Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been the undisputed global hegemon. But that era is over. A new great-power rivalry has emerged between the United States and China—one unlike any before.
The rivalry between America and China significantly differs from the geopolitical contest between the U.S. and the USSR; the Sino–American relationship is both paradoxical and parasitic. As China has risen to become a near-peer geopolitical adversary, it has also become an indispensable trading partner that manufactures many critical items for U.S consumption, such as pharmaceuticals and microchips.
China’s ascendancy now threatens to cut off the supply of more advanced semiconductors made in Taiwan if Beijing opts for military action against the small island nation, potentially dragging the U.S. into a prolonged and bloody conflict.
Given this reality, neoconservatives are now in an awkward position of both advocating for war against China if Taiwan is attacked, while refusing to take the necessary (and difficult) steps to strengthen American manufacturing and lessen America’s economic dependence on the Communist state.
Understanding the dire situation America finds itself in, J.D. Vance recently posted on X, “There is a category of DC insider who wants to fight an actual war with China but also wants China to manufacture much of our critical supply. This is insane. President Trump wants peace, but also wants fair trade and more self-reliance for the American economy.”
Vance articulates a paradox that is not merely the product of circumstance—it is one that the United States played a central role in creating.
China’s ascent as a great power began in the late 1990s and early 2000s when President Clinton strongly advocated granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China, a precursor to China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 under President George W. Bush.
Clinton believed bringing China into the global community would expand trade opportunities for the United States and help democracy make inroads within the Communist State.
In a speech given at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in March 2000, Clinton stated that, if China were to enter the WTO,
For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology. We’ll be able to export products without exporting jobs.
Clinton added, “The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people—their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise. And when individuals have the power, not just to dream but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say.”
Of course, none of this came to fruition.
Rather than fully liberalizing, China selectively embraced free-market principles when advantageous and discarded them when strategic. This strategy enabled China to accelerate its economic and military rise and grow its middle class by exploiting America’s worship of GDP growth and unrelenting desire for cheap consumer goods.
This was not the win-win as President Clinton alluded to before China’s admittance to the WTO, but instead came at the expense of American domestic manufacturing and its middle class.
To understand just how bad things have gotten, let’s examine two metrics that expose the dire state of American manufacturing and national security: munitions and shipbuilding.
In 2023, the U.S. Army Science Board expressed grave concern that the nation’s industrial base “may be incapable of meeting the munitions demand created by a potential future fight against a peer adversary.”
The war in Ukraine confirmed that fear, exposing the fact that the U.S. not only failed to manufacture enough artillery shells, but that it also couldn’t build drones, rockets, and missiles fast enough because America lacks sufficient stockpiles of the necessary components.
As for America’s Navy, its surface fleet is aging and has difficulty keeping its ships in working order. Incredibly, in 2023, less than 68 percent of U.S. surface fleet ships were deemed “mission-capable,” along with only 63 percent of attack submarines during the same period.
And what about building new ships? Sadly, American shipyards can’t even build three destroyers per year. The U.S. does not come close to keeping up with China’s incredible pace of shipbuilding: China reportedly has 13 shipyards that can build “large and deep draft ships” compared to only seven in the United States. Just one Chinese shipyard has more shipbuilding capacity than all American shipyards combined.
In light of this dire reality, the United States must abandon four decades of neoconservative orthodoxy rooted in unchallenged global hegemony, “free trade,” and endless foreign interventionism in the name of “democracy” and instead, craft a foreign and domestic policy that puts Americans first.
Months before being selected as Trump’s vice president, Vance spoke at a conference held by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative, offering his thoughts on what this foreign policy for the American middle class could look like.
Then Senator Vance discussed how the strength of America’s domestic manufacturing, middle class, and foreign policy is inextricably linked.
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“If we are not able to be self-reliant, if we can’t manufacture our own pharmaceuticals, our own munitions, the components that Americans rely on for their everyday life, then we are never going to be able to build the kind of middle class that we want in this country.”
Vance added, “The most important component of projecting power overseas is actually having a strong domestic manufacturing economy here at home.”
Fortunately, the Trump administration has attempted to chart a new course towards economic nationalism, understanding that we cannot remain entangled in a parasitic economic relationship with our greatest geopolitical rival. To truly be secure as a nation, we must reclaim our economic sovereignty by restoring our industrial might.
