The China War

China’s War College made two contradictory determinations in 2015. One was that a war with the United States was inevitable, and the other was that China had no chance of winning a military confrontation with the United States.

Based on these contradictions, the Chinese War College released a document, in English, listing three forms of warfare: informational, economic, and kinetic (aka ‘guns blazing’). China determined that the United States would win a kinetic war, so while they saw war with the United States as necessary, they decided to use information warfare, and economic warfare, avoiding a kinetic war until China was in a position to win.

In accordance with the recommendations given by the Chinese War College, China announced, side by side with Barrack Obama, in the White House Rose Garden, that China was building research facilities on reefs in the South China Sea. At the time, this seemed benign, but it was a declaration of war.

China did not build research facilities, but rather what are essentially stationary aircraft carriers, complete with missile defense systems, radar, military aircraft, and 10,000 foot runways. China also claimed the entire South China Sea as territorial waters.

One third of all world shipping goes through the South China Sea, making these stationary aircraft carriers a vital military asset that China can use to cut the United States of from much of the world.

President Obama saw the United States as a declining power, and China as a rising one, and much of the world seems to see the international stage in this light. If we go back forty or fifty years, Henry Kissinger viewed the United States as a declining power, and the Soviet Union as a rising one. Kissinger’s advice regarding the Soviet Union was the same as the advice Obama was given regarding China: China’s eventual pre-eminence on the world stage was a given, making our job, as the declining power, that of nudging China in the right direction.

Ironically, it was not Jimmy Carter that bucked Kissinger, but Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan asked how big the Soviet Union’s economy was. He was told that it was about the size of California’s, but upon further analysis, it was determined that the Soviets were lying about their economy, and that it was only about half that size.

Reagan saw the Soviet Union as an empire stretched to the breaking point, and decided to stretch them until they broke. As we all know, the Soviet Union broke.

The United State’s banking system holds $19 trillion in assets, and about 10% of those are non-performing, leaving about $17 trillion in performing assets. China’s economy is no more than half our size, so they can support no more than about $8.5 trillion in performing assets.

Non-performing assets are worthless, but are kept on the books to borrow against.

China’s banking system holds $45 trillion in assets, $36.5 trillion of which are likely non-performing, and if China is not reporting accurate numbers, their economy may be in even worse shape… China is sitting on top of the largest impending banking collapse in world history.

Trump saw that China was in a weak position, and he recognized China’s economic warfare for what it is. Trump retaliated – hence the trade war.

China, however, has another front, and one Trump has a hard time countering: the information war. We all know that China hijacks intellectual property, trade secrets, and confidential data, but that is just the tip of the ice burg.

China denies access to their 1.6 billion people, to any media house that prints anything China finds objectionable, and there is nothing China finds more objectionable than the prospect of losing a trade war with the United States. As such, China blocks our media from printing anything pro-Trump, and does everything it can to encourage our media to print as much anti-Trump propaganda as humanly possible. China’s goal here is obvious: wait out a one-term Trump Presidency, and negotiate with a Democratic President in 2021 – a President who is onboard with the rise of China, and the decline of the United States.

Whether or not Xi Jinping can wait until 2021 to end the trade war is an open question. Xi Jinping has made himself the dictator of China (for life, no less), but that does not mean he does not have anyone waiting in the winds to take over for him, and if China falls into enough turmoil, President Jinping’s ‘life’ could prove surprisingly short.

Hong Kong shows how weak China’s economic position really is. Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region of China, and China, in need of Hong Kong’s wealth, is working to end Hong Kong’s autonomy, causing Hong Kong to rebel.

Our media shows how weak we are, in terms of the information war.

China controls our media, and through it, our access to information, but how far does China have its tentacles into our ‘deep state,’ our technology companies and our financial sector? Based on how Google and Facebook follow our mainstream media’s lead, it would appear that China has a lot of influence.

The leftward lurch of the DNC is evidence of Chinese influence, and I think the natural notion on the left to think of the United States as a nation in decline, makes the DNC a natural Chinese ally.

If Trump loses the next election, China may well tie our financial sectors together, such that when their economy implodes, we will have to prop them up. If that happens, China wins, and since China considers this a war, if China wins, we lose…

Conversely, if Trump wins reelection, China will have no choice but to end the war, and come to the negotiating table.

The notion that the United States is in decline likely comes from the 20th Century historian, Will Durant. Will Durant wrote that the rise and fall of civilizations is cyclical, with the dominant civilization gradually becoming softer, while some other civilization ‘still in the bush’ (as Durant put it) becomes ever more hungry. Periodically, the hungrier civilization devours the weaker one, and in so doing, replaces it.

History proves Will Durant correct, and our civilization will one day be devoured by another, but the date when this will happen is not written in stone, and our civilization can continue to prosper if we simply choose to do so.

Trump chooses to prosper, and for all his faults, that is the correct choice, whether the media admits it or not.

If you agree with this message, we ask that you share our content to help get the word out. Also please consider supporting The Daily Libertarian through our Patreon account, at https://www.patreon.com/wgarneau.