Jacob Hornberger on how China got into the crosshairs of the American empire

For decades after the Communist Party took control over China, the Party established and maintained a strict socialist system, one in which the government owned and controlled most everything. The result was massive poverty across the land, which, of course, meant a Chinese communist government with relatively few resources. 

Then a few decades ago, China began liberalizing its economy, permitting the Chinese people to engage in economic enterprise, engage in trade, open businesses, and accumulate large amounts of wealth. The result was a tremendous increase in economic prosperity. 

For a time, Americans celebrated this economic phenomenon. And why not? For decades, many Americans had criticized China’s socialist system precisely because it generated so much poverty among the Chinese people. Now the standard of living of people was soaring. Why wouldn’t everyone celebrate the fact that people in other parts of the world are escaping poverty? 

Moreover, the rising prosperity in China meant that the Chinese people were increasingly able to purchase goods and services from Americans. The resulting trade made everyone better off. 

But the U.S. Empire — specifically, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — saw trouble in all this. That’s because China’s economic prosperity meant vast new tax revenues for the Chinese communist regime — resources that enabled the regime to increase the size of its military and also to increase its influence around the world. 

During the 20 years that the U.S. government was waging war against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, China had no such burden. Rather than using its tax revenues to kill large numbers of people, as the U.S. Empire was doing, China was using them to expand its influence around the world by helping countries with big, grandiose socialist projects. 

Thus, in the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment, China’s rise posed a grave threat to its post-Cold War role as the world’s sole remaining empire. Something had to be done to bring China down, even if it harmed the American people at the same time. By suppressing China’s economic prosperity, the empire aimed to diminish the amount of tax revenues flowing into the Chinese government’s coffers, thereby limiting its ability to expand its military and its influence around the world.

~ Jacob G. Hornberger, "Xi Jinping is Right About the U.S. Empire," The Future of Freedom Foundation, November 20, 2023