Don’t go wobbly on China, Mr. President

As the sun rises on a new Trump-era geopolitical chapter, Washington confronts a defining choice: Will America view the People’s Republic of China and its regnant Communist Party through the rose-colored lens of transaction and diplomacy, or will it soberly recognize Beijing as America’s foremost geopolitical adversary in a multigenerational cold war?

The stakes could not be higher, and the answer ought to be simple. We should stop treating China with kid gloves – as a spirited economic or diplomatic competitor – and start treating it as the existential challenge to the American republic and the American way of life that it demonstrably is.

In June, federal prosecutors in Michigan charged multiple Chinese nationals with conspiring to smuggle dangerous biological pathogens into the United States for use in American university research laboratories. The case centered on Fusarium graminearum, a fungus widely classified as a “potential agroterrorism weapon” because of its ability to ravage crops and cause serious harm to humans and livestock. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants received funding from the Chinese government and brought the pathogen into the U.S. for ostensible “lab work” at the University of Michigan. As if the University of Michigan needed to use smugglers to acquire research materials.

This should have triggered alarm bells for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear: Chinese researchers allegedly attempted to slip biological threats past U.S. borders under the guise of legitimate scholarship. The implications are chilling. In a world still scarred by the devastating COVID-19 pandemic – which, lest we forget, originated in Wuhan, China – we cannot afford to dismiss biohazard incidents like this as anomalous. What’s more, in November additional charges were brought in Michigan against a third Chinese national in connection with similar smuggling allegations.

This is part of a pattern of deep, yearslong subversion on American soil. How quickly many have forgotten that in 2023, federal agents discovered a Chinese biolab in California. As confirmed by testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Select Agents and Toxins, the biolab contained at least 20 potentially infectious agents – including HIV, malaria and COVID-19. And when the issue isn’t biological warfare, it’s information warfare – including the abundance of Chinese Communist Party-supported Confucius Institutes that have long proliferated as hubs of Chinese agitprop on American university campuses, as well as chronic attempts at corporate espionage and potentially vast surveillance and manipulation of Americans through TikTok and other means.

Does anyone think any of this is acceptable behavior?

Amid these concerns, the Trump administration has just signaled a troubling shift in its export control posture by permitting Nvidia to sell certain high-performance AI chips – including the company’s advanced H200 series processors – to China. This decision severely reduces the United States’ comparative computing and semiconductor advantage over China, thereby abetting the boosting of China’s military and surveillance capabilities at a time of heightened and harrowing great power competition. There is no economic justification for such a strategic empowerment of our preeminent adversary. These chips are the engines that drive modern AI. Allowing their sale to China, no matter the regulatory strings attached, is senseless.

Concurrently, tensions in the Indo-Pacific are rapidly escalating. Just days ago, Japanese authorities protested after a Chinese military aircraft locked its fire-control radar onto Japanese fighter jets near Okinawa – an extraordinary action Tokyo rightly described as unjustified and threatening. The incident, in which a Chinese J-15 fighter intermittently targeted Japanese F-15s for minutes at a time, was denounced by U.S. officials as a destabilizing provocation.

China’s aggressive posture toward Japan – a treaty-bound American ally under the U.S. security umbrella – reflects Beijing’s broader strategy to reshape the regional status quo. China is testing not only Japan’s resolve, but America’s commitment to its formal allies. China wishes that the region – and eventually, the entire world – be refashioned in its image. If Tokyo falters under Beijing’s pressure, it will embolden China’s ambitions and only further incentivize a People’s Liberation Army invasion of Taiwan. The rest, as they say, could be history.

Could be. It’s not too late for history to take a different course. And President Donald Trump, who deserves tremendous credit as the first president since Richard Nixon visited Chairman Mao to fundamentally reset U.S.-China relations, must not now go wobbly.

The U.S. must pursue an Indo-Pacific strategy that prioritizes Chinese containment – not mollycoddling or empowering. This means an all-of-the-above diplomatic, economic and military strategy rooted in the cultivation and maintenance of robust, durable alliances – above all, those with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and Taiwan. Washington should accelerate intelligence sharing, expand joint military exercises, and deepen economic integration with these nations. The goal isn’t provocation with China, but time-tested “peace through strength”-style deterrence. Lecturing allies and telling them to settle down, as Trump allegedly recently did on a phone call with Japan’s precocious new prime minister, is not helpful.

The Chinese Communist Party views the West – particularly the United States – not as a partner but as a rival to be surpassed and supplanted. Beijing’s posture and actions are consistent with those aimed at an adversary in a long, grinding cold war. Washington needs to view Beijing in the same way.

American leaders must not confuse transactional engagement with strategic trust. They must not treat menacing geopolitical rivals as anodyne export customers. Nor can they treat valuable geopolitical allies as pawns whose legitimate concerns can be easily discarded for the short-term thrill of appeasement. The long, cold dawn of this century’s defining geopolitical struggle is well upon us, and America must stand firm. Communist China is certainly doing so.