China is Not Our Enemy

America historically needs a named primary enemy. During most of my lifetime, that enemy was the Soviet Union/Russia. After 9/11, Middle Eastern terrorists were the primary enemy though they posed no existential threat. Now, the political class has deemed China as the enemy, though there is little to base that on other than a now important economy in which the West has heavily invested, and a growing military that is still not the equal of America and her allies. My masters’ thesis in the 1990s was that China’s actions could be explained by the embarrassing dominance of Western powers and other countries over a hundred-year period. I believe that notion still applies today.

China is not our enemy. They are an economic competitor and a country demanding respect by acting as a superpower like the United States. They have overseas military bases and infrastructure agreements around the world with their Belt and Road initiative. In the last forty years, beginning when Deng Xiaoping assumed the leadership in 1978, China has grown from a Maoist economic basket case of a billion people to a major economic player on the world stage, all while lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty under a Communist political system that borrowed economic philosophy from the West’s capitalism. They also have a declining population which will hurt their economy over the next few decades.

Their actions can be harmful. China has routinely stolen our intellectual property for decades and they continue to hack into our “systems” every day, something which I’m sure we do to them daily also. Their manufacturing capabilities have grown to such an extent that the West is dangerously too dependent on them for such items as pharmaceuticals, something we learned from the pandemic. Over the last twenty years, they have also cornered the market on rare earth minerals processing, so necessary for future electric transportation needs but also for the American defense industry. Kudos to them for seeing the future while America and the West were asleep at the wheel. This scenario is now similar to the Middle East’s dangerous strategic importance due to their vast oil reserves.

Their military is robust and still growing. Although they have had minor skirmishes with India along their mutual border and some expansionist probing against their Southeast Asian neighbors in the South China Sea, China has not been in any significant war since it invaded Vietnam in 1979. The most recent comparison I have read is that they are 10-15 years behind the United States technologically. However, their inexperience would show very quickly if they embarked upon a major offensive. And as we have seen in Ukraine, Communist militaries are not overly competent or innovative. When I was in the Marines just over twenty years ago, our military was light years ahead of even our allies, not just in capability but also in the cerebral aspect. Most of our senior military are brilliant and not only study the past but also project into the future when preparing our forces for conflict.

The narrative surrounding the Chinese military reminds me of our preparations for the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 when Iraq had the fourth largest land army in the world, had been battle-tested after eight years of fighting Iran from 1980-1988, and then invaded Kuwait to secure more oil fields. After America and the West had softened up the battlefield with air, the ground war against this supposed powerful enemy was over in 100 hours. The dynamic with the Chinese military may change in the next few decades, but today the Chinese appear to be testing their capability and other nations’ responses rather than wanting a full-scale conflict with anyone.

Therefore, the talk in America about China invading Taiwan seems premature. It sounds like Washington officials are searching for an enemy for political purposes. More likely, the Chinese expect Taiwan to naturally become part of China in the future, much like Hong Kong did. China does not think in election cycles like the West, but in the eventual prominence of China once again, and I believe they are willing to let Taiwan come to them rather than forcing anything in the short term.

We want both our countries’ populations to thrive in a secure, peaceful environment. For the foreseeable future, China will be an economic competitor but it does not have to be a military enemy. We should pare down our trade with them to a level that does not potentially hurt our national security or quality of life. Our military and intelligence communities should be vigilant and ready. But we should keep talking to China. All the time. America’s future warriors and their families will thank you.