Distinguished Fellow Anka Lee argues that while the National Security Strategy includes robust language on China, the Trump Administration still needs a rallying cry to counter Beijing’s broader ideological mission.
“China is actively modeling itself as an example to the world – so countries, markets, legal systems, and consumer preferences will in time adjust to Beijing’s way of doing things…. Our friends across Asia, Europe, and much of the world don’t believe in Beijing’s vision for the future either. That’s the American story.”
China is more than a peer competitor of the United States. Beijing views America as a country in decline and seeks to erode American advantages in the world. For decades, we built and nurtured powerful relationships and immense influence globally – and Americans prospered alongside it – by fighting for and investing in our ability to define how the world worked. Today, China is flipping the script– an authoritarian government eager to set the agenda for us all.
The Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy includes some robust and pointed language on China. It rightly directs attention to Beijing’s predatory economic and trade practices. It focuses our military capabilities on threats to Taiwan’s prosperity and security. And it calls for action on China’s domination of supply chains and near-monopoly of critical minerals that are key to our own economic security and future. The Indo-Pacific section hits some good notes.
Yet, it is difficult to say what, exactly, is the Administration’s China thesis.
Put another way, what is the rallying cry that defines the global China challenge for our generation and explains why we must compete with China? Beyond a list of to-do’s in economic and military realms, the mission lacks cohesion. If we are somehow able to maintain a “mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing,” or if there is no immediate Taiwan invasion, are we then fine with Beijing’s broader ambitions in the world?
For two decades Beijing has been on the offensive, investing across every strategic sector: military, robotics, scientific research, and AI, especially applying them to daily life to demonstrate tangible value to regular citizens. Political kinship dressed as development aid. Commercial ties around the world. They also own the lanes on batteries and electric vehicles, not as a climate project but as an industrial play to command the future global market.
In doing all this, they are pushing to prove that authoritarian, top-down systems are able to leverage technology and deliver for people better than democracies. China is actively modeling itself as an example to the world – so countries, markets, legal systems, and consumer preferences will in time adjust to their way of doing things. Beijing is sharpening its coercive power by preparing for future wars determined more by machines and drones.
This cannot be our future. The United States is not alone in holding that conviction. Our friends across Asia, Europe, and much of the world don’t believe in Beijing’s vision for the future either. That’s the American story. That’s our rallying call – far from the one that China wants for us, with an America diminished, without the marvelous crown jewel of close friends and allies, dislodged and confused without a moral case for democracy, withdrawn to our own neighborhood and no longer championing ourselves.
