“If the United States will not fight the world’s largest tyranny politically, then inevitably, it will have to fight it economically, and eventually, militarily,” Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng told the U.S. Congress in 2000.
What has emerged as a trade war by President Donald Trump with Xi Jinping’s China underlines the much larger struggle for global dominance between the rival powers and the very real possibility of the military conflict for which both sides are now gearing up intensively.
“China and America Aren’t Just in a Trade War. It’s a Fight for the 21st Century,” wrote Matt Pottinger and Liza Tobin, both senior China hands and veterans of the first Trump administration. “Xi and Trump are now in a zero-sum contest for global supremacy,” they argued in the Free Press.
Dissident Wei’s comments came at a Congressional hearing ahead of China’s 2001 access to the World Trade Organization, which helped propel it to the status of the greatest manufacturing power and America’s main strategic rival.
Market Abuse
Americans argue that China abused its global market access: stealing intellectual property, supporting strategic industries, manipulating its currency and depriving foreign companies—especially those from the U.S.—of fair access to Chinese markets. China denies any malpractice.
Two decades of cheap Chinese goods not only helped keep prices down for Americans, but also accelerated the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and financed a massive Chinese militarization that openly challenges U.S. power around the world.
“The days of China pillaging America are over,” said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller this week after Trump doubled down on Chinese tariffs, even as he paused those on other countries in the face of market turmoil.
China has met the tariff threats tit-for-tat and vowed not to bow to Trump’s demands. “China firmly rejects and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying move,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian.
U.S. hegemony, established after the Soviet Union was defeated in the Cold War, is what China now challenges—not only economically, but also militarily. President Xi has openly set the ambition of achieving global preeminence by 2049—the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover.
Is War Inevitable?
“War between U.S. and China, inevitable? No. Likely? Yes,” political scientist Graham Allison told the Harvard College China Forum last weekend, according to the South China Morning Post. Allison coined the term “Thucydides Trap,” based on the ancient wars between Sparta and Athens, to describe the high likelihood of a rising power and an established hegemon going to war.
There has long been a liberal argument that economic interdependence decreases the likelihood of war between countries. The trade war can only accelerate decoupling between China and the United States.
The change was already happening under the first Trump administration and under President Joe Biden. By 2023, China’s exports to the United States were barely 13 percent of its total exports, compared to nearly 20 percent when Trump was elected in 2016. Its imports had slipped to 7 percent from nearly 10 percent.
Ren Yi, a prominent nationalist foreign policy commentator, writing as Tu Chi, said: “Decoupling is absolutely not China’s goal, but it is a necessary response at this stage.”
Supply Chain Dependence
Comments from Vice President JD Vance underlined the strategic challenge of the trading relationship for the U.S. and the political difficulties of changing it. Chinese products are deep in America’s defense industry supply chains.
“There is a category of D.C. insider who wants to fight an actual war with China but also wants China to manufacture much of our critical supply. This is insane,” he posted on X. “President Trump wants peace, but also wants fair trade and more self-reliance for the American economy.”
While the focus of the U.S.-China confrontation has been on the trade war, there have been signs of a much more profound shift to countering China under the Trump administration—and not least in Trump’s rapprochement with China’s erstwhile ally Russia.
Military Buildup
The nature of the perceived Chinese threat was made explicit by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, describing “a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific.” He told horrified NATO allies in February that the U.S. priority was “deterring war with China in the Pacific” rather than Europe.
The U.S. threat to take over the Panama Canal because of alleged Chinese control fits with the strategic shift, along with a broader pushback against China’s rapidly growing interests in Latin America, which the Beijing-based nationalist tabloid Global Times described as “US’ bullying of its neighbors.” U.S. moves toward Greenland fit in the same vein, as China steps up its activities in the Arctic.
There are subtler signs too. Last week, it emerged that the U.S. government had banned employees and their families in China from romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens. China has cautioned its people over visits to the United States.
Meanwhile, the United States is gearing up to better counter China militarily with plans for an expansion of shipbuilding, in which China vastly outstrips the U.S. Navy and now has a bigger navy by some measures.
Nuclear Weapons
Trump has announced an expansion of the overall defense budget to $1 trillion and warned that China that the U.S. had “the most powerful weapons in the world,” without specifying what. China has been rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, too.
Any war in the future would likely differ hugely from those of the past, military analysts say, with both countries having invested in artificial intelligence and space capabilities. Hypersonic missiles and drones could also prove to be game changers, as could cyber warfare.
The U.S. has said that China is behind a years-long online infiltration of telecoms and other critical infrastructures in America, in what is known as “live off the land” operations and military “pre-positioning” aimed at bringing down civilian and military systems in the event of conflict.
Taiwan Flashpoint
The most obvious flashpoint for conflict could be Taiwan, which China has threatened to invade as it sees the self-ruled island as an integral part of its territory. But Taiwan is not the only point of friction and the U.S.-China rivalry is a global struggle.
While there remains a debate over whether the U.S. or China would emerge the bigger loser from a trade war, the economic consequences will also have implications for the abilities of both countries to build up their militaries and fund advanced technology development.
The more China suffers, the harder it may find it to risk a military challenge over Taiwan or elsewhere. Its currency hit a 17-year low against the dollar after Trump’s moves.
“The significance of economic decoupling cannot be overstated. By distancing the U.S. economy from China, Trump could be taking the first steps toward a broader China policy that strengthens U.S. resolve on key issues like tech and Taiwan,” wrote Pottinger and Tobin, who argue that it was ultimately China that began the trade war.
“Trump can finish it on favorable terms if he leverages the power of the world’s real market economies to isolate China rather than estranging the United States.”
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