A New Grand Strategy to Counter the Rise of Communist China

Updated version of my proposed comprehensive national security strategic framework which could be utilized by U.S. leaders to effectively divide and neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance

Chinese President Xi Jinping reviewing a PLA military parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China

The original version of this article was published on August 12, 2022. I am reposting an updated version of it due to the rising danger of a Second Cuban Missile Crisis in which China establishes a new military base in Cuba and stations H-6K nuclear bombers capable of carrying super-EMP warhead armed hypersonic Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBMs). A Chinese H-6K nuclear bomber could fire these missiles from the Gulf of Mexico to take down the U.S. electrical power grid and potentially seriously degrade the U.S. nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) within ten minutes from launch.

A Chinese H-6K nuclear bomber equipped with two hypersonic Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBMs) closely resembling Russia’s Kinzhal ALBM

My proposal to grant China a sphere of influence in East Asia in exchange for them withdrawing all of their troops from the Western Hemisphere including Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Panama would seem to be the best solution to prevent this existential threat to the U.S. from materializing. This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect my latest thinking on how the U.S. can most effectively counter China’s ongoing attempt to become the global hegemon in such a way as to avert a direct conflict with Moscow and Beijing while ensuring America’s survival. I published an expanded version of this proposal in the book. “Catastrophe Now—America’s Last Chance to Prevent an EMP Disaster” which I co-authored back in March.

The People’s Republic of China poses the largest national security threat the US faces today. China has the largest army, navy, coast guard and nuclear capable ballistic missile force in the world and is on track to having the  largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world as well. China has the largest economy in the world measured by Purchase Power Parity and is the world's largest manufacturing power with a manufacturing industrial base nearly twice as large as ours.China began mobilizing its military and economy for war in April 2022, converting much of its civilian production over to military production, likely under the assumption that President Joe Biden would make good on his pledge that the US will defend Taiwan militarily.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last August was a gift to Beijing, providing it with a useful pretext to accelerate its timetable to accomplish its longtime goal to retake control of the island. The Biden administration has referred to the People’s Republic of China’s recent military exercises surrounding Taiwan in response to her visit as a blockade. Meanwhile, Chinese cyberattacks have escalated by a factor of twenty-three times to the level of millions of attacks every day. Ominously, China also fired four nuclear-capable Dong Feng ballistic missiles over the capital of Taipei.

After suspending its one-week long Joint Blockade Exercise against Taiwan, China announced the resumption of  military drills in the skies and waters surrounding Taiwan but, notably, did not specify when or where they would occur. These unprecedented Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan may become increasingly frequent, lulling Taiwan into a false sense of security and further obscuring the timing of China’s long-planned final offensive, which may begin without warning. In addition, there have been a number of economic indicators that Beijing may be planning for the outbreak of a conflict in the Pacific within the next several months. I assess that President Xi Jingping will most likely not initiate a full blockade of Taiwan until after he is re-elected to an unprecedented third-term at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China which is expected to be held in October or early to mid November.

In response, the Biden administration has announced plans to send U.S. warships and aircraft through the Taiwan Strait in the next two to three weeks, despite the fact that the PRC declared it to be its sovereign waters back in June, providing Beijing with a further pretext for war. Passage of the Taiwan Policy Act into law, would provide $4.5 billion in additional security assistance and formally designate Taiwan as a non-NATO ally, potentially upending America’s longstanding “One China” policy of strategic ambiguity. It would also enrage Chinese leaders and almost certainly be answered with a full Chinese blockade against Taiwan. After initially signaling it opposed the legislation, the White House has since stated it looks forward to working with Congress on the bill. However, given the fact that reunification with Taiwan has long been Beijing’s paramount focus, no amount of U.S. military aid, threats of military force or forward deployment of U.S. military forces is likely to deter China from resolving this longstanding dispute with the use of force by next year.

Given the fact that reunification with Taiwan has long been Beijing’s paramount focus, no amount of U.S. military aid, threats of military force or forward deployment of U.S. military forces is likely to deter China from resolving this long standing dispute with the use of force by next year though a successful US effort to neutralize the Sino-Russian alliance with a ‘reverse Nixon’ diplomatic agreement with Moscow would make them think twice about attacking Taiwan. While some pundits boast that the U.S. could successfully repel a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and defeat the PRC in the event of all-out war, the stark reality is that given that the U.S. only has 200 troops on the island and does not even have any joint defensive plans with Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense, it would likely take three months before the U.S. could amass the necessary military forces to even attempt to do so. Further complicating U.S. military planning to come to Taiwan’s aid is the fact that U.S. military bases in Japan, the northern Marianas and Guam would be attacked and likely destroyed by China at the onset of any hostilities between the U.S. and the PRC. 

CAPT James Fannell (USN Ret) has stated that China would likely enjoy ten to one superiority in warships in the South China Sea in a war with the US. A recent congressional study revealed that the US military would likely run out of long range precision guided munitions within one week of high intensity conflict while US Navy warships would likely be forced to return to Hawaii to replenish their ammunition after a couple salvos taking them out of the fight for two weeks at a time. 

A full-scale Chinese amphibious invasion could enable China to capture Taipei within two to three weeks, forcing Taiwan to capitulate shortly thereafter. Furthermore, not one of our allies in the region have committed to defend Taiwan militarily and they likely would not risk direct hostilities with Beijing in the event of Chinese aggression against Taiwan with South Korea and the Philippines specifically ruling out the US using our bases in their countries to do so. Accordingly if the US went to war against China to defend Taiwan, it would likely do so alone.

Moreover, given Chinese theater nuclear and conventional military superiority in the Taiwan region, any U.S. military attempt to defend the island would likely be doomed to defeat, particularly given the likelihood of its Russian and North Korean allies joining as belligerents, presenting the U.S. with a simultaneous three or even four-front war against three nuclear powers, leading to rapid nuclear escalation and the deaths of tens of millions of Americans. As Hal Brands, author of  “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China”, has stated, “It would feature far higher risks of nuclear escalation than many observers recognize and present the United States with severe challenges of warfighting and war termination.” Admiral Richard, who commands U.S. Strategic Command, testified to Congress last year that the United States currently has no contingency plans for how to confront two allied nuclear superpowers simultaneously in a future war but is furiously working on formulating one. As the author of a new Brookings Institution report, Melanie W. Sisson, convincingly concludes, the defense of Taiwan is not a sufficiently important U.S. national interest to risk a potential nuclear war with China, let alone with Russia as well. President Richard Nixon foresaw that it would not be in our national interest to fight a war with China over Taiwan.

As revealed in the book “The Hundred Year Marathon—China’s Secret Strategy to Replace the U.S. as the Global Superpower” by Michael Pillsbury, China’s goal is not merely to conquer Taiwan, but to become the world’s mightiest economic, industrial and military superpower by 2049, which will mark the centennial anniversary of the establishment of the PRC. Beijing has been pursuing a brilliant strategy to accomplish this objective and may accomplish it as much as a quarter century ahead of schedule if the U.S. and its allies do not take immediate, concerted action to stop it. 

If the U.S. is to be successful in countering China’s ongoing drive for global hegemony, we must adopt an effective national security strategy to do so. Such a strategy should seek to defend US vital national security interests while minimizing the risks of a direct war with China to the US and its Pacific treaty allies in the realization that such a war would likely escalate to the nuclear level within a few weeks. It should also seek to leverage America’s diplomatic might and alliance system to maximize our ability to use our collective economic power to more effectively counter China’s imperial Belt and Road Initiative while returning the US to a posture of economic independence with regards to critical manufacturing goods. Due to the self-defeating policies of globalization and outsourcing, most necessities such as rare earths critical to the construction of advanced weapon systems and life saving pharmaceuticals are currently supplied by China potentially enabling it to economically blackmail US and US allied leaders into pursuing pro-China policies. What follows is a proposed comprehensive national security strategic framework which could be utilized by U.S. leaders to counter Communist China's grand plan to become the world's global hegemon.

First, the Biden administration should provide strategic clarity by stating while the U.S. will not defend Taiwan militarily, the U.S. will go to war if any U.S. military bases, territories or military forces are attacked or if necessary to defend America’s treaty allies--Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia--from Chinese aggression. U.S. policy should be to support Taiwan in every way short of direct military conflict with the PRC. Only by staying out of a potential Sino-Taiwanese military conflict can the U.S. ensure the security of our allies in the Pacific, all of whom would likely come under immediate attack if the U.S. attempted to defend Taiwan given that there are U.S. military forces stationed in all but one of them. U.S. aircraft and warships would not be forward deployed within a few hundred miles of any Chinese military forces surrounding Taiwan to minimize the risks an inadvertent military clash could spark a full-scale war between the U.S. and the PRC.

Taking action to beef up Taiwan’s asymmetric warfare capabilities with defensive weapons such as coastal defense cruise missiles, anti-tank missiles, surface-to-air missiles, combat drones, electronic jammers, aerial torpedoes, missile boats, minelayers and smart mines to better enable it defend itself against Chinese aggression would be well worth considering. However, U.S. policymakers should realize that an attempt to provide such weapons might be used by Beijing as a pretext to initiate a full blockade of the island in order to prevent Taiwan from ever receiving them. The U.S. should also provide Taiwan with massive food, fuel and humanitarian supplies to help it ride out a potential Chinese blockade.

Second, the Biden administration should act immediately to implement a policy of economic nationalism designed to restore America’s economic independence by completely decoupling the U.S. economy from China. Congress should act to indefinitely suspend Most Favored Nation trade status for the PRC and pass former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Border Adjustment Tax which would tax U.S. imports, not exports, by twenty percent. It should also end the tens of billions of taxpayer-financed subsidies the U.S. provides to Communist China each year including several billion dollars a year to subsidize trade with the PRC via the Import-Export Bank and cut off all dual-use military technology shipments to the PRC as we have already done with Russia. Moreover, Congress should pass laws designed to prevent Chinese financiers and Chinese owned companies from donating to U.S. political and business leaders to influence U.S. policy.

Meanwhile, President Biden should issue executive orders forcing U.S. investors to immediately divest the $1.3 trillion they are holding in Chinese stocks and deny Chinese access to U.S. capital markets, declare that U.S. official policy is to abolish America’s nearly $375 billion annual trade deficit with the PRC, automatically match all U.S. tariffs to Chinese tariffs dollar for dollar and declare China a currency manipulator to kick in further tariffs and penalties. Biden should also issue executive orders ordering all U.S. multi-national companies to re-shore their manufacturing industries from the PRC to the U.S. and stop collaborating with China on high-technology development projects or face massive tax penalties totaling tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

The US should also ban the thousands of Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security owned front companies, constituting 35% of all Chinese companies, from doing business in the U.S. and ban China from owning U.S. land, strategic assets, and natural resources including ports as well as energy and food production. The FBI has revealed that Chinese Huawei cell towers in both Washington, DC and the Midwest could disrupt U.S. nuclear launch orders potentially negating the credibility of our nuclear deterrent yet the U.S. government has done nothing to counter this clear and pressing threat thus far. Accordingly, Biden should order the immediate seizure of all Chinese-owned lands in Washington, DC, the Midwest and anywhere near U.S. military bases as well as domestic port facilities.

Biden should also issue a list of critical technologies and manufactures such as rare earths, advanced semiconductors, weapon components and pharmaceuticals that must be produced in the U.S. under the Defense Production Act to eliminate U.S. dependency on Chinese imports as swiftly as possible. Finally, the administration should negotiate the formation of a new U.S.-led trade bloc to counter increasing Chinese economic domination consisting of the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Japan and Australia, all of which are sanctioning Russia right now over its war in Ukraine, while encouraging all of our allies to pursue these same measures in their own countries. The Pacific Forum recently recommended a similar course of action. This new Western trade bloc should revive the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) military tech export control regime to embargo dual-use military technology from reaching the PRC.

Third, in the event China implements a full-scale blockade or attacks Taiwan, mobilize America’s diplomatic might to mediate a cease-fire as quickly as possible coupled with a peaceful reunification agreement between China and Taiwan based on Deng Xiaoping’s “One Country Two Systems.” Such an agreement would guarantee Taiwan a high degree of autonomy, self-governance under Kuomintang (KMT) Party leadership, political and religious rights, amnesty for all pro-independence leaders and military service members along with the right to emigrate. Taiwan would also be able to maintain control over its police and armed forces while maintaining its free market economy while its continued sale of advanced semiconductors to the US and its allies would be guaranteed. The U.S. would only consider lessening its massive economic and trade sanctions against Beijing if it strictly complied with the terms of their reunification agreement with Taiwan and refrained from committing any aggressions against other countries once reunification had been achieved. 

A better option might be for the U.S. to mediate a reunification deal between China and Taiwan on the basis of an European Union-style confederation agreement that would come into effect sometime in 2025 before a hot war breaks out. Such an agreement would eliminate the risk that China might opt to preemptively attack the U.S. homeland with massive cyber and space warfare attacks under the assumption that Biden would make good on his promise to defend Taiwan militarily. If China materially violated the terms of this reunification agreement, the U.S. would ban all Chinese businesses from doing business in America and ban all American businesses from doing business in the PRC.

Such an agreement would allow Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) to relocate its manufacturing plants to the United States in advance of reunification along with its human capital if they so choose to prevent China from obtaining dominance over the advanced semiconductor market. The U.S. should act proactively to ensure continued access to advanced Taiwanese semiconductor chips by providing very lucrative financial and tax incentives for TMSC to relocate its main manufacturing facilities to the U.S. as expeditiously as possible. The U.S. would only agree to Chinese reunification with Taiwan in exchange for China returning control of the Panama Canal to the United States and closing its military bases and spy facilities in Communist Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Fourth, in the realization that any strategy to counter China’s ever-increasing economic and military influence is likely to fail unless the U.S. prioritizes improving relations with Russia to divide and disrupt its military alliance with China, the administration should immediately suspend military aid to Ukraine to compel them to negotiate a compromise peace agreement with Russia. Such an agreement could be negotiated along the lines of my proposed peace plan to end the war and along with it the continuing threat of Russian nuclear escalation while establishing a new Russo-American Entente designed to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance. Following the signing of such an agreement, the U.S. should fully normalize diplomatic and trade relations with Russia.

The US would also sign a mutual security agreement with Russia including phased western NATO and Russian military withdrawals from Eastern Europe and the transfer of all 150 of our B-61 nuclear gravity bombs in Western Europe to US aircraft carriers in the Pacific to counter the PRC in exchange for a withdrawal of all Russian nuclear weapons from Belarus. The US does not currently deploy any non-strategic nuclear weapons in the Far East or Western Pacific aside from a few on its two Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines at sea at any given time in the Pacific. Accordingly, such a move would go far to strengthen the credibility of US deterrence against the PRC in the Western Pacific theater.

As part of this new, grand strategic partnership for peace with Russia, the US and Russia would engage in mutual technology sharing most importantly in the area of strategic missile defense where Russia is more advanced than we are with the aim of establishing a joint missile defense system for the US, NATO and the Russian Federation. We would also support Russia’s claim to a sphere of influence over Central Asia as a counter to Chinese influence in the region.

The U.S. should also consider negotiating a sphere of influence agreement as noted below, and conclude a grand strategic partnership for peace with Russia. Together, these agreements would effectively serve to neutralize Russia’s military alliance with China, which poses the greatest existential threat America has ever faced in its history and could enable us to negotiate a meaningful security agreement with India to help deter Chinese aggression. If it was accompanied by the signing of a US-Russia Free Trade Agreement and greatly increased Western investment in Russia, then the US might persuade Russia and its longtime Indian ally to leave the Chinese imperial BRICS trade confederation and join a Western-led trade bloc against Beijing.

Fifth, the U.S. should sign a nonaggression pact with China stating the intention of neither party to fight a war with each other so long as neither party attacks any of the other party’s treaty allies. Both the U.S. and the Sino-Russian alliance would agree not to deploy their warships or military aircraft within two-hundred kilometers of the other nations’ territorial frontiers, except for the Bering Strait, in order to avoid unnecessary provocations leading to potential military conflict.

Optionally, the U.S. could consider signing a trilateral sphere of influence agreement with Russia and China, as depicted above, to establish clear redlines/boundaries to our respective spheres to prevent future conflicts and incentivize U.S. leaders to stop deploying America’s military forces into Russia’s and China’s spheres of influence to provoke them to ally against and potentially attack us. Such an understanding could prove extremely useful in avoiding potential military conflicts that could escalate to the nuclear level even if it was not formalized in writing. Under such an agreement, China would recognize a U.S. sphere of influence over the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, Greece, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. The U.S. would remain an associate member of NATO while transforming it into a European-led alliance but would end its security guarantees to defend the nations of Eastern Europe as they would be outside the U.S. sphere and do not constitute vital national security interests. By withdrawing U.S. troops from Russia’s borders, the chances of a U.S. military conflict with Russia would be greatly reduced.

Under such an agreement, China would relinquish its control of the Panama Canal ports and withdraw all troops and military support from Communist Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In exchange, the U.S. would recognize a Chinese sphere of influence over Taiwan, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa along with the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and part of the South China Sea. The U.S. should reject China’s overreaching “nine-dash line” while recognizing its claim to the Paracel Islands and negotiating an equitable division of the Spratly Islands in such as a way as to ensure Filipino security.

The U.S. would recognize a Russian sphere of influence over the former Soviet republics (excepting Ukraine, Moldova and the three Baltic republics which are NATO members) as well as the Gulf of Finland, the Barents Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and perhaps Iran, Syria, Libya and Serbia. All three superpowers would guarantee the continued political independence (except in the case of Taiwan which would be guaranteed autonomy) of all of the nations within their respective spheres of influence. In addition, each nuclear superpower would commit not to deploy its military forces within 200 kilometers of each other, except for the Bering Strait, in order to avoid unnecessary and destabilizing provocations.

Sixth, in an acknowledgment of the changing global balance of power, the Biden administration should abandon America’s failed, provocative and reckless grand strategy of liberal hegemony and replace it with a strategy of offshore balancing designed to minimize the risks of war with the Sino-Russian alliance, while ensuring our vital national interests, foremost of which is America’s continued existence, are safeguarded. The adoption of such a strategy would free up $150-200 billion in annual savings from closing most of our 750 US military bases abroad and bringing most of our 200,000-250,000 troops home. This funding should be used to embark on a major endeavor, with a Manhattan Project sense of urgency, to rebuild America’s strategic offensive and defensive capabilities.  

Rebuilding our increasingly obsolescent and badly undersized strategic nuclear triad by re-activating our 2,000 partially-dismantled strategic warheads in reserve would serve to restore the credibility of our nuclear deterrent and counter the increasing threat of Sino-Russian nuclear supremacy. U.S. leaders should also take immediate action to deploy a comprehensive national missile defense system consisting of at least 5,000 ABM interceptors, including space based elements, and harden our critical infrastructure against the existential threats of EMP, including super solar storms, and cyber attack. These actions would likely prove far more effective in deterring aggression by our adversaries than forward deploying a large number of conventional military forces where they would be vulnerable to Sino-Russian nuclear/Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Pearl Harbor-type surprise attacks. Encouraging Japan to develop its own nuclear deterrent might also be helpful. I have outlined additional critical steps that must be taken immediately to restore the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent and reduce our nuclear imbalance with the Sino-Russian alliance in this article.

These important steps to free the U.S and its allies from Chinese economic dominance should be implemented as quickly as possible to eliminate China's ability to effectively blackmail the U.S. into pursuing pro-China policies or face a Chinese cut off of our manufacturing supply chains as well as to ensure that the U.S. returns to becoming self-sufficient in every critical area necessary to defend America as well as to fight and win protracted military conflicts. While cutting off America’s dependency from Chinese supply chains would no doubt be painful and result in a substantial level of economic dislocation for U.S. businesses and citizens and would certainly lead to Chinese retaliatory counter sanctions, America would emerge much stronger and more prosperous after restoring its manufacturing industrial base to the level it was three decades ago.  Furthermore, these actions would serve to frustrate China’s long-term ambitions even more effectively than fighting a full-scale war with the PRC over Taiwan and at much lower risk.

© David T. Pyne 2023

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. He recently co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster." He also serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.