Intent.  Address the basis for inevitable war between USA and China. This is predicated on China aggressively exploiting massed advantages in the face of USA’s disunity and distractions in overcoming these.

This report avoids long narrative.  It relies on bulletized logic trails and a menu of perspectives in outline formats for ease of reading and cherry picking.   There is redundancy, because each paragraph is intended to stand alone.

Action vs Strategy.  USA has taken strong action in the past without full grasp of the strategic realities it was about to face.  What did USA gain from over a decade of war in Vietnam?  Where is USA now after 19 years in the Afghanistan-Iraq theater of operations?  How did USA manage to allow the Chinese Communist Party to gain an upper hand wielding economic power as a form of war?  Discovery of strategic facts has tended to follow US action, not precede them.  This is a present liability.

The Bottom Line:   A virus from Wuhan shut down America and impacted the whole planet.  In so doing, the Chinese Communist Party postured itself to exploit well-contrived advantages to pursue global dominance.  This preparation spanned almost half a century.  Growing evidence and indicators suggest this is unmistakably war.  China’s success in gaining extraordinary advantages over USA points to three factors:

• US Superpower has been inattentive to this matter for many years
• It is now trying to catch up fast on this neglect
• In so doing, it is pushing China toward a fuller war footing as a survival necessity

Questions.

• Does USA understand the CCP’s concepts of competition and war, as well as the motivations behind them?
• Can both authoritarianism and civil liberties endure and thrive as competitors in a globalized world or must one triumph? Is this question not the essence of an unavoidable Second Cold War?
• Can one belief system compel changed behavior in another?
• Can USA survive the Chinese Communist Party’s many advantages specifically aimed at USA?
• Can the CCP survive a rebalanced playing field or will this automatically lead to its demise?
• Which opportunists will exploit the gaps created by this China-US contest?
• In retrospect, what opportunities will both sides see that they missed in this Second Cold War?
• What are the implications and impacts of US and China de-coupling in terms of deglobalization?
• Is the CCP’s survival imperative fatally ignoring the reality that it specifically regarded America as the model to mimic in order to surpass America? Is not CCP’s thinking innately flawed in premise that authoritarianism is capable of harnessing the very openness, freedoms and human vitality that are the genius of “the American model”.

Types of War.   The following forms of war bear consideration in the current context of China’s no-rules unrestricted competition for global dominance as the basis for China’s stability, prosperity and security:

• Economic Competition as War.  Monopolization of manufacturing, natural resource control, overseas infrastructure control, and the economic addiction of government leaders, business leaders, investors and consumers.  The amalgamation of fiscal wherewithal.  Money as a projectable weapon for strategic advantage.
• Mobilization as War. China’s optimization of organic capacities, super-enhanced by harnessing the global capacities of in-place surrogates, proxies, mercenaries and national traitors = Deployed battle formations.  Power connected and projected.
• Indirect Aggression as War. This involves non-lethal devastations that range from subversion to denial of products, leveraging US Government’s budget deficit, currency and banking manipulation,  buying US mainstream media space, cyberattacks, satellite “accidents”, contract security forces protecting China’s overseas’ investments, take-over of Pacific Oceana by cash payoffs, isolation of America from its allies, and much more. Link:  Chinese Communist State Media Chief Threatens to Host AntiFa, BLM Leaders    All this avoids US military retaliation against China.
• Lethality as War. This ranges from non-attributable sabotage, terrorism, assassinations, militarization of mercenaries and contracted security services, contrived naval ambushes in the South China Sea, and other Lethalities up to nuclear blackmail and limited nuclear strikes on an attributable or non-attributable basis
• Information Weaponization as War. In the end, the most devastating of all forms of war is this one. This is because China’s intended monopolization of 5G technology is a death knell enabling ultimate control of human endeavors globally.  All at the click of a Chinese communist authoritarian mouse. 

China’s Obvious Case for War.

• The Past. The West’s colonial subjugation of China from 1839 to 1849 is neither forgettable nor forgivable.
• Fatal Philosophy. The West’s civil liberties innately endanger CCP’s authoritarian dominance and survival.
• Operation Desert Storm, 1991, proved US Superpower’s military might to be uncontestable.
• In 1991 China signaled how to defeat USA in the Chinese treatise, Unrestricted Warfare.
• China’s application of Unrestricted Warfare principles subsequently delivered a wide range of advantages over the US Superpower.
• US Hardball. President Trump’s tariffs and economic maneuvers terrorized CCP’s dominance game.  CCP faces the prospect of no progress or, worse, regression.
• Why not? With USA now sufficiently weakened and distracted, it is logical for CCP to exploit advantage to keep its strategy alive and moving forward.  This is less risky than playing a “wait and see” game on US economic aggression getting more troublesome and the American giant fully arousing and rising.
• The clock is ticking. COVID-19 represents a deadly act that has weakened USA for exploitation, but this has exposed CCP’s dominance agenda to the world.   
• CCP despair is fact.

China’s Less Obvious Case for War.

• CCP’s current grip on power globally is not absolute. All is not well on the Chinese mainland, as well.
• Imperative: CCP absolutely must keep its massive workforce employed.
• This is now threatened by CCP exposing its global dominance intentions.
• Being “found out” means the CCP’s strategy can unravel.
• More importantly, is the enduring fact that China cannot feed itself.
• A coming solar winter may impact global food production devastating China’s internal stability.
• China thus seeks “Lebensraum” as did Axis powers in World War II.
• Most importantly, Trump went after Huawei Technologies Company as the center of the CCP’s 5G dominance campaign. This was a direct attack on the CCP’s “magic weapon”.  5G is the vital heart for assured resurgence and dominance by China.
• Symbolically, this was a strategic assault on Chinese communists’ Long March that began in 1949.
• China’s expansionism and aggression becomes vital in this existential context.

USA’s Case for War.

• 100,000+ American citizens murdered.
• US allies harmed.
• American economy battered.
• Palpable ill will by CCP leadership past and present.
• USA bested by the Chinese Communist Party wielding many monopolies, surrogates and advantages.
• CCP may feel it must aggressively exploit advantage.
• A showdown between beliefs in Authoritarianism and Human Agency is inevitable. Why not now?
• This puts USA in a “dither or try” / “do or die” situation.

Blinding Flashes of The Obvious.

• For USA.
  • The Warning. China’s former Defense Minister, General Chi Haotian, specifically insisted in 2005 on bio-weaponry as the means to defeat USA.  This was to provide China with continental America as vitally needed space for the 21^st century.  Link:  Coronavirus – China’s Secret Plan to Weaponize Viruses
  • A virus from Wuhan crippled the planet. USA took the brunt of the attack.  The virus was clearly manmade. This discovery is now widespread.  Link:  COVID-19 Has Properties That Have Never Been Found In Nature Before
  • This was followed by massive CCP disinformation, manipulations, and diplomatic pressure around the world. Desperation because of CCP exposure.
  • Now faced with increasing exposure of facts and vilification of China, President Xi Jinping has told his country to “prepare for war”.
  • Americans, however, are fixated on Black Lives Matter.
• For China.
  • The CCP cannot afford full transparency or it will lose its hold on many advantages.
  • The unpredictable US President has proven confounding in bare knuckles economic brawling with China’s President, Xi Jinping.
  • Resulting decline in employment on China’s mainland can be catastrophic.
  • Any perceived endangerment to China’s Food Security would be cause for war in and of itself.
  • CCP has the advantage of being well postured to unleash punishing aggressions by diverse means against a weakened USA.

Facts.

• Communists have meant “We will bury you!” ever since Nikita Khrushchev first used these words.
• Now Xi Jinping has told his country to “Prepare for war”.
• The 5 Eyes (America, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand) have authentic shared impulses based on The Magna Carta. Their unity is a basis for solid footing in contesting China’s authoritarianism.
• The Chinese Communist Party offensive campaign diminishes America’s wherewithal to resist the CCP’s will.
• USA’s lack of an accurate orientation toward China means it massively missed the context to accurately evaluate facts. Ensuing blindness permitted CCP gradualism to systematically weaken USA.
• The Chinese Community Party, ever “on plan”, set conditions to wage war by any and all means.
• COVID-19 tipped the CCP’s hand. It may be too late for USA to recover.  This is due to devastations now diverse, dynamic and deep.  No quick fixes.
• USA will have to pull together in coming close fights of all kinds, while addressing strategic issues not faced for decades.
• Americans still generally do not accept that they have been at war. Worse, USA is not participating in it.
• Election year politics can do what no threat can do: Turn Americans’ collective gaze away from current and coming CCP devastations.

America’s Liabilities.  

Where do the combination of these liabilities leave USA today?

• It has not recognized that China has been waging war against it.
• Americans’ instinct for national self-preservation has been weakened.
• By its own hand, USA has enabled itself to become degraded and endangered.
• Fortunes have been made without a shred of responsibility for America’s survival.
• Lack of expertise in economic realities, asymmetric mindedness and strategic pro-action has weakened USA.
• America has lost allegiances. China was cunning enough to win them.
• USA has internal divisions on domestic matters that prevent alertness to existential threats.
• Integration of Americans’ diversity for advantage is under direct assault from without and within.
• America has abundant capacities, but these are not optimized to counter China’s diverse aggressions.
• The US Superpower is not inclined to use asymmetric approaches as a main effort to counter these.

“War Upon Us.” 

Escalation and expansion of aggression may be too compelling for the Chinese Communist Party to pass up. “USA is being exhausted before it has been tested.  It has permitted itself to be degraded so that it is disinclined to contest aggression and exploitation.  In communist thinking, mobilization for war is war.”  In this context, the CCP has been on track for almost five decades.  Any nation state is vulnerable to foreign and internal aggression, attacks and overthrow under the following conditions whether these are real, contrived or perceived:

1. Extreme economic crisis
2. Extensive national debt
3. Massive unemployment
4. Rabid partisan politics dividing national unity
5. Highly politicized government departments and agencies
6. Government leaders cowing to rioters
7. Diminished law enforcement
8. Foreign manipulation of government, business, media and academia
9. Active subversion from inside and outside
10. Media manipulation of popular perceptions
11. Dispersed and diminished national defense capacities
12. Inattentiveness to existential threats

Implications.

• US openness to China since 1971 has destroyed critical points of national defense against the CCP.
• CCP’s marketing and manipulation eliminates the Peoples’ Republic of China being regarded as “enemy”.
• America’s addiction to “Made in China” then results in the inability to oppose the CCP.
• This has enabled CCP to wage war by other means without eliciting push-back.
• USA now has a much-diminished instinct to protect its own survival.
• After almost 50 years of weakening America, near-perfect circumstances now exist for Chinese communist leaders to fully press advantage.

Conclusion.

• CCP has specifically dedicated itself to overcoming and dominating an inattentive US Superpower.
• It is telling that President Trump used the theme of “China’s rape of America” in terms of intellectual property theft, at the same time Xi Jinping was focused on soybean imports. Survival underlies both instincts.
• Trump punched hard with tariffs. Xi counter-punched.  Neither has yet used all the moves they are capable of.
• In this rivalry, COVID-19’s creation can legitimately be seen as a competitive lethal act to be used to devastate USA at some point.
• The virus’s subsequent release (accidental or intentional) constitutes mass murder prosecutable under The Rome Statute. This lethality moved Sino-American competition into a new dynamic.
• In the Information Age, the CCP cannot shake horrific past and ongoing human rights violations.
• In The New Dark Ages, fragmented USA cannot shake the fact that the CCP is superior in the art, science, unified action, and discipline necessary to triumph in this era.
• In this contest, systemic and systematic weakening of USA by CCP leadership now pays off. This is seen in terms of a softened America now vulnerable to increased CCP aggression, at will.
• “War” for China is not a matter of choice. It is only a matter of which combination of competitive weaponry to next use in ongoing warfare. 
• For authoritarian China, the lines don’t blur between war and competition. They merge.
• For fragmented, embattled America, it must rapidly overcome limited concepts of both, or otherwise be disadvantage in both.

The Decisive Factors.  In the end, any war between US and China, cold or hot, will come down to the following factors.  These have to do with Authoritarianism’s competitiveness with the democratic principles of Human Agency.  This means in terms of sustainable, supportable and embraceable models of governance, economics and societal well-being:

How will the market respond to China’s authoritarian model in contrast to America’s model? 

How will each model substantively transform to earn and retain market favor?

The China Factor’s next report, #010, will address strategic issues as a potential basis for USA and The American Model to redress disadvantage, recover and rebound.  This does not mean its model of the past, but an evolved one that has marked advantage over authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

Sincerely,

The China Factor Network

p.s.  Along with all of our reports, we invite counter-point arguments and inputs.  Contact us directly by clicking here.