It’s time to move beyond the question of whether the United States is, or should be, in a cold war with China, for China’s cold war with the United States is well underway.

In fact, China’s multi-pronged “struggle” against America and the Free World has hot war dimensions. In the varied research areas of human rights and international institutions, cyber and information domains, military strategy, and global economics, analysts use words in common to describe China’s behavior. In collectively pointing to China’s coercion, aggression, deception, violations, threats, and attacks, they portray the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) domestic, regional, and global policies as definitively hostile.

China today is expansionist, fiercely anti-democratic, and determined to subvert the post-World War II, U.S.-oriented world order. Toward that end, it is deploying every grey-zone tool conceivable while building a massive military arsenal, honing war plans, and mobilizing forces to seize Taiwan. A drive for internal and external predominance that eschews accommodation is manifest everywhere: in omnipresent domestic repression and terrible atrocities against “minorities”; in the exploitation, intimidation and control that accompanies the CCP’s expansive military and economic footprint; in the worldwide exportation of authoritarianism, surveillance, and propaganda; in bellicosity and territorial and maritime encroachments against neighbors; and in the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis which aggressively challenges the West and backs other dictators and extremists.

The United States has no choice but to quickly regain a secure lead in hard and soft power. U.S. foreign policy must fire on all cylinders, and that includes, along with allies, containing China’s military, confronting China’s sabotage and espionage, and challenging China’s ideology. In other words, the United States must engage in a cold war that pulls from the previous Cold War the best practices for success.

The United States is more likely to be forced into a horrific war over Taiwan, or to choose temporary peace with China at the expense of Taiwan, if it stays the current course. (If past is prologue, policymakers might vehemently “object” to a Chinese incursion while failing to defend Taiwan.) The U.S. and allied deterrent posture and level of resolve relative to China’s shows the urgent need for bolstering defenses, rebuilding the U.S. defense-industrial base, and mounting a credible threat of overwhelming force. Given Western tendencies toward prevarication, incrementalism, and risk avoidance (all too evident in the response to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the failure to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion in the first place), the Free World must demonstrate the will and the means to preempt a Taiwan invasion, but to fight for Taiwan if truly necessary.

China’s subjugation of Taiwan would, in the words of Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Jude Blanchette, turn that vibrant, prosperous democratic country into a “penal colony, a police state.” The knock-on damage to America’s allies in the region, and to America’s credibility and reputation, would be devastating.

Yet, even short of full-scale war on Taiwan, China poses a dire threat to the Free World’s very security and way of life. Lest there’s doubt of the merciless, dystopian reality a CCP world order would bring, there’s the fact that China is the chief sponsor and enabler of North Korea, a country where repression is so omnipresent and severe that the country itself could be said to be a “camp,” and that routinely engages in nuclear brinkmanship. There’s the fact that China has forced Uyghurs into camps and prisons where sadistic torture and total control and surveillance prevail, and ethnic minorities and rural workers into forced labor. There’s the attempt to erase Uyghur and Tibetan identities and the abduction of Uyghur and Tibetan children into “boarding schools” for “re-education.” There is China’s alignment with Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine and with Iran’s brutal domestic crackdown and terror sponsorship.

Since this is the China we’re dealing with, it behooves us to face up to ways China is, already, engaged in a Cold War with hot war characteristics.

Starting with the obvious, there is China’s drive to replace the United States as the world’s dominant military power, dominance that can ensure imperial gains and compromise democracies’ decisions. The gargantuan scale and pace of China’s military build-up clearly suggest offensive as well as defensive purposes. Pentagon officials report that China’s overall military might is on a trajectory to surpass the United States and that China has the world’s largest Navy. Modern Chinese Maritime Forces found that “In terms of ship numbers, each of China’s three sea forces is the world’s largest by a large margin.” Making matters worse, the Office of Naval Intelligence says that China has over 200 times the ship and submarine building capacity of the United States. Moreover, the Department of Defense (DOD) warns the PLA Air Force “is rapidly catching up to western air forces.” No wonder Navy Admiral Philip Davidson told the Senate Armed Service Committee that “the military balance ... is becoming more unfavorable to the United States and our allies.”

Expansive partnerships between Russia, China, and Iran enhance the power of all three and challenge U.S. security and influence. The three countries benefit from energy trade, weapons and technology transfers, joint military exercises, breaches of sanctions, and (sometimes coordinated) anti-American disinformation. Testimony to the lethal potential of Russia and China combined, the RAND Corporation reported last year that U.S. forces were defeated by Russian and Chinese forces in European and Asian hot spots in simulated war games. Russia and China are producing space weapons to attack U.S. satellites and evade U.S. missile defense systems, and Russia is providing highly enriched uranium for China’s nuclear program. Add to this China’s cyber and bio-weapons capabilities, and dramatic ramp-up of nuclear weapons and intercontinental and submarine ballistic missile production, and the picture gets more alarming. In the words of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb, China “has an ever-growing inventory of sophisticated long-range strike systems putting US forces at risk at greater and greater distances.”

The DOD’s 2023 China Military Power Report not only confirms all this but says China’s nuclear build-up is “exceeding previous projections” and that China appears to be building a new intercontinental missile system that would enable it “to threaten conventional strikes” against the continental United States, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. Another chilling finding is that China is focused on “dominating artificial intelligence for warfare.” Notably, the report also highlights “China’s increasing military coercion.” This is seen in multiple “unsafe intercepts” of U.S., allied, and partnerships and planes operating in international air and seaways in the Indo-Pacific, in “intensifying military, diplomatic and economic pressure” on regional neighbors; and in ballistic missile overflights of Taiwan, warplane incursions into its air defense identification zone, and encirclement of the country with ships and drones. In August 2022, China mounted a “large-scale simulated joint blockade and simulated joint firepower strike operation” around Taiwan and fired ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

The strain China’s militarism and imperialism place on U.S. allies Japan and South Korea cannot be ignored. China uses both military and economic might to apply pressure. As examples: China’s maritime militias, coast guard, and navy routinely traverse Japan’s Senkaku Islands. South Korea decided to forbid domestic companies from working on Taiwan’s military submarine program due to the “risk of Chinese economic retaliation.” Given the combined nuclear and missile threats of North Korea and China, and China’s “no limits partnership” with nuclear-power Russia, Japan’s defense minister calls the security environment “severe.” It doesn’t help that China often cancels bilateral defense engagements, and has denied the DOD’s multiple requests for military-to-military communication.

China preposterously claims most of the South China Sea as its own, with a map based on “ancient navigation” that international law and common sense show has no validity. Thus, in addition to “island building” and construction of military bases and outposts in the South China Sea and beyond, China intimidates and harasses Southeast Asian countries. China’s illegal fishing, which devastates food supplies and livelihoods is common not just in the South China Sea, but as far east as Hawaii. And China has dramatically and provocatively expanded its naval-maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. Chinese ships have multiple times blocked and collided with Philippine vessels off Second Thomas Shoal, and have repeatedly entered Vietnam’s and other countries’ exclusive economic waters. In yet another high-risk maneuver in the region, a Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of an American B-52 bomber on October 24.

But we mustn’t fool ourselves. China’s aggression and hostility toward the Free World is global, not just regional, and takes many forms. Never mind Xi Jinping’s doublespeak for susceptible democratic ears to the contrary, Xi wants Communist China to defeat and replace the United States as the world’s superpower; the CCP’s every move proves it doesn’t want a “multilateral” world that respects “sovereignty” and avoids “meddling in internal affairs.” Xi believes China’s national-historical and international-communist destiny is to rule the world.

China’s tremendous success in making Western countries dependent on Chinese goods and supply chains and its major commercial agreements and loans on every continent have greatly augmented China’s power. Moreover, China has benefited from decades of highly aggressive espionage, corporate, political, and academic infiltration, and intellectual property theft, especially in the United States. China altered American, European, and Latin American universities via Confucius Institutes, sinology programs, and joint scientific research which advanced China’s ideological and military-strategic priorities. The CCP has worked assiduously to steer media narratives and compromise academic, business, and policy elites.

A world influenced by the CCP’s united front system and propaganda cries out for a United States of America that knows what it stands for and why, and sees U.S. power and ideals as “indispensable” for the kind of world we want to live in. Look, for example, at Latin America, where China has taken full advantage of moral and strategic deficits in U.S. policy. China, along with Russia and Iran, has significantly increased its presence and leverage, and support of oppressive anti-American dictatorships in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Venezuela even hosted Russian war games which included China, Iran, Cuba, and others in 2022. China is establishing airports, seaports, and space facilities, as well as Confucius Institutes, in the region. Honduras’ decision to drop diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of China and Brazil’s enthusiasm for “deepening ties” with China are sobering reminders of China’s sway.

In spite of China’s narrative of fighting terrorism, China backs terrorist groups as well as extremist regimes. Analyst Kabir Taneja explains China’s growing ties with the Taliban: "The core ideas driving Beijing's thinking are to solidify Chinese influence to a point where the West has very little space in the region for the foreseeable future [while] having first access to any economic, mineral and natural resource benefits.” Chinese (as well as North Korean) weapons are in the hands of Hamas and other Iran-backed militias. China and Russia have shrewdly saturated social media with pro-Hamas narratives. Beijing exploits China-owned TikTok’s popularity with American youths to inflame anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism. China, Russia, and Iran endlessly foment the chaos, strife, and division which give them new opportunities for control.

Across the “global south,” where America leaves a vacuum, China steps in ... to expand its military footprint, become the gatekeeper of vital minerals and resources, create economic and geopolitical dependence, and spread anti-democratic, pro-CCP propaganda.

China has made massive foreign infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, and real estate investments and has spent about $920 billion on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In spite of setbacks, the BRI has advanced China’s imperialistic drive, leading not only to new security agreements and docks for China’s navy, but also to the insidious expansion of Chinese information and surveillance technology. Hikvision's latest software offers “ethnic minority” recognition technology, an obvious tool for oppression. Among the deals that serve Xi’s claim that “the East is rising and the West is declining” are the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, Cambodia’s Ream military base, and the massive Pinglu Canal project.

The United States’ ongoing dependency on China for minerals and components key to advanced technology, medications, and even weapons systems exposes dangerous vulnerability to Chinese supply chains in critical areas. Making matters worse, a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute concludes that China is leading the United States in researching and developing thirty-seven of forty-four critical or emerging technologies across key sectors including space, defense, artificial intelligence, energy, biology, and quantum computing. Worse still, China uses the financial hub of Hong Kong for the clandestine acquisition of technology and intellectual assets from overseas” and the establishment of shell companies. It would be a gross error to do too little too late to address this problem.

China’s relentless cyberattacks against the United States and increasing penetration of critical infrastructure are additional ominous signs of the times. When a Chinese-sponsored hacking group targeted infrastructure including U.S. Navy telecommunications systems in Guam that are key to Pacific defense, that foreshadowed China’s likely instigation of cyber war as part of a move on Taiwan. China has the world’s largest number of state-sponsored hackers, and per a U.S. official cited in the Washington Post, “is developing cyberattack capabilities that could be used to disrupt critical services (for) the U.S. and key Asian allies and shape decision-making in a crisis or conflict.”

So too in international organizations, China fixedly pursues predominance. China, Russia, and Iran run interference for each other in the United Nations, and China uses bullying of member states and UN leaders to avoid accountability and dictate narratives. From corrupting the UN, the WHO, and the World Bank, to realigning the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, to attempting to turn BRICS into an anti-U.S. coalition, to forming new “Global Development,” “Global Security,” and “Global Civilization” initiatives, China never lets up. Xi insists China’s redefinition of the world order will free peoples from U.S. “unilateralism” and lead them to “equality” and “justice.” But the truth is found in China’s genocide of Uyghurs and severe persecution of Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong adherents and dissidents.

There is a connection between China’s antagonistic external aggression and draconian internal suppression. As groundbreaking scholar on the Uyghur genocide Adrian Zenz said at a conference I attended: China’s brutal “assimilation” of ethnic minorities, which even includes forced sterilization and abortions, is related to China’s belief that to be a global superpower it “has to achieve national unity.” Han Chinese nationalism and “unified (Chinese Communist) thought” are to serve the global struggle.

In addition to all of this, it is hard to look at China’s transnational repression of Chinese Americans; deceptive, uncooperative behavior during the Covid epidemic; sinister role in deadly fentanyl making its way to American streets; purchase of land near U.S. military bases; and the thousands of military age Chinese males recently apprehended at the southern border, and not worry about China’s ill-intent for the U.S. homeland. Clearly, China is weaponizing everything in its strategic tool kit against the United States.

The United States sees China as its chief adversary, and is resigned to “great power competition.” AUKUS, Five Eyes intelligence sharing, enhanced U.S.-Japanese military cooperation, and other strategic initiatives are good. An executive order controlling exports of advanced computer chips, microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence technologies is good. Congress’s Human Rights Policy Act and Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act are good.  But they are not enough. The White House must not skirt full enforcement of sanctions, or avoid secondary sanctions. The United States and its European and Asian allies must make building up and modernizing their military defenses and fortifying alliances urgent priorities. They must speed up weapons production and delivery of weapons to Taiwan.

Democracies should stress to non-aligned countries the dire implications of aligning with China; the “National Security Law” stamping out freedom in Hong Kong is the real face of the globalization of the CCP. And they should give Ukraine the weapons to win, not just hang on, and take a robust stand against Iran’s proxy wars. To do otherwise sends a dangerous green light to already emboldened China. Moreover, China’s drive for technological supremacy and control of the world’s data, rare earths, and energy assets require a coordinated, comprehensive response. Western businesses should end all businesses tainted with forced labor, cease complying with CCP demands to overlook human rights, and stop selling China dual-use technology. For the United States, there is no time to waste in rebuilding manufacturing and “onshoring” energy, food, and medicine.

America must rediscover its voice for freedom, once again become the partner of choice in commerce and development, and recall the post-World War II understanding that peace comes through strength. As China Commission chair Mike Gallagher says, “China is a threat to our sovereignty and our values.” Let’s act accordingly.

About the Author 

 Anne R. Pierce is an author of books and articles on American presidents, American foreign policy, and American society. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, is an appointed member of Princeton University’s James Madison Society, and was a Political Science Series Editor for Transaction Publishers. Follow her @AnneRPierce.

Image Credit: Chinese Military.