China Is Going to War

The signs are unmistakable: China is preparing to go to war.

For one thing, Xi Jinping can’t stop talking about it, turning to the subject at every opportunity. At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in March 2023, for instance, he repeated a favorite slogan: “Dare to fight.”

Xi’s message has quickly filtered down through the ranks. In the following month, the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, after completing provocative air and sea exercises around Taiwan, announced it was “ready to fight.”

The Chinese regime is doing more than just talking, however. It is implementing the largest military buildup since the Second World War; it is trying to sanctions-proof itself; it is stockpiling grain; it is surveying America for nuclear weapons strikes; and, most ominously, it is mobilizing China’s civilians for battle. China’s military has, Cultural Revolution–style, launched a purge of officers opposed to war.

In one sense, the Communist Party of China has been at war with America for decades. The Party, despite official denials, has been engaged in “unrestricted warfare,” a doctrine taken from the title of the infamous 1999 book by two then Chinese air force colonels.

China’s regime has been, among other things, using fentanyl to kill tens of thousands of Americans a year, stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. intellectual property annually, engaging in predatory trade practices for decades, and fomenting violence on American streets. Through Chinese-owned TikTok, the Party has been trying to divide the American public.