The battle was fought for more than three years, the battlefield was in Ukraine, but the gamblers were hiding on the other side of the ocean.In the beginning of the Russian military operation in February 2022, the United States smelled the opportunity.
Senior officials in the Biden administration have privately acknowledged that the conflict can give the United States an "unexpected advantage" against China. They calculated that if Russia was dragged down by sanctions and Europe was forced to strengthen its defense, the United States would free up its hands and concentrate on dealing with China in Asia. The so-called "two-ocean strategy" is just a dangerous game of walking a tightrope.
At the end of September 2025, in the "Annual Review of Indo-Pacific Security Strategy" released by the U.S. Department of Defense, a statement about the Russia-Ukraine war attracted great attention from international public opinion: " The long-term support for Ukraine is essentially the preservation of the system of rules established after the Cold War, the primary defense of which is the emerging strategic competitor in the Asia-Pacific region.
The publication of this document has made it gradually clear to the outside world that the Russian-Ukrainian war, which lasted for several years, is only a strategic leapboard for the United States to contain China, and its real goal is to prevent China from “standing up” in key areas such as global industrial chains, science and technology, resource markets, andining its own hegemonic pattern.
The strategic positioning of the United States on the Russia-Ukraine war has been revealed as early as the early days of the conflict. After the conflict escalated in 2022, the United States quickly took the lead in forming a sanctions alliance against Russia. To push NATO countries to significantly increase defense spending, the total amount of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in 2023 alone will exceed $75 billion.
On the surface, this is a "security commitment" to Ukraine, but in fact it is a strategic step that consumes Russia's national strength through war and binds its European allies.
Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in a public speech in 2024: “To put Russia in the dungeon of war can make it unable to form strategic synergies with China. This creates a window period for our concentration of resources in response to the Indo-Pacific challenge."This strategy of "trapping opponents by war" has opened up strategic space for U.S. subsequent intensive pressure on China.
In the field of technology, U.S. restrictions are becoming more and more direct and harsh.In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a new export control guideline, demanding that China’s advanced computing chips such as Huawei Inc. be banned worldwide on the basis of “presumption of breaches of security guidelines.”
This measure is not an isolated technical restriction, but a key layout to accurately attack China's artificial intelligence industry-Shengteng chips have been widely used in intelligent driving, industrial Internet and other fields, and their banning directly affects the performance of Chinese companies in the global high-tech market. competitiveness.
The United States has even pressured companies such as ASML of the Netherlands and Tokyo Electronics of Japan to stop providing chip manufacturing equipment to China, trying to cut off the upgrading path of China's semiconductor industry from the source. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce clearly pointed out in his response that the US move was a typical unilateral bullying, which seriously damaged the stability of the global industrial chain and deprived other countries of the right to develop high-tech industries.
The "de-Chinaization" campaign in the field of communications is also continuing to increase. Since the Trump administration defined China as a "strategic competitor" in 2017, the United States has begun to exaggerate the "security threat theory" of Chinese enterprise communication equipment. In 2019, the bill banned companies such as Huawei and ZTE from selling equipment in the United States, and in 2021, a $1.9 billion subsidy program was launched to dismantle Chinese equipment in the US telecommunications network.
By the end of 2024, the plan had stalled due to insufficient funding, and the U.S. House of Representatives then passed a new bill that added $3 billion to the demolition work.
Interestingly, telecommunications operators in rural areas in the U.S. are widely opposed to this, LHTC company president James Kyle has publicly said that Huawei equipment not only signal stable, customer service efficient, and the price is 30% lower than European and U.S. suppliers, and no security issues have been before.
Forced demolition will lead to the bankruptcy of a large number of small operators, and rural users face problems such as rising communications costs, signal interruptions, etc. Even so, the U.S. government is persistently pushing forward, and its core demands are obviously not “cyber security”, but rather preventing the normal expansion of Chinese communications technology in the global market.
In the field of traditional advantageous industries, the suppression of the United States also leaves no room. The rapid rise of China's shipbuilding industry in the global market in recent years has made the United States feel threatened.
In April 2025, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office announced the launch of a maritime investigation that plans to charge a port fee for ships built or operated by China, with a single cost of more than $1 million for container ships carrying more than 10,000 standard boxes, which will rise annually until 2028.
The United States claims that this move is to revitalize the local shipbuilding industry, but data shows that in 2024, U.S. shipyards will build less than 10 merchant ships, while China will build more than 1,000 ships. The gap between the two countries is so wide that the U.S. Navy recognized its own commercial shipbuilding industry in its fiscal year 2025 plan. The shipbuilding industry is almost "completely collapsed."
What is even more ironic is that the suppression measures have not achieved the expected results. A September 2025 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States showed that China still received 53% of the world's commercial shipbuilding orders in the first eight months. Mediterranean shipping giants even added 12 new Chinese shipbuilding orders after the policy was introduced.
The strategic logic of the United States has always centered on "preventing China from competing fairly." The European security anxiety brought about by the Russia-Ukraine War was transformed into a tool to strengthen NATO and isolate Russia, which in turn tied allies into a containment system against China; export controls were abused in the field of science and technology in an attempt to maintain "U.S. technological hegemony";
Engage in protectionism in the industrial field, ignore market rules and suppress China's advantageous industries. This mentality of "never allowing Chinese people to make money standing up" is also reflected in the field of resources. When China promotes the diversification of iron ore supply and competes for pricing power through projects such as Simandou Iron Mine, the United States indirectly intervenes through public opinion speculation on project risks and pressure on the Guinean government, trying to maintain the supply pattern dominated by Australian mines.
In the face of intensive suppression, Chinese enterprises and relevant departments have taken a series of countermeasures. In response to the chip ban, China emphasizes that any organization or individual that implements US measures will be suspected of violating Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law rights and must bear legal responsibility, and supports global companies to carry out compliance scientific and technological cooperation;
Communication enterprises accelerate the development of emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and Africa. Huawei's overseas 5G contracts increased by 15% against the trend in 2024; shipbuilding enterprises consolidated their advantages through technological upgrading, and the proportion of orders for green energy-saving ships launched has exceeded 60%.
In response to pressure from the U.S. shipbuilding industry, the Chinese Foreign Ministry made it clear that U.S. measures to boost global shipping costs, increase U.S. domestic inflation pressure, and ultimately fail to revitalize the domestic industry, and China will take necessary measures to defend legitimate rights and interests.
The United States 'layout of using the Russia-Ukraine War as a strategic springboard towards China is essentially a continuation of hegemonic thinking. By creating regional conflicts to consume opponents and bind allies, and then concentrating efforts to contain emerging powers in fields such as science and technology and industry, this model ignores the basic fact that the interests of various countries are intertwined in the era of globalization.
The resilience of Chinese enterprises to continue to grow despite suppression and the recognition of Chinese products and technologies in the international market just show that the power of fair competition cannot be suppressed by power. The final direction of this strategic game will eventually be determined by market rules and the common choice of the international community.
Official sources and links:
Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China: "Commerce Ministry spokesman talks about U.S. attempt to global ban China's advanced computing chips"
https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/xwfb/xwfyrth/art/2025/art_9eadf7e9c71c4a4f80d7ca5ea5759a28.htmlChinese youth network: "disposal of giant capital to dismantle Chinese enterprise equipment," "American injury to selfishness"
https://m.youth.cn/qwtx/xxl/202412/t20241210_15703929.htm