Don’t Get Yanked Into War With China
David Swanson / Action Network & World BEYOND War
(March 26, 2025) — On Tuesday, the director of US so-called “national intelligence” Tulsi Gabbard listed the dangers threatening us. No climate collapse. No ecosystem destruction. No nuclear war. No disease pandemics. No poverty. No fascistic tendencies. No AI, even though the billionaire in chief says there’s a 20% chance robots will kill us all within 10 years. No gun industry. No kakistocracy.
Instead: foreign drug cartels, immigrants, Islamic terrorists, computer hackers, and — above all — China, which threatens to make itself “a leading power on the global stage” — oh, the horror! Just think how many ill, unemployed people in the United States face eviction and homelessness but have the “intelligence” to lie awake worrying that China might become “a leading power”!
Russia is also listed as “a competitor.” Iran is also accused of seeking to “spread its influence.” Nooooo, not the Influence Spreader! Anything but the Influence Spreader!
And now for something completely different: Gabbard admitted that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. But the Keystone Trumpties are threatening Iran anyway, and North Korea, and Russia, and China, and could soon get the US into a war with one, more, or all of these governments.
But for years now there has been bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill, not only that the main problem with mass murder lies in how you set up your group chats about it, but also that China is the big threat — and that there’s no real distinction between an economic or cultural competitor and a war enemy.
Also on Tuesday, a Senator noisily lied that my friends at CODEPINK are funded by China. They were interrupting a hearing, but not saying anything related to China. There was no evidence that they were funded by China. That’s just what’s said in proper circles when someone gets in your way.
So, I’d like to recommend a new book by Van Jackson and Michael Brenes called The Rivalry: How Great Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy. This is the case, made very clearly and politely, on the US establishment’s own terms, that the obsessive rivalry with China is bad for the US, bad for China, bad for the world, and really indefensible without ignoring all kinds of basic facts.
A good chunk of the book is devoted to cataloging the negative impacts of the Cold War. Not only was it anything but cold in much of the world, but it was an economic drain, a militarizing force, a driver of inequality in wealth and power, a corrupter of government and society, a promoter of bad government on all sides, a close partner of racism and sexism, a handy excuse for all variety of bad public policies, such as the outsourcing jobs (including to China), etc., etc.
The current Cold War with China is generating hate crimes against Asian Americans, sending military spending to newly disgusting heights, boosting oligarchs and anti-democratic forces on both sides, encouraging and providing excuses for the worst in Chinese government as well as US, negatively impacting the rest of the world, and impeding long-since urgently necessary collaboration on the actually greatest non-optional dangers.
China is of course not “communist” in any sense other than the ain’t-that-a-bad-word-er-somethin’ sense. It is “competing” with the United States on largely US terms. It studies US military nitwits like David Petraeus; it has US investments in surveillance technology — not to mention (and I think this book mentions them) bioweapons labs; its abuses of human rights have a lot in common with US abuses of human rights.
Most people in the United States have more in common with ordinary people in China than they do with Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. And yet the word “China” is an excuse for the United States to arm and support dictators around the world.
So, read The Rivalry and share it with the first person you spot wearing a US flag. But be aware that it is written on the warmongers’ terms. It treats propaganda as sincere. The war on terror was actually driven by a desire to rid the world of terror, for example. The rivalry with China is aimed at creating a kinder, more prosperous, more democratic world, for example. Of course, the warmongering with China fails miserably at such goals. But are those the actual goals?
The weapons profits of the MICIMATT, the legalized bribery of US elections, the locations of oil, and the possibility that US elected officials actually just hate China never, I think, even get mentioned at all. (But when the war comes, there will be more fist and flame emojis in the decisive group chat than somber calculations of advancing human rights, I promise you.)
Once you’ve read and shared this book,
here’s something else you can do to help.
Read and Sign this Petition:
To: The governments of independent nations not obliged (and legally not permitted) to join in another US war
From: YOU
We people and organizations the world over, including in the United States and China, urge governments of the world not to allow themselves to be dragged into supporting US threats of war against China, which violate the United Nations Charter.
We implore sensible independent legislators not to swallow the propaganda. China, like every other government on the planet, has serious flaws, none of which legally, morally, or practically justify threats of war or build-up of armaments for war, and none of which might be expected to improve (quite the reverse) as a result of such threats.
China spends on its military some 14% of what the United States and its allies and weapons customers spend. China is not the nation that has been waging endless wars and building countless bases around the world. China has been investing more heavily in eradicating poverty and confronting environmental collapse. China needs, as every nation needs, to do much more of that. The nations of the world need to act cooperatively.
The relentless US push for militarization and threats of war should not be given cover any longer by international partners, coalitions, or alliances. Criminal activities should be shunned and isolated even if US veto power prevents international bodies from holding those responsible to account.
No one knows whether COVID came from a laboratory or its researchers, but we do know that that work was internationally funded, supported, and engaged in. We do know that China has provided a useful model for handling pandemics that other nations have failed to follow.
No longer can we tolerate childish accusations and hatred aimed at selling weaponry and political careers. No longer can we risk nuclear apocalypse and divert our resources from protecting the Earth.
We express our concern and affection, our brotherhood and sisterhood, for the people of China, the United States, and the rest of the planet, and for all the other living beings on Earth whose fate can be impacted by the recklessness of those who would profit from yet more organized killing.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/dont-get-yanked-into-war-with-china
