“Globally, all available resources are to be focused on a zero-sum increase in U.S. power and on the defeat of China as the newly arising rival.” — John Bellamy Foster, “The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism”
On September 3, China staged a grand gathering of over 20 foreign leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. China’s loss of some 20 million people was second only to the USSR in terms of deaths in WWII. We also need to acknowledge the 30,000 killed in the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 and the fact that 10 million Chinese were enslaved.
Before the parade in Beijing, the Summit Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) took place in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1. The meeting was the largest in the group’s decade-old history. In his Keynote Address, President Xi called on SCO member states to continue to resist “hegemonism and power politics,” and instead advocate for “an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive globalization.”
Each of these meetings takes the multipolar world a step further, as they transition from a “talk shop” to substantive and cooperative projects that “bypass the US-led system toward one that protects these countries from the West.” This formidable coalition is saying, “You can bully your European vassals into obedience, but not us.” All available evidence suggests that we are witnessing the emergence of a new coalition, the end of Western domination of the global system, and the advent of a new era — provided the world remains intact.
Photos of Chinese President Xi Jinping embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi brings to mind Zbigniew Brzezinski’s famous warning in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997), when he wrote “the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps India, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.” Little did Brzezinski know how rapidly the US would push India into a closer relationship with China and Russia, which gives multipolarity a tremendous boost. Nor did Brzezinski foresee the accelerating pace of common grievances and how quickly the multipolar world he feared would emerge.
I should note that the final declaration made no mention of Ukraine. My sense is that although the war will drag on, Russia has won and Ukraine is already in the rearview mirror. Not coincidentally, the developments in Beijing happened just as the neocons lamentably realized the long-term US military strategy of a major proxy war with Russia in Ukraine has, in all essentials, failed. Here, it’s important to note that for some within the national security establishment, Ukraine was seen as a mistaken use of limited US military resources, but now there is an overwhelming consensus that China must be taken on.
It is China’s economic growth and alternative development model that strikes fear into the capitalist ruling class. As Asia expert, Danny Haiphong, has asserted, “Without China’s economic development, there would be none in the Global South. These countries want to replicate China’s success.” In short, China is threatening a US-controlled world order that only benefits U.S. capitalists.
This apprehension accounts for the fact that on November 17, 2011, former President Barack Obama announced his administration’s “Pivot” or “rebalance” to China, which heralded a decade of increased levels of US imperialism toward Beijing. Arguably, today’s most influential iteration of this bellicose approach toward China is the work of Elbridge Colby, the current Under Secretary of Defense, who is known to “prioritize” China and has been called “The China Hawks’ China Hawk.”
Colby, grandson of former CIA Director William Colby, was a co-author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which argued that the U.S. should refocus its military might on the Pacific and that Europe and the Middle East were of secondary importance. (Incidentally, Bernie Sanders criticized Colby for halting arms shipments to Ukraine). Colby believed that two-front wars against Russia and China were dangerously stretching US military resources.
In his 2021 book, Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (Yale University Press, 2021), Colby advocates, as one reviewer states, “magnifying threats and increasing fears in order to build support among attentive publics and capitalist ruling class leaders for a possible war, this time, with China.” He urges the massive forward deployment of US military power in the Pacific to augment the existing 400 US military bases surrounding China. Furthermore, he counsels constructing an anti-China coalition that would include: Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, India, and Myanmar. It’s not lost on the Chinese that many of these former Japanese colonies are now US colonies.
Further, Colby seeks to build support within the higher circles of the monopoly capitalist class — and by extension, ordinary Americans — for a possible “limited” war to prevent China from “dominating a key region of the world.” Under certain circumstances, Colby endorses a “limited nuclear war which would achieve victory for the United States.” As journalist and geopolitical analyst KJ Ngo warns, Colby posits a seamless continuum between nuclear weapons and conventional war. At other points, Colby suggests that “selective friendly nuclear proliferation may be the least best option, though this would not be a panacea and would be dangerous.” His fear-mongering reaches a fever pitch when he warns that, “If China succeeds, we can forget about housing, food, savings, affordable college for our kids, and other domestic needs.” In sum, Colby recognizes China’s new position of strength, wants to deny it “regional hegemony,” and in doing so, he’s willing to risk a nuclear catastrophe.
Foremost in curbing China’s rise is the effort to portray it as a full-spectrum, moral enemy and threat to so-called “Western democracy.” This manufacture of consent to prepare for war requires a massive propaganda campaign, and in 2024, Congress approved 25 anti-China bills in just one week. It was hailed as “China Week” by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. One of the bills passed during the week allocated $1.6 billion, or $ 325 million per fiscal year 2023-2027, to subsidize media worldwide to demonize China. The legislation passed 351-36, revealing conclusive bipartisan agreement to counter China.
The new law specifically targeted China’s highly successful Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), under which China has built infrastructure and cemented ties with Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the semi-official voice of U.S. imperialism, has warned that the BRI “poses significant risks to U.S. economic and political interests and to longer-term security implications,” and the bill characterized the BRI as China exercising its “malign influence.” What’s so striking about this and other claims is that there’s never any evidence to support them. The “Chinese Threat” is simply assumed to be true and therefore perfectly legitimate, and even “morally right” to oppose China.
Finally, of the 100 countries surveyed by the Democracy Perception Index, more than three-quarters have a more favorable view of China than of the United States. Conversely, the Pew Research Center’s polling in 2025 indicates that Americans’ negative opinions of China are slightly less unfavorable than in 2024 — 81% in 2024 to 77% this year. Still, 42% see China as the country posing the “greatest threat” to the U.S.
We know that Americans are the most heavily propagandized people in the world. If the public is to be de-brainwashed about China, social media must take on an uphill but critically important role.
Recommending Reading on China:
Ken Hammond, CHINA’S REVOLUTION AND THE QUEST FOR A SOCIALIST FUTURE (NY: 1804 Books), 2023.
Carlos Martinez, THE EAST IS STILL RED (Glasgow, Scotland: Praxis Books, 2023).
Jeff Brown, CHINA RISING: Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations – The True Face of Asia’s Enigmatic Colossus (Brewster, NY: Punto Press Publishers, 2016).
Deborah Brautigan, THE DRAGON’S GIFT (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
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