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By Gordon G. Chang
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At a time when the Chinese regime is assaulting the U.S. at home and abroad, President Donald Trump’s national security strategy does not label China as a threat. The document, released December 4, states that America seeks “a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration outlined China as “the U.S.’s primary foreign-policy challenge” in its national security strategy.
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That’s no longer the case. As the paper pointed out, “The White House’s new national-security strategy signals a softer approach to competition with Beijing, playing down ideological differences between the two superpowers and marking a break from years in which China was singled out as posing the U.S.’s greatest challenge.”
There is no question that the regime headed by the Communist Party of China poses the No. 1 challenge to the United States. In fact, no other country comes close.
Communist China is not the only regime threatening the United States, but it is the only one that matters. None of the other threats—Russia, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela, just to mention the most prominent—would be fearsome if it did not have Beijing’s backing.
The national security strategy, without question should have mentioned this, especially because the Chinese regime has formally designated the United States as its enemy.
In May 2019, a landmark editorial in People’s Daily, the self-described mouthpiece of the Communist Party and China’s most authoritative publication, declared a “people’s war” against America. In March 2023, PLA Daily, the main propaganda organ of the People’s Liberation Army, described that term as “total war.”
Beijing’s reaction to Trump’s national security strategy was harsh, telling the U.S. that China “brooks no external interference” in its affairs, especially Taiwan.
Although no other country was mentioned more in the national security strategy, there are few references to China by name. It is clear, however, that the Trump administration has the Chinese regime in its sights. In numerous places throughout the document, there are statements about others posing threats, and China is the only state fitting the descriptions.
For instance, the national security strategy mentions “the potential for any competitor to control the South China Sea.” “This,” the document states, “could allow a potentially hostile power to impose a toll system over one of the world’s most vital lanes of commerce or—worse—to close and reopen it at will.”
It’s clear that China—and only China—is the “hostile power” that has both the ambition and power to do this.
The unwillingness to mention China by name has consequences. For decades, American presidents have tip-toed around China, unwilling to anger Chinese leaders. The thinking was that “quiet diplomacy” worked best to build a lasting relationship. China’s leaders took the reticence not as a sign of partnership but as a symptom of weakness.
The Chinese became emboldened as they began thinking that others would once again acknowledge their right to rule tianxia, or “all under Heaven.” In fact, Chinese conduct has become more assertive and belligerent as others have sought to placate them. Xi Jinping has engaged in so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy because America and its friends have effectively let him.
Ronald Reagan did not suffer from such misapprehensions. He straight out called the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” an apt description whose repeated utterance had something to do with ending its existence.
His tough stance kept an uneasy peace. At the moment, it’s not clear that Trump’s national security strategy will do the same. Perhaps there is someone who will keep China in line—Japan’s “Iron Lady” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi last month said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation,” a term in Japan’s 2015 security law. In sum, she was taking the position that Japan could mobilize its Self-Defense Forces.
Beijing’s reaction was swift and unhinged. The Chinese counsel-general in Osaka publicly called for her beheading. Then, after a barrage of propaganda and a slew of retaliatory economic measures, Beijing began military maneuvers—potentially sparking a war with Japan and almost certainly others. Over the weekend, Chinese fighter jets in two separate incidents “painted” Japanese fighters with targeting radar, which is the last step before an actual attempt to shoot down enemy aircraft.
So far, Takaichi has not backed down. She has had no problem confronting the Chinese.
As Trump’s national security strategy states, “Preventing conflict requires a vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific, a renewed defense industrial base, greater military investment from ourselves and from allies and partners, and winning the economic and technological competition over the long term.”
That is all true, and “preventing conflict” also requires the courage to call out irresponsible powers, mainly China, by name.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America and The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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