I’ve had a growing fascination with the People’s Republic of China over the last few years. While I’m absolutely no expert, I think I’ve learned enough to conclude that not only are they not the mortal enemy we’ve been told they are, but that China has a great deal to teach us if we were only willing to learn.
I’ll be quite candid: this is a tough piece for me to write. I was a Cold Warrior, having been commissioned in the U.S. Army in 1983 and spending thirty years as a career civilian intel analyst in the U.S. Department of Defense. I’ve been a topical expert on a number of things, starting with certain aspects of the Soviet Union, rather than China. But I’d wager if you took a poll back then, many of my colleagues would have not only said that communism was The Great Evil, but that Mao’s China was worse than the Soviet Union. Many folks in the West nowadays would have you believe that nothing has changed in that regard, that the Soviet Union’s fall represented the universal inevitability of communism’s failure and that China was our generation’s incarnation of The Yellow Peril.
But the reality is that they’re wrong, and a lot of what we were told about China (and so many other things, frankly) simply isn’t true, and at this point I believe never was. China isn’t the world’s boogeyman.
Before you leap to the conclusion that I’ve fallen for some sort of Chinese disinformation campaign, refer back to my career as an intel analyst. As an analyst, you can’t allow yourself to force the facts to fit the narrative; the narrative has to arise from the facts, from observable and measurable data. Like many analysts, by nature I’m a sceptic and it takes quite a bit of data to move me from one viewpoint to another, especially when it’s in direct opposition to my original position. Yet, here we are.
There are a lot of bits and pieces that forced me to reevaluate my position. I’m not going to give a play by play of every single tidbit; I just wanted to hit some of the major highlights.
China is the Aggressor?
We hear a lot in the U.S. (and the West in general) about “Chinese aggression.” There are a lot of different terms that fall under this umbrella (industrial “overcapacity” is currently popular) and it applies to a variety of topics, particularly those related to the military and international trade. But how “aggressive” is China, especially when compared to the United States?
Let’s take the military aspect first. Since 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded after the revolution, China was involved in twelve military campaigns (one of them was the annexation of Tibet; more on that in a minute), all with neighboring or regional countries; the last of them was against Vietnam in 1979. By my count, that’s 47 years ago. They haven’t invaded, attacked, bombed, or otherwise blown up people in any other countries since then. As for overseas bases, they have very few; depending on what you read, that number ranges from 1 to half a dozen.
By comparison, the United States has engaged in an absolutely non-stop combat-fest since 1949, including the generation-long debacles of the Vietnam War, the second war in Iraq, Afghanistan, the cascade of actions associated with the Global War on Terror, and most recently Trump and Netanyahu’s war on Iran. Even for me, a jaded military analyst, looking at the laundry list of violence our nation has waged across the globe is mind-blowing, and this goes all the way back to the nation’s founding (built by slaves on land stolen from native peoples that our forebears collectively murdered). Taking into account “real” wars and military interventions/actions, the United States has only enjoyed about 17 years of not-war in its entire 250-year history. And while the numbers vary widely depending on the source, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ve killed many millions of civilians, along with combatants, over the years. Just in the post-9/11 era, the deaths due directly and indirectly to our military actions totaled nearly five million people. Five. Million. People. Just since 2001. As for overseas bases, the United States has over 850. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather that be 850 major hospital complexes across the country, or stations for a high-speed rail system, or pretty much anything else.
The other thing that gets me, as a former career military analyst, is that I firmly believe China’s military would kick our asses in a conflict. The advances they’ve made in technology across the board are mind-blowing, and I suspect their production capacity dwarfs what the United States boasted at its peak during World War Two. Trump and Netanyahu’s war launched against Iran has put paid to the myth of U.S. military superiority, while the Iranians destroyed our key logistics bases in the region that cost billions of dollars with drones that probably totaled a few million dollars. China would absolutely crush us in a conflict, but I don’t believe they want conflict at all. Otherwise, their warships would be conducting freedom of navigation exercises twelve miles off California, Oregon, and Washington, like we do to their ocean territories, poking them with a stick while giving them the proverbial (and I’m sure sometimes literal) finger. But they don’t do that to us, and it’s not because they lack the capability or fear the U.S. Navy. I don’t want to pretend to know what’s in Xi’s mind, but I suspect he believes such operations aren’t in China’s interests. For my own part, I think they’re infantile and unnecessarily provocative. But that’s just me.
In terms of the military budget comparison between the United States and China, the chart below pretty much says it all. And don’t forget that the 2026 budget for the Pentagon pushes beyond one trillion dollars. Just for a single year, and doesn’t include another third of a trillion or so for the Veterans Administration. And the United States has spent an estimated five trillion dollars on the wars and military operations in Korea (0.476 trillion), Vietnam (1 trillion), and the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (3.6 trillion) alone. That doesn’t include the first Iraq war or the various other times we’ve bombed people. Over 5 trillion dollars we’ve spent, blasting people in over 30 countries around the world. We should really be asking ourselves why we’re bombing the crap out of everyone all the time. It’s not to defend democracy; it’s not even to defend Americans. It’s so we can plunder and pillage other countries on behalf of corporations, and make all those defense contractors fat and happy (I have direct experience with that, sadly). Just imagine what we could have done had we invested that money into universal healthcare, taxpayer-funded higher education, public infrastructure (high speed rail, clean water, etc.). We might have had the future China is enjoying now and the world would have been a much better place.
But back to the argument: in the light of all the above, China is the aggressor? I’m sorry, but the math literally isn’t adding up here.
The Invasion of Tibet
Let’s talk just a minute about China’s “invasion” of Tibet in 1951. I’m 63 years old as I write this and consider myself fairly well-read on a lot of things. But one thing I had no inkling of, and I’ll bet you didn’t either, is that prior to 1951 the vast majority of Tibetans (~95%) were slaves to the ruling class, which included the country’s spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama. He and the Tibetans who go around in the West chanting “free Tibet” nowadays were from or are descended from the slave-owning class. The brutality was off the charts, and the People’s Liberation Army in 1951 freed them from bondage. This isn’t propaganda, and there’s no “controversy” over slavery in Tibet. There is plenty of historical evidence documenting it, and people are still alive who were slaves before Tibet’s liberation, slaves who now live much better lives provided by the Chinese Government. But since it goes counter to the “Communist China is evil” narrative, we aren’t exposed to it in the West. Andy Boreham made an excellent documentary on this topic (and he has a lot of other great information) that is a real eye-opener.
And the thing is, if the truth about something like this has been buried, what else have we been lied to about?
The Belt and Road Initiative
So if China hasn’t been bombing the crap out of people everywhere like the United States has, what have they been up to? Surely something even worse?
Answer: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The Silk Road Economic Belt is a long-term vision for the infrastructural development, connectivity and economic cooperation of Eurasia. It is considered the longest economic corridor in the world — and potentially the most dynamic — connecting the Asia-Pacific region in the East with developed European economies in the West.
– Belt and road portal
In brief, instead of bombing people into oblivion, the Chinese have been building roads, bridges, dams, power plants, hospitals, schools, and so on, in all sorts of countries. Cynics say that the Chinese are just buying influence or holding the host countries over a barrel somehow; even if that were true, I submit that it’s a much better option than being on the receiving end of carpet bombing and mass murder.
In truth, however, China isn’t trying to pull one over on these countries. They’re laying down a long-term plan – something the United States is entirely incapable of, sadly, aside from resource extraction – to build these countries, most of which suffered horribly under colonialism, up into economic partners and markets. I think it’s pretty clear that China isn’t trying to “dominate” the world like the United States has; if that was its goal, it would be bombing, invading, and fomenting coups everywhere like we do.
Jason Smith, an American journalist in China, gives some insights here on some of the things China has been up to in Africa as part of the BRI. Just as an aside, my parents traveled extensively through Africa for many years and observed various projects China had built, and my parents commented many times how much those projects meant to the people of the host countries. It’s not really hard to see how China’s popularity has risen while that of the U.S. has fallen. People appreciate hospitals and roads a lot more than having missiles dropped on their heads.
I honestly think a big part of our “problem” with China is that we can’t even conceive of any powerful nation not wanting to “dominate” everyone else, not wanting to build its own empire (and thus compete with the United States) to exploit everyone else like the United States has done. There has to be a sinister reason, doesn’t there?
Well, if so, I’m really not seeing it. I’m sure there are legitimate criticisms that can be made against China; they’re not perfect. But if they were out to create an empire, historically that’s kind of tough to do by building hospitals and roads, making affordable products, or open-sourcing AI.
China’s Economic Miracle
I’m 100% certain that most Americans and Westerners have absolutely no clue about the gob-smacking state of China’s economy and the industrial capacity that’s at the heart of it. I have to wonder if even the analysts in the intelligence community really have a clue. Automated factories, some of them as large as small cities, automated ports, cities planned out as the vessels of entire interlocking industrial ecosystems, titanic shipbuilding capacity, rapidly expanding renewable energy production on a titanic scale, incredible infrastructure projects that almost defy imagination, robotics and related technologies entirely off the charts, and more. They’re also not just producing things, they’re driving real innovation. No other nation in the world, including the United States, can even come close.
“Yeah, but China just steals stuff from the west and then makes it cheaper, and all they make is cheap crap.” There was no doubt some truth to that statement 20 or so years ago. Today? China has clearly surpassed the West in just about every category you can imagine. And keep in mind, most of the “cheap crap” you get from China was built on specs provided by the Western corporation selling it to your retailers, not because China “can’t build quality products.” Look at nearly any type of product being made for the Chinese market and you’ll shake your head in amazement. I follow quite a few accounts sending out news and information on China, and a day doesn’t go by when I don’t say about some Chinese product, project, or technology, “Holy crap, look at this!”
I mean, look through social media for scenes of China’s cities, like the one below from Jason Smith. I know a lot of younger folks won’t remember the cartoon The Jetsons, but those of us who watched that show as kids looked forward to the amazing future it promised. But we and our children were robbed of that future. China, however, is making it a reality, because their government chose to invest in their people and make their lives better.
Unlike in the United States, this incredible wealth hasn’t been vacuumed up by a few Bond movie villain tech bros, because the government hasn’t allowed it. While China has billionaires (did you know that?), the fruits of China’s workforce are returned to them. Did you know that about 90% of Chinese own their homes? That they save a significant portion of their income? That the government intentionally deflated the housing market to keep homes affordable, because it was important that people have homes to live in? That they have universal healthcare? That their real wages have skyrocketed while their cost of living has remained stable?
And the billionaires don’t call the shots in China. In fact, they’re held accountable and can have their assets stripped or go to prison. The same with government officials who break the law: they face accountability, including prison or even the death penalty.
The even more incredible thing is that the Chinese Government set in motion a strategic campaign to lift China’s poor, over 800 million people, out of abject poverty…and they succeeded. The government built new housing and even entire communities for impoverished people and towns, brought in teams to help map out ways those people could earn a living (often based on local arts, crafts, etc.), then provided training to help them succeed. The people weren’t just “put on the dole,” but were given the tools and support they needed to improve their own lives.
This has to be one of the greatest societal achievements in all of history, but I’ll wager you haven’t heard a thing about it. Can you imagine something like that happening in the United States? No, I can’t, either.
The progress China has made is nothing short of astounding. @ChrisinLiuzhou on X summarized some major indicators and how they’ve changed between 2000 and 2025:
| Category | 2000 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute Poverty | 66% | 0% |
| Basic Medical Coverage | 15% | 95% |
| GDP Per Capita | $960 | $13,950 |
| % of Global Manufacturing | 6% | 30% |
| High-Speed Rail | 0 km | 50,400 km |
| Higher Education | 12.5% | 61.3% |
| Highways | 16,000 km | 199,000 km |
| Home Internet | ~0M | 583M |
| Industrial Robots | 3,000 | >2M |
| Infant Mortality | 32.2/1000 | 4,9/1000 |
| Internet Users | 22.5M | 1.12B |
| Invention Patents | 12,683 | 972,000 |
| Life Expectancy | 71.4 | 78.6 |
| Metro Networks | 110 km | 11,700 km |
| Nominal GDP | $1.22T | $19.6T |
| Renewable Energy Output | 6.4% | 38% |
| Solar Capacity | 0.02 GW | 1,100 GW |
| Vehicle Ownership | 6.3M | 323M |
While all of the above is gob-smacking (while the U.S. has plunged in the other direction), some of the real tells are infant mortality and life expectancy, which are key indicators of a healthy society, and China has made a massive move in the right direction in both categories, and only in a span of the last 25 years.
Keep in mind that China accomplished this after a century of exploitation by the Western Powers, the Opium Wars, the horrific carnage of Japan’s invasion in 1937 (why that’s not held up as the start of World War Two, rather than the Nazi Germany/USSR invasion of Poland, I’ll never understand; ditto why the Japanese war criminals weren’t held accountable like the Nazis), a devastating civil war (side note: the “good guy” in the eyes of the West, Chiang Kai-Shek, wasn’t a good guy at all), and economic isolation after the Revolution. You can point to Mao and the Communists and say (as I used to) that they were evil and wanted to destroy the West, but if you learn even a little tiny bit about China’s history and how horribly they were treated by Europeans and the United States even before the Revolution, it’s hard to blame them for hating us. We earned their hate and distrust, and like with most of the awful things we in the West have collectively done over the course of history, we’ve never owned up to it.
My point here is that China didn’t come from an elevated industrial starting point like the Allies did at the end of World War Two. Instead, it was already desperately poor from colonial exploitation, was ravaged by the Japanese, and then isolated from the outside world save for other Communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union. Mao was accused of horrific atrocities and that millions died in the process of the Revolution and the early years of setting China on a new course. But we have to concede that all revolutions are bloody, horrible affairs, and the titanic challenges facing Mao are simply unimaginable. You can point to India gaining its independence under Gandhi as an example of a peaceful way, but the British Empire was finished after the war and they were going to leave India one way or another. China’s situation was completely different.
But looking at where China is today, I believe Machiavelli would say the ends justified the means. The Chinese people (including minority groups like the Uyghurs, despite what you might have heard) are in a much better place, and their future looks incredibly bright, no matter what Western governments, pundits, and news outlets might try to tell you.
You’ve Been Sucked In By Commie Propaganda!
I’m sure quite a few folks who’ve made it this far in this post are convinced I’m just a big sucker, have guzzled the Woke Kool-Aid, or some such.
“You can’t trust what the Chinese Commies are telling you!”
“It’s all just propaganda!”
“What a bunch of bullshit!”
The thing is, it’s not. And here’s why: China has chosen to open itself up to other countries, including the West. They want people to see and experience today’s China, to see the results thus far of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Citizens of many countries can visit China for up to 30 days without a visa. If you’re a U.S. citizen, you’ll still need a visa unless you restrict your stay to Hainan Province, in which case you can stay for 30 days.
Any visa limitations aside, the Chinese authorities aren’t going to corral you into specific locales so you can only see what they want you to see and control the narrative of your visit. There are many thousands of people who’ve taken advantage of this new openness to explore China and report their experiences on social media and blogs. One of my favorites was Arnaud Bertrand’s RV road trip; as a long-time RVer, I would LOVE to do something like this. But my point is that there are tons of folks, including lots of Westerners, literally exploring China on their own, unfettered.
And that unfettered access is why the “it’s only Chinese propaganda” argument utterly fails. People have visited and explored the length and breadth of China, wandered through it on their own (by plane, train, car, RV, bike, and on foot), and talked to its people and enjoyed their amazing hospitality. Closed, authoritarian societies simply don’t allow that sort of access. I can speak from personal experience, as I was on a student summer exchange in the Soviet Union back in the early 80s. My experience then was very, very different (and not in a good way) from what these folks are experiencing in China. China wants you to see what they’ve done, they want to share their accomplishments. Not in a boastful, in your face way, but in a “Hey, look what we’ve accomplished – you can, too!” way.
Government messaging echoes this openness. I’ve watched a number of video shorts by Xi Xinping, and he consistently emphasizes global collaboration and cooperation, and that the purpose of the CPC and the Chinese Government is to enhance the lives of its people. Maybe I’ve just missed it, but I have yet to see him spout the type of saber-rattling rhetoric that’s common from both major political parties in the United States. And I need not go into details about how Xi’s public messaging compares with that of the current President of the United States. There’s no question about who the adult is in the room (hint: it’s not Trump).
The Bottom Line
As I said earlier, this was a difficult post for me to write. It’s been very difficult trying to be as objective as I can, peeling away the layers of Western propaganda that have been applied over the years. But as I mentioned, the rhetoric we hear about China simply doesn’t add up when placed alongside the reality and lived experiences of people who have visited or live there and who are providing a widening window for the rest of us to peer through. This isn’t to say China is perfect; it’s not, but perfection isn’t a metric that can be applied to any country in the world.
The most important thing, however, is that China today illuminates what is possible. Imagine a government that actively works for the betterment of its people, not monied interests, the corporations, the wealthy. Imagine those corporations and the wealthy, and government officials, being held accountable – truly accountable – for crimes or violating the trust of the people. Imagine the government building nice homes for the homeless and the poor instead of criminalizing them and sending them to for-profit prisons (another side note: the United States has an incarceration rate of 542 per 100,000; China is 119). Imagine everyone having access to healthcare and not having to worry about going bankrupt or dying because they can’t afford such basic things as insulin. Imagine the government coming in to clean up disasters like East Palestine; no fuss, no muss: if disaster strikes the government, along with regular citizens, is right there. Imagine having a quality education system for everyone, regardless of zip code. Imagine the government building roads, hospitals, bridges, rapid rail, and other infrastructure that improves our lives. Imagine not sending our people off to kill and die in endless wars that waste our precious blood and treasure to make the rich richer. Imagine instead building hospitals and schools and infrastructure in less fortunate nations to help improve their lives (and stop exploiting them!). Imagine being able to own your own home while maintaining a comfortable amount in your savings while having the purchasing power to live a good life, to even eat out a lot if you want! Most of all, imagine being able to look forward to a bright future, to endless possibilities, instead of the nightmare that most Americans currently face.
That, in my opinion, is what today’s China, built on “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” really represents. They’re achieving their dreams, while in the West we’re being robbed by the rich and shameless. It’s time we woke up and demanded a better future for ourselves and our children.