The Anti-China Consensus is a Matter of World War III

Written By: - Date published: 3:23 pm, February 8th, 2025 - 24 comments
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Cross-posted from Van Jackson’s Un-Diplomatic

Team Biden might have left office believing that it kept America out of World War III, but it made so many decisions with a militarist bent that it’s far too early to declare even that much.

Zero-sum biases plague US foreign policy, especially toward China. And Trump has inherited a China-obsessed war machine that’s even more lethal than the one he presided over during his first term. So if the end of everything were to happen in the coming years, Biden’s choices to heighten rather than ameliorate rivalry with China—the world’s other greatest power—will almost certainly have been among its conditions of possibility.

For our planet to survive this era, the United States needs to adapt to China (and the world) in a more relational and less predatory way. But not only is that a tall order; the US national security state itself actively impedes it. A breakthrough toward a more just and stable world will require resorting to politics, not simply the bureaucratic production of policy. And while violence is intrinsic to how Trump operates, he is, ironically, making himself essential to keeping us out of World War III even as he makes it more likely over the long run.

The “Competition” Consensus

Substantial evidence now exists that, whatever disagreements about China may reside within the US foreign policy community, they are minor, tactical, relative to the larger shared consensus in favor of viewing China as a threat and a competitor that ought to be America’s foreign policy priority.

While power hoarding and military superiority have been a means and end of US foreign policy since at least the 1980s, it is newly incompatible with the world as it actually exists. We are no longer in the “unipolar moment.” A foreign policy that tries to claim a lopsided share of global power in a multipolar world pushes the US to be more aggressive, revisionist, as it flails against the tide, unable to secure the position of domination it long took for granted.

Because US goals are so extreme and mismatched to reality, the result is what we have seen over the past four years: heightened ethnonationalisms, the securitization of everything, a breakdown of economic interdependence in favor of a shift toward economic decoupling, and a fixation on preparations for major-power war unseen since the Cold War.

In Washington, these ingredients for Armageddon find expression in the simple shorthand “great-power competition”—a phrase that Trump has scarcely uttered but that all of his foreign policy appointments have repeatedly stressed. Marco Rubio, for example, declared great-power competition the priority of an “America-First foreign policy” in his first cable instruction to the State Department.

The anti-China consensus that Trump presided over in his first term—but that in fact started under Obama—not only endures but is a profound obstacle for those wishing to avoid World War III. A shift to something more peaceful and enlightened than geopolitical rivalry is unlikely to come from within the US national security state, which has fully retooled for conflict with China.

The hawkish groupthink that pervades how Washington relates to China is hard to break when the US national security state has banked the legitimacy of its institutional existence on indefinitely chasing China’s shadow around the world while optimizing for a war that no sane person should want. The solution to Sino-US rivalry lay in adopting a different approach that rejects primacy in word and deed, but the ability to do that can only come from political forces outside the national security state.

What Is to Be Done

The most enlightened policy wonks in Washington advocate for “competitive coexistence” or “congagement” (competition and engagement in parallel). This is more or less what Biden attempted. But pursuing the brutality of great-power rivalry with guardrails never made much sense, and neither did his China policy. Sure, a new Cold War in which adversaries talk to each other is preferable to a Cold War without direct communications; nobody should want to live in a state of perpetual Cuban Missile Crisis.

But zero-sum statecraft is a dead end. Any policy agenda premised on a net-antagonistic relationship between the great powers facilitates a process of hawkish outbidding within domestic politics, and as we have seen the past decade, that divides America rather than unites it.

A more stabilizing, war-averting existence would accommodate power realities rather than resist them at the point of a gun. The reason why it is so hard to take America off the path to World War III is precisely that the things that need to be done to better the world situation do not lend themselves to simple policy interventions.

Suspending military competition, especially in nuclear modernization, is essential but literally the opposite of what a foreign policy of great-power competition demands. Keeping China interdependent with the world—rather than trying to sever it from the US and world economy—encourages Chinese restraint in foreign policy, but is contrary to the economic nationalism that has become en vogue. Increasing domestic consumption in China would help alleviate the need for Xi Jinping to rely on ethnonationalist appeals to sustain his political legitimacy, but only the CCP can take that decision. And US financing of Chinese green tech for export in exchange for China extending sovereign debt relief to the global South would catalyze a virtuous cycle: Making good on a global green new deal—>resolving China’s overproduction of electric vehicles and solar panels—>and growing consumer markets in the global South to provide a new source of global growth. But coordinating a grand green bargain of this ambition presumes habits of cooperation and mutual good will that do not exist.

None of these ideas amounts to pulling a lever or pushing a button—that’s the wrong way to think about changing the world. Rather, they are worldmaking projects that cannot happen within a strategy of primacy, whether described as an “America-First foreign policy” or a “foreign policy for the middle class.” Such slogans mask the assumption that security is a scarce resource that must be hoarded at others’ expense. And that is just not true.

A Politics of Peace

Overcoming Washington’s hawkish groupthink requires agents of change capable of contesting, overriding, or redirecting the national security state’s anti-China fetish. The tragedy and the silver lining in this regard are the same: Trump.

American militarism cannot be tamed by those who are its purest embodiment. As General Charles Horner once quipped, “…don’t count on the Pentagon to change the Pentagon…it has to come from outside…The executive branch has to provide leadership.” Where, then, to turn?

Popular sentiment against war and China-bashing is worth cultivating. Organized labor has been mostly aligned with anti-militarism and peace activists in recent years—the transformative potential of labor and peace is immense. But the reality is that Trump is showing every sign of weakening labor activism and criminalizing peace protests. The alternative, materialist prospects for overcoming the China hawks, then, lay with two other forces: the imperial presidency and the capitalists most dependent on a globalization-style world.

To take the latter first, the capitalist class is disunified and consists of sections that either benefit or are harmed by the ethnonationalist world of rivalry that is emerging. American exporters (especially in agriculture) as well as firms who rely on foreign markets to survive (like Hollywood) thrived in the old world of neoliberal globalization. Crucially, they still need an interconnected world for their business models to work. That makes them a well-resourced power bloc on behalf of, if not peace, then at least keeping war at bay and limiting the encroachment of “national security” into every aspect of the economy.

A different section of capital directly benefits from great-power rivalry and the preparations for World War III it entails. The defense technology industry, cryptocurrency speculation, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and semiconductor production are among the few promising growth sectors for Silicon Valley venture capital (VC). In a peaceful world, these investments have little promise but a world of nationalist conflict puts them in the black.

What all this means is that, as a political force, some capitalists, in lobbying for restraint on the Trump administration out of their own interests—as Elon Musk has appeared to do on behalf of Tesla’s business in China—will be doing work that rubs against the great-power competition enthusiasts who run Washington.

The decisive force in the balance between war hawks and everybody else is Trump himself. Trump’s key political appointments on China—Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Elbridge Colby, Mike Waltz, and a slew of lower-level staff— have so far all been extreme hawks favoring great-power rivalry. And yet, Trump talks as if he is a conditional dove on China.

Trump had a friendly call with Xi Jinping upon inauguration. The opening tariffs he imposed on China (10%) were lower than what he had previously foreshadowed (and lower than what he announced for Mexico and Canada). In his inauguration speech, Trump laid down a desirable rhetorical marker: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end. And, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be. A peacemaker and a unifier.”

Marco Rubio, taking his cue from Trump, had a call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on January 24 where he reportedly said that: “The United States does not support ‘Taiwan independence’ and hopes that the Taiwan issue will be peacefully resolved in a way accepted by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.” This is jarringly restrained and defies popular expectations. China, so far, is even responding to the Trump administration more favorably than it ever did to Team Biden.

Donald Trump is no dove. He did much to propel the anti-China hysteria that today plagues Washington during his first term. And the national security state, now led by Trump’s China hawks, is poised to continue pursuing great-power rivalry, which is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with the world’s fate.

How ironic, then, that we are all somewhat trapped, relying on Trump to be a much-needed voice of restraint in Sino-US relations because the national security state and the Democratic Party have refused the job. It is an unhappy situation, but such are the dire straits that US policymakers have foisted upon us.

Van Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the author of The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy Yale University Press 2025

24 comments on “The Anti-China Consensus is a Matter of World War III ”

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  1. Tony Veitch 1
    8 February 2025 at 3:49 pm

    Moderators – you might want to consider editing this post – it appears to be repeated about 3 times!

    • Jenny 1.1
      8 February 2025 at 5:04 pm

      ‘
      “If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”

      Winston Spencer Churchill

      Winston S. Churchill

    • weka 1.2
      8 February 2025 at 11:08 pm

      thanks Tony!

    • Obtrectator 1.3
      9 February 2025 at 10:35 am

      Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em – then tell 'em – then tell 'em what you've told 'em!

      • Jenny 1.3.1
        9 February 2025 at 12:00 pm

        "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em – then tell 'em – then tell 'em what you've told 'em!"

        Indeed, that was Churchill's strategy, that with repetition, the point he was making stuck with 'em!
        So that instead of ignoring him, as they often did, just to get him to stop, Churchill's opponents in the British parliament, and the press piped up. to tell him where he was wrong. Either way, someone learnt something.

        AI Overview

        ….the British government's policy of appeasement was not changed by Winston Churchill's repeated warnings. Churchill's warnings were a source of irritation, but the government remained committed to appeasement.

        Generative AI is experimental.

        Holocaust Encyclopedia

        To many, Churchill's opposition to appeasement and his repeated warnings about Hitler seemed hawkish and paranoid…..

  2. Mike the Lefty 2
    8 February 2025 at 9:12 pm

    Perhaps Trump will make a deal with China: as long as you get out of Panama and the South Pacific you can do what you like about Taiwan – invade it, destroy it, whatever and we'll pretend we don't notice.

    The world's three most powerful nations, two of which care nothing about democracy or freedom and the other only pretends to, are working on a triumvirate to rule the world.

    • SPC 2.1
      8 February 2025 at 10:06 pm

      Not while Taiwan (and then South Korea) are so important in making semi-conductors.

      AI

      Taiwan is a global leader in semiconductor production, producing over 60% of the world's semiconductors. This includes more than 90% of the most advanced chips

      TSMC the company.

      • Populuxe 2.1.1
        9 February 2025 at 10:07 am

        I rather think Trump's "plan" (cough cough) is that the US will take over in the production of semiconductors and chips, even though it's not especially clear where the infrastructure, engineers and rare earths are going to magically materialise from.

        • SPC 2.1.1.1
          9 February 2025 at 10:29 am

          TSMC is manufacturing more in Europe and the US, but their research is still based in Taiwan. And South Korea is second tier and not that secure.

    • Jenny 2.2
      9 February 2025 at 6:39 am

      '

      Mike the Lefty @2

      "…The world's three most powerful nations, two of which care nothing about democracy or freedom and the other only pretends to, are working on a triumvirate to rule the world."

      The three ruling blocs as described by George Orwell in his novel,

      Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia

      In the real world that Orwell was parodying, Australia and New Zealand are firmly embedded in the US led Oceania bloc. We also know, that in the real world, China, (Eastasia) is trying to encroach on Oceania.

      To me the most interesting parallel in the book to the real world is Eurasia.

      In the real world the EU was set up as a counter balance to the economic power of the US. Britain, (Airstrip One in the book), was originally an EU member, but has since distanced itself from the EU and formed closer ties to the US led bloc.

      It has been proposed that Canada, a member of the US led bloc, should instead join the Eurasia bloc, after the American president threatened to relegate Canada to a neo-colony of the US

      Why Canada should join the EU

      Europe needs space and resources, Canada needs people. Let’s deal…

      …..Canada is vast and blessed with natural resources but relatively few people, while the EU is small, cramped and mineral-poor.

      ……Canada’s ties to the Pacific, thanks in part to large migrant inflows from Asia, would round out Europe’s regional focus. The euro would look far more global if it were accepted in Vancouver.

      https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/01/02/why-canada-should-join-the-eu

      "We are at war with Eastasia, we have always been at war with Eastasia" George Orwell.

      The main difference between the real world and the book is that George Orwell condensed the timeline to make it more shocking. What Orwell forecast to take place in a period of decades from when he wrote the book, has played out over a much longer period.

      George Orwell's book was a warning. Nobody can say, we weren't warned

      • Mike the Lefty 2.2.1
        9 February 2025 at 11:07 am

        I see the parallel.

        It seems that George Orwell's prophecies are becoming more true all the time.

        In NZ we have David Seymour's Mini Reg which seems to operate on its own rules and not accountable to the people. We have tablets with data miners that track everything we do and everywhere we go (similar to the televiewers). We have a parallel Goldstein figure in Jacinda Adern, who was once part of the government, but is now considered a traitor for trying to stay true to her ideals.

        Except that Orwell assumed it would be the political left that would lead to authoritarian government, rather than the political right. Understandable given that Stalin was in power when he wrote it.

        Interesting too that 1984 was the year that the rot set in for NZ, the Rogernome government was elected that irrevocably changed NZ (mostly for the worst) although it was a few years before most of us noticed.

        • SPC 2.2.1.1
          9 February 2025 at 11:27 am

          No. He saw the authoritarianism of left and right as more alike than different.

          But he learnt about propaganda narrative control at the BBC, peace-time and war-time gatekeepers for governance.

          • Jenny 2.2.1.1.1
            9 February 2025 at 12:14 pm

            "…..he [Eric Blair] learnt about propaganda narrative control at the BBC, peace-time and war-time gatekeepers for governance".

            He did, indeed. Room 101 was a real place of dread for Blair.
            Room 101 was where BBC journalists like him were drilled to report the vainglorious and race supremacist narrative of the British Empire.

            A narrative directly opposed to his lived expererience of imperialism.

  3. Res Publica 3
    8 February 2025 at 9:31 pm

    Foreign policy isn’t a zero-sum game—but if we play it stupidly, everybody loses.

    Yet, here we have another knee-jerk critique of U.S. policy toward China that completely ignores the realities of Chinese foreign policy in its eagerness to paint America as the villain.

    Yes, let’s take a moment to sympathize with poor little China—a country that simply wants to be left alone to checks notes commit genocide, disappear its own citizens, and flagrantly violate the sovereignty (both de facto and de jure) of its neighbors.

    This is classic tankie mental gymnastics masquerading as serious foreign policy analysis. It has plenty to say about U.S. policy toward China but is conspicuously silent when it comes to China’s own actions and objectives.

    International relations don’t happen in a vacuum—there are two sides.

    Foreign policy exists to manage disputes and protect national interests, not to serve as a suicide pact. Pretending that unilateral restraint or withdrawal will magically produce peace is naïve at best and dangerous at worst. Si vis pacem, para bellum—if you want peace, prepare for war.

    So rather than indulging in endless whining about American “imperialism” and “militarism,” let’s consider some facts:

    Under Xi Jinping, Chinese foreign policy has grown increasingly aggressive, militarized, and expansionist.

    China has used barely plausible deniable quasi-state actors to stir up conflicts in the South China Sea, manufacturing a pretext to militarize the region at the expense of global trade.

    Through debt-trap diplomacy, China has ensnared Pacific nations, coercing them into accepting PLAAF and PLAN bases in exchange for debt relief.

    China has made it clear that it is prepared to use military force to annex Taiwan, despite the will of millions of Taiwanese who wish to remain an independent, democratic state rather than a PRC colony subject to arbitrary arrests and repression.

    The irony is thick: the same U.S. military and economic power that the author decries is precisely what enables him to sit comfortably at his desk, safe enough to play armchair diplomat.

    Foreign policy isn’t about wishful thinking—it’s about reality. Unilateral disarmament and so-called “peace” wouldn’t create a more just world; it would simply give an authoritarian regime free rein to impose its will by force.

    Is this an ideal situation? No. Do I want war between the U.S. and China? Absolutely not. But ignoring reality won’t make the dangers disappear.

    • lprent 3.1
      9 February 2025 at 12:30 am

      I kind of view this post as being stupid waffle, and probable outright misinformation. I came to that conclusion when I read this.

      Trump had a friendly call with Xi Jinping upon inauguration. The opening tariffs he imposed on China (10%) were lower than what he had previously foreshadowed (and lower than what he announced for Mexico and Canada).

      The crucial misinformation that these were mostly additional tariffs for China and new tariffs for Mexico and Canada. So whatever the existing tariff for a given area was far more important than whatever the addition is.

      In the case of Canada and Mexico tariffs in most areas outside of agriculture were either nonexistent or minimal because of NAFTA or the USMCA. These agreements focused less on tariffs than they focused on the conditions of trade or when tariffs would apply over 'local' amounts or in limits to particularly sensitive markets.

      In 2025 Trump imposed high new tariffs on Canada and Mexico most of which were effectively without significiant tariffs. The announced tariffs were almost immediately put on hold (while negotiations proceeded).

      Quite simply that would cause an economic shock, especially in the US, as most goods that would have had the highest total value imposed were those for US industries and businesses. For instance the tariff on Canadian heavy oils that could not be easily substituted in US refineries. Or delivery vehicles from Mexico that were essentially not being produced in the US because they cost too much to build in the many and varied configurations used by US businesses. Both amongst the largest trade 'imbalances'.

      In the case of China, tariffs or levies across a range of goods has been steadily climbing under both Trump and Biden since January 2018. Mostly from arguments over state support, country of origin, technology theft, or restriction of markets – all things that are issues in every multilateral economic agreement post war.

      But the point is that an addition of 10% additional tariff by Trump in 2025 mostly struck those areas that already had high tariffs.

      Something that has a whole different economic effect to a new high tariff starting from nothing or minimal.

      To simplistically imply that the two economic effects are similar, just indicates a basic lack of awareness that no-one interested in international relations should have.

      I have similar feelings about the ability of the author to understand the nuances of the military aspects. I kind of get the impression that they simply have no idea about the basic technologies in the military.

      I don’t particularly trust either the US or China or some other nations, especially when it comes to NZ. Both have heavy and often incoherent international footprints, and a bit of a pain because of the way that they throw their weight around.

      But I tend to find idiotic waffle like this post to not be useful. It just reeks of someone with a poor understanding across a whole spectrum of areas that make up international relations. One who substitutes some badly thought-through ideology for research, thinking and understanding.

      Line Res Publica, but probably for some different reasons, I find the simplistic attitude displayed by the author to be naive and clearly lacking basic understanding of crucial factors. I wouldn’t like to take a course from this person because clearly they simply don’t operate at any level that doesn’t read like a simple slogan..

      • Cricklewood 3.1.1
        9 February 2025 at 6:53 pm

        The whole article is pretty much symptomatic of why public trust in acadamia is declining.

  4. tWig 4
    8 February 2025 at 10:51 pm

    Both as bad as each other in terms of motivation. But the US is responsible for a hunsred-fold more damage to other nations in the past 80 years.

    • Jenny 4.1
      9 February 2025 at 7:19 am

      '

      tWig @4

      "….the US is responsible for a hunsred-fold more damage to other nations in the past 80 years."

      It's all a matter of degree. The US imperialists may be responsible for a hundred fold more damage to other nations, as you say, but only because they have been at it longer than China and the Russian Federation.

      You don't think that the Russian and Chinese imperialists, if they had been the world's hegemon, for the same amount of time, that they wouldn't have been just as damaging to other nations?

    • Res Publica 4.2
      9 February 2025 at 8:13 am

      I suspect the Lithuanians, Poles, Estonians, Czechs, Latvians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and a host of other people would have a thing or two to say about the damage done by Russian imperialism.

      And I'm sure that the Tibetans are perfectly happy with 70 years of invasion and brutal Chinese occupation. Least it wasn't the US, right?

    • Populuxe 4.3
      9 February 2025 at 10:11 am

      That's only because the US had a head start.

    • joe90 4.4
      9 February 2025 at 3:32 pm

      But the US is responsible for a hunsred-fold more damage to other nations in the past 80 years.

      Nope. Rank amateurs compared to Tsarist/Soviet Russia.

      .

      INTRODUCTION

      In the cliché-ridden propaganda of the Soviet era tsarist Russia was frequently dubbed the “prison of nations”. When the Soviets came into power this “prison”, by virtue of new national policies, transformed into a family of friendly and brotherly nations in whose bosom all the national cultures flourished. To boast of the achievements under the Communist Party leadership, grandiose cultural festivals were arranged in the Soviet republics, folkloristic dance, song and instrumental groups were established and the revival of old peasant culture was encouraged. The slogan “socialist in content, nationalist in form” came to be applied to the new Soviet culture. Behind this deceptive facade of ethnographic originality, the tsarist prison of nations never ceased to exist: russification was carried out on a large scale, nationalist intellectuals were persecuted, a policy of extensive exploitation of land was pursued and nations were continuously resettled and mingled. The desired result was the birth of a new, Russian-speaking “Soviet nation”, and to lay the theoretical foundation for this a whole army of scholars was employed. The evolution of the Soviet nation was seen as the process of history within the cognizance of Marxist-Leninist principles which was as inevitable as the process of life itself.

      http://web.archive.org/web/20240527000511/https://eki.ee/books/redbook/introduction.shtml

  5. SPC 5
    9 February 2025 at 9:25 am

    The reassurance to the Chinese that the Trump-Rubio team are not focused on independence for Taiwan is the notable development.

    While for hegemon for the USA in the Americas and America first in the wider world, and a more nationalist (and oligarchic domestic economy) posture in foreign relations (including economics), some moderation otherwise.

    Otherwise, the two parties are in public using the loud hailer on the "Panama Canal" matter.

    Taiwan is a matter of global security as per semi-conductor supply (making their self-government useful to the wider world is a notable achievement) and will be for a while yet – which gets in the way of President Xi's ambition. An out for this is a 2049 agreement on self-government within China, some time in the next 10 years.

    For now, (bi-partisan) US policy is to obstruct the one belt and road programme of China and global trade (by which China was increasing in relative power) – at least until internal problems related to demographics hit China, as per Japan earlier.

    For us the main problem is reduction in USAID – so some need to interface with State on the importance of South Pacific resilience.

  6. Populuxe 6
    9 February 2025 at 10:04 am

    I imagine this sort of thing is very appealing to the crossover of tankies and people whose geopolitical worldview hasn't changed since Helen Clark-era doctrine of the "Benign Pacific" type but even rejecting the increasingly unstable US-centric western order and pursuing an independent (lol) foreign policy, some observations:

    The "cuddly panda" China of the 1990s is long gone. China is rapidly ramping up its military. China is supporting Russia's war in Ukraine and involved in regular territorial hostilities with Asian nations we are friendly with such as India, the Philippines etc. China's attempts to control traditionally open waters in the South China Sea is contrary to international law and a direct threat to our export/import shipping. With USAID potentially out of the picture and our own limited resources, our Pacific neighbourhood becomes increasingly vulnerable to China's Silk Road and Belt initiative, as we have seen in the Cook Islands.

    We have become quite adroit at managing our relationship with China and that is always going to be an important one, but becoming complacent about it, or turning a blind eye to China's territorial ambitions, human rights abuses, and system of government antithetical to our own, is always a mistake.