For at least two decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has waged unrestricted warfare against the United States.

In 1999, two Chinese air force colonels wrote Unrestricted Warfare, a guide proposing 24 types of warfare—ways to undermine or defeat a superior power, often without firing a shot. “The first rule of unrestricted warfare,” stated one of the authors, Qiao Liang, “is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.”

Among the suggested tactics are encouraging illegal immigration, creating propaganda, hacking websites, and spreading social and cultural disorder. The use of drugs, for example, is cited as one weapon. And up until recently, China was the primary supplier of fentanyl and drug production equipment to the United States. Today, China provides the raw materials for manufacturing the drug to international crime gangs and cartels in Mexico, with the products then smuggled across our southern border. The Center for Disease Control reported that drug deaths in the U.S. each year are exceeding 100,000, a majority of them caused by opioids like fentanyl.

Related to unrestricted warfare is the CCP’s policy of comprehensive national power. Cleo Paskal, an expert on China and particularly on the Pacific Islands, explains this concept in a recent interview on “American Thought Leaders”:

“It’s a term that the Chinese use to rank countries. It’s an empirical metric. Each country has a comprehensive national power numerical value, and the overt stated goal of China is to be number one in the world in terms of comprehensive national power—everything that we think of economically and militarily. But it goes down to if you have a rare earth mineral mine in your country, but it’s a Chinese company that’s mining it, they count that towards their comprehensive national power, not yours, because that is feeding into their systems.”

Later in the interview, Paskal points to the Chinese management of COVID-19 as an example of comprehensive national power. The CCP reacted to this virus, which originated in Wuhan, by locking down their country but allowing international flights. “Because if your mentality is comprehensive national power, you’re going to take a hit when you know you’ve got a problem,” says Paskal. “But if everybody else takes a hit also, and you use that arbitrage moment … to position yourself, you can come out relatively ahead, which they did.”

Paskal describes these policies as occurring under the umbrella of entropic warfare, a policy practiced by the CCP that encourages breakdown, chaos, and fragmentation in rival nations.

Luring American manufacturing to China, the theft of intellectual property, the purchase of American farmland, spies interfering in our government, influence through social media, and collecting vast amounts of data: These are just some examples of the unrestricted warfare practices of the CCP. And unless more of our legislators, our president, bureaucrats, the corporate media, and corporations themselves step up to meet these challenges, these attempts to undermine American strength and sovereignty will continue.

Paskal uses China’s increasing influence in the Pacific Islands—which is part and parcel of their plan to isolate and take over Taiwan—as an example of this strategy. Meanwhile, we focus our attention and resources on the war in Ukraine and play around on the home front as we have to grapple with issues like transgenderism and fake racism.

In short, China’s playing a long game of chess, and we’re barely on the board.

The good news? American lawmakers are becoming more aware of China’s agenda, both in the Pacific and around the world. In March of 2021, for example, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed acknowledging we are engaged in a cold war with the CCP. His editorial is based on his proposed written policy of “targeted decoupling” and rigorous “economic competition” in breaking China’s destructive hold on the U.S.

In the meantime, the rest of us can help diminish China’s influence in our homeland in at least two ways. First, where we are able and can afford it, we can avoid buying anything from microwaves to polo shirts bearing the tag “Made in China.” This informal ban is a start in the right direction.

Second, we can cut all ties to TikTok. Search online for “Is TikTok influenced by the Chinese Communist Party,” and you’ll find a raft of evidence and opinions from across the political spectrum answering in the affirmative. This social media platform allows for a massive collection of data on Americans and can be used to influence our politics and culture. Following Senator Cotton’s advice on our economic ties to China, we can decouple from TikTok.

No sane person, Chinese or American, wants to see war between these two superpowers, yet any clearheaded observer should be able to understand that we are already in a cold war with the Chinese Communist Party.

And that is a war we can’t afford to lose.

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Image credit: Picryl-US National Archives

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