the world, many “experts” view China from the same perspective. It’s suggested that China’s bureaucratic politics, factional infighting, economic priorities and nationalist knee-jerk reactions all work against its own desire to ultimately rule the world, but those experts fail to understand that just as Germany grew tired of its subordinate role in relation to Great Britain, so too is China, in particular Xi Jinping, tired of following the lead of the U.S. and being in a subordinate position.

While mainly focused on the Asian sphere, China’s elite see the decade ahead as a period of historical opportunity in which to expand China’s reach and influence into every nation of the world and its governance systems. China is looking to acquire “living space”, just like Adolf Hitler sought to find “lebensraum” for Germans during WWII. And as China’s economy currently faces its own struggles, especially now that it is in a trade war with the U.S., this endeavor has become ever more important.

America has lost more than 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, which has translated in millions of lost American jobs. Indirectly, this has resulted in China’s rise through the trade deficit, as the U.S. has consistently seen it to be somehow necessary to buy more Chinese product than we sold to them in return. Since 2001, our total trade deficit amounts to approximately $6 trillion, after we consider inflation too. This allowed China to significantly increase its access to capital, while spending these profits and also borrowing against the revenue.

And we must also consider that, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, China steals somewhere between $225 and $600 billion dollars worth of intellectual property each year, which is more than the annual trade deficit. Looking at the low estimate, not adjusted for inflation, this would equal a minimum of $5.4 trillion dollars of stolen technology.

Until Trump’s recent trade policy aimed at bringing China to heel a bit, the way U.S.-China trade was conducted benefited China much more than America, and it wasn’t truly in our best interest, since it funded our greatest rival’s plans to ultimately see us defeated by their hands. Since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, China’s economy has grown between eight and ten percent each year, some four times greater than America’s growth, until this year, and although some may not see this lopsided trade situation as a problem, as China grows stronger, America’s position in relation to China grows weaker; and all Americans should be asking themselves whether or not cheap goods are worth surrendering the current superiority of the U.S. in a manner that will most certainly see the collapse of our economy and our empire, to be replaced by a new world order dominated by China and its allies — Iran, Russia and North Korea — paving the road to an exponential growth of tyranny across the world.

Any person able to reason logically and analyze information by way of a cogent thought process surely must be able to see and understand that this is about so much more than trade, and that President Trump is trying to prevent China from becoming too strong to effectively deter over the next few decades. This trade reset, in part, is focused on doing just that, for a litany of well-founded reasons, to counter China’s expansionist agenda with a newfound strength, determination and resolve that uncouples the U.S. and Chinese economies where it matters most in those industries most crucial to our national security, such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, aircraft and transportation systems, artificial intelligence, information systems and critical manufacturing, e.g. steel production, along with our energy production via coal and oil.

And to get to a good point on the world stage, in regard to Trump’s trade reset, yes, Americans may have to deal with a little more economic pain, but it will be worth it in the end for a multitude of good reasons. It won’t hurt America to scale back its love for material goods and consumerism and, as suggested by President Trump, making do with two new dolls a year rather than thirty. America’s gluttonous need for more, more, more of everything is just another symptom of America’s own illness, but that’s a story for another day.

In many respects, China is just as ready to decouple its economy from America’s too. China seeks to keep growing economically, but more importantly, it seeks to rewrite the international world order and move to control the world economy via the BRICs system and a realignment of countries that join to oppose and isolate the United States — bringing the U.S. down as a world economic and military super-power.

It’s worth noting that China currently has four massive surveillance stations in Cuba, just ninety miles off the coast of the United States, affirmed by the Biden administration, according to the Wall Street Journal [on June 11th 2023]. Essentially, China has had a Cuba spy base near Havanna since at least 2019, which is too close for comfort, if one considers how many U.S. military bases and installations sit within range along the Southeastern seaboard.

Much like its Russian ally, China is using its new military might aggressively, not just against America but any and all nations that move to counter its expansionism. It hypersonic nuclear weapons are now less for defense than a means to threaten and coerce nations to bend and submit to its will and agenda, no matter the cost to those nations.

In March of 2023 in testimony before the House of Representatives, Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force, stated:

“I don’t think I’ve seen anything more disturbing in my career than the Chinese ongoing expansion of their nuclear force.”

Obviously, no one knows the true number of Chinese nukes right now, but the Pentagon placed the number at 400 in 2022, while suggesting China would quadruple that number by 2035, a number many say is too low. From satellite surveillance and other intelligence assets, several nuclear analysts, such as James Howe, noted nuclear analyst at Strategic Concepts and Analysis, believe China’s nuclear weapons production is on pace to have between 3400 to just over 3700 by 2035. Taking into account the current massive increase in China’s production of missiles and submarines, Richard Fisher, from the International Assessment and Strategy Center, says the number will more than likely be closer to 7000, a number consistent with their intent to achieve global hegemony and complete superiority and dominance over the United States and all other nations not already in its camp.

Such a rapid increase in nuclear weapons production is a bright-light indication of an intent to make one’s arsenal capable of being used in an all-out war, rather than as a defensive deterrence. Initially, America can look for China to threaten nuclear war for any number of reasons to see if they can coerce and intimidate America into submitting to whatever demand they make at the time. They have already exhibited such dangerous behavior in 2021, when China threatened to nuke Japan for supporting Taiwan and Australia for joining AUKUS 7, the joint submarine-building project that included the U.K. and the U.S. There cannot be any doubt that China is more than willing to make a nuclear first strike against the U.S. and its allies, when it finally decides it is necessary or at any other time of China’s choosing for any reason.

The Trump Administration has made the right decision to reset and reconsider the U.S. position on China, now and in all areas of geopolitical engagement, because President Trump has properly identified the Chinese Communist Party and China’s ongoing decades long policies as an existential threat to both America’s interests and global stability, based on a sober, eye-opening assessment of China’s overall ambitions and ideological intransigence. Anyone who views this administration’s recent actions taken against China as inflammatory, unfounded or extreme has missed the forest for the tree.

The reality of the situation reveals to all Americans that the United States is not fomenting an ideological battle. We are currently responding to an ideological offensive that was already launched by China some many years ago, no matter that China’s propaganda attempts to deny its dogmatic, intransigent tyrannical world vision by painting it as a “defensive” stand against U.S. interference in its global affairs. And in the meantime, Xi’s regime cracks down on its own people and tightens its grip over the Chinese population, suppressing their universal aspirations for freedom and liberty and human rights — the same thing they have done wherever they have gained influence and control in another country and the same thing they will continue to do wherever they go in the world.

The restoration of a Chinese hegemony over the known world is an aspiration that every Chinese leader from Emperor Ch’in, who started the Great Wall, to Xi Jinping has held close and believed to be rightfully theirs. And by and large, this idea is embraced by all Chinese who are extremely nationalistic and adhere to the concept of being a master race as a defining condition of their identity. We, the Americans and other Westerners, are still simply barbarians in their eyes, because racial superciliousness runs deep within the character of the Chinese people, having been deeply embedded within their consciousness over the past four millennium.

The world is currently witnessing something akin to the end of a regime sort of behavior emanating from China in its international relations, as its economy has begun to unravel, due to deflation, a reduction in exports and an overreliance on U.S. trade, as Trump’s 145% tariff on China takes its toll. Right when Xi’s regime needs friends, because it is not selling goods to the U.S., it is antagonizing Taiwan, the Philippines, and incredibly South Korea and Australia, too, thinking to project strength, as Xi and others within his power sphere claim that China has surpassed the United States and aren’t really dependent on trade with the U.S.

China can’t win this trade war with the U.S. as matters stand at the moment, and it is caving to some degree without acknowledging the fact outright. Xi can’t look like he’s talking to the U.S. under pressure, and he can’t appear to be unable to stand up to the Trump administration. And so, without any announcements, Xi’s regime isn’t collecting tariffs on some important items. This concession, if widely known, would create a huge problem for Xi and quite possibly lead to his end as China’s president, and so he hedges his bets by exerting his and China’s power elsewhere, maintaining his intransigence and inflexibility for the most part, even as Trump’s tariffs speed up the process of de-globalization and threatens China’s export-reliant economy.

China isn’t quite ready to fight a full-blown war with the U.S. just yet, and it would rather achieve its goals through other means. But, as civil unrest grows in China, Xi cannot now back down or openly make concessions to the U.S., because there are already signs of discontent with Xi across Chinese society, especially in the top military ranks. Xi has left himself few good choices, and if he does not compromise, China’s economy will fail, and if he does compromise, he will fail. Xi may actually feel compelled to start a war sooner rather than later, in order to hold power and protect himself from his rivals.

Whether or not the U.S. and China go to war in the coming few years, confidence is high in any military analyst’s office in the world that they will be going to war at some point in the not-too-distant future, and America should prepare accordingly, even as we charge our leadership with trying to avert such a terrible path in every manner possible. The Chinese too recognize that they are in an existential struggle with us to save their system and way of life, because of American principles and virtues that they reject and fear will contaminate their culture. The insecurities within the Chinese Communist Party make them fear the inspirational impact our principles will have on their power, and this continues to drive their adversarial relationship with America, in order to ensure Maoist Communism survives in China and spreads across the globe, even in America proper. Yes, war with China is inevitable, as long as someone like Xi Jinping rules it.

Marxist-Maoist Communism — a despicable, anti-human, death-dealing ideology — informs Xi Jinping’s decades-long desire for a Chinese global hegemony. America can no longer ignore the fundamental political and ideological differences between our two societies and cultures, which are totally incompatible and antithetical to one another, unless one follows the Democrat Party agenda, and as President Trump takes the first few steps in the right direction, one must remain aware that the Chinese Communist Party never has ignored our difference.

The world just became an even more dangerous place and hard years and dangerous times lay ahead for all America.

May 8, 2025

~ The Author ~
Justin O. Smith has lived in Tennessee off and on most of his adult life, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, with a B.S. and a double major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – minors in Military Science and English, for what its worth. His real education started from that point on. Smith is a frequent contributor to the family of Kettle Moraine Publications.