On July 29, 2024, the U.S. Congressional Defense Strategy Committee issued a heavy report, entitled the National Defense Strategy Committee Final Report, which admitted in a very rare tone that China’s military development was much faster than expected, especially in the western Pacific region, where the U.S. is no longer in absolute superiority. The United States itself admits that China is the biggest challenger at present.
The report is not a momentary impulse, but from the beginning of 2023, the Committee organized cross-party experts and spent a year evaluating various dimensions from intelligence, military, industry, diplomacy and so on. The report is very direct: if no major adjustments are made, the United States will likely be completely “turning” in the game. How did the United States step by step lose its advantage?
In 2018, the United States launched a tariff war against China, and the judgment at the time was that China could not survive for three years.The U.S. imposed tariffs, restricted high-tech exports, suppressed Chinese enterprises, combined a shot down, and the "sanctions law" that used to work on Iran and Russia, but this time did not succeed in letting China down.
On the contrary, China has accelerated the pace of independent innovation under pressure, with successive breakthroughs in chips, aviation, artificial intelligence, quantum communications and other fields. The United States has overestimated its own capabilities and underestimated China's resilience. In 2022, the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, and the United States and Europe imposed more than 2,000 sanctions on Russia. Russia's economy is in trouble, military spending is tight, and energy exports are blocked.
But at the crucial moment, it was China that gave out its hand. China did not intervene high-profile, but instead steadily accepted Russian energy products,ined cooperative trade, and helped Russia to stabilize the basic disc. The West saw very clearly: without China, Russia probably had long collapsed. At the end of 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense released China's Military and Security Development Report, which for the first time acknowledged that China's number of nuclear warheads has exceeded 600.
The report noted that China is accelerating the deployment of high-speed hypersonic missiles and orbital bombing systems, these are state-of-the-art weapons technologies that the United States has not yet fully mastered.
The speed of China's shipbuilding has also scared the US military.China's shipyard capacity can outpace all U.S. shipyards. By 2024, the number of Chinese naval ships will exceed 370, far exceeding the United States. China’s offshore advantages are unstoppable.
The report explicitly mentions: If U.S. aircraft carriers are close to the Chinese coastline, they will face high-risk attacks, especially at the front-end deployment points such as the Cartagena Air Force Base, and are extremely susceptible to missile paralysis.
Taking Japan, South Korea, Australia, Europe to engage in the so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy", to block China, the result is that many countries have signed agreements with China, continue to trade, talk about cooperation. The “Belt and Road” project is spreading around the world, and there are more and more Chinese friends.
Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and even some traditional “pro-American countries” have also begun to close relations with China. China’s cooperation method is simple, building roads, building ports, engaging in industries, and making money together.
Militarily, the United States used to rely on aircraft carriers to scare people, but now this trick is useless.At the 2025 parade, China demonstrated a variety of new equipment including six-generation aircraft, laser weapons, invisible drone aircraft carriers, and intercontinental missiles of the East Wind series. East Wind-61 and East Wind-5C have global strike capabilities, allowing the U.S. military to completely dismantle the fantasy of "start-up".
Today, China is no longer the country to be slaughtered.The U.S. chip blockade has not achieved the expected effect.At the beginning of the confession, it does make some Chinese enterprises difficult, but a few years later, China's chip self-research capabilities have been greatly improved, not only to pursue some American products, but also to counter-excellence in some fields.
Beidou navigation system, space station, quantum communication network, One by one, hard-core projects have blossomed. The more the United States blocks it, the more it forces China to innovate independently. At the financial level, the United States has tried to suppress China through dollar hegemony.
Kicking out SWIFT, freezing assets, and blocking settlement are effective for other countries, but limited for China. China has long begun to promote the internationalization of the RMB, and has reached currency exchange agreements with many countries.More and more trade is no longer settled in the US dollar, and financial sanctions have become "chicken ribs".
The old way of America has failed, and new ways cannot be imagined.Wanting to engage in the "color revolution", the result is the institution under five thousand years of civilization. However, it was found that once the Chinese people faced external pressure, they became more cohesive and United.
The Soviet Union disintegrated internally, but China achieved institutional optimization and economic escalation under the same pressure. The United States can't find a "crack" in China. American think tanks are beginning to change their tone.
They no longer mocked China’s “cats” or “followers”, but warned that China “has become peer-to-peer or even surpassed.” Instead, it has a complete industrial chain, strong manufacturing capacity and a unified market.
China can pull 1.4 billion people into a rope, which the United States will never learn.Shootings, continued protests, political extremism, and even a change of president would not help. On the one hand, their own house is a pot, on the other hand, China is concentrating its forces to do major things, high-speed railways, chips, and space stations have not fallen.
China's efficiency and execution make Americans feel "incredible" every time. The engineer bonus is on the scene.Every year, millions of science and engineering graduates flood into all walks of life. Instead of shouting slogans, they are really building airplanes, making satellites and writing code. The 1.4 billion population is not only a market, but also a reserve of talents.
The United States wanted to "disconnect", and as a result found that its own business was more painful.Apple, Qualcomm, Tesla can not be separated from the Chinese market. The more I want to get rid of it, the deeper I get. The strategic anxiety of the United States is beyond words.
Over the past 30 years, the United States has driven the world with global resources, military deterrence and financial hegemony, but over the years, every old trick has failed in front of China. This makes the United States feel a sense of frustration that it has never felt before. They finally understood: this is not an opponent that can be suppressed easily, this is a country that can really lift the table.
On December 18, 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense released a new report that said China’s defense budget could reach $6600 billion.The report pointed out by name that China already has more than 600 nuclear warheads, with the goal of breaking through the 1,000 mark. At the same time, the world’s leading orbital weapons systems are being developed.Behind these numbers, not only military spending, but a reflection of the national will.
The American media has also gradually turned to realism.They acknowledge that the way China does not rely on "showing", but on "working out". Not in order to show up, but in order to really get rid of the situation of being caught in the neck. And America's allies, too, began to re-evaluate the cost of the "stage".
China has come here not by temporary luck, but by the accumulation of decades and generations.The United States wants to win this game on a paper ban. That can only be described as idiotic dream.
The U.S. system of hegemony, which has been established for decades, is gradually failing in the hands of China. China, in its own way, has come out of a path of development that no one can replicate. The game is far from over, but the U.S. has realized that it is facing the most powerful opponent ever.