Is our Military Strategy Pro-China vs Pro-America?
This is the question Mitch McConnell asked U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a congressional committee meeting on May 20, 2025.
Who does Hegseth want to win: Ukraine or Russia?
Hegseth didn’t offer an answer; he felt any victor was acceptable as long as it led to a peace agreement. It was McConnell’s follow-up that stumped Hegsworth and caught my attention:
McConnell: Which side is President Xi pulling for?
Mitch said the quiet part out loud. Russia’s importance is shrinking. China’s influence is growing. Russia couldn’t continue this war without China’s support. Russia has become a client state of China.
China prefers having Russia alongside it on the global stage, adding another voice against Western democracy. Russia has become a prop for its much larger brother to the east.
China wants Russia to win. China wants Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S., and democracy to lose. The world would see that Western-style democracies cannot guarantee their people’s safety. They cannot be trusted to defend their allies. Nations will turn to China.
What Would China Do With a Man on the Inside?
Let’s imagine the worst-case scenario: let’s imagine if Hegseth were a Chinese asset. He wouldn’t be the only one; he would be taking orders from someone above.
If China had a mole in a top position in the government, how would they sabotage the U.S. from the inside?
I asked ChatGPT:
Assume China is a country with hostile intent against the U.S. They are not looking for a partnership. They are competing to be the dominant global power. They view the U.S. as their primary competitor in terms of military, economic, political, and social aspects. If they had assets within the U.S. government to take action from the inside, what would they do to destroy the U.S.’s global leadership? Give me a bullet list of key strategies, prioritizing them by impact? (Use a scale of massive, big, moderate, trivial).
The response was chilling:
How Is Trump Doing for China?
Let’s imagine that Trump was China’s top mole. His policies are coming from this list from China. How is he doing for China?
Undermining Faith in Democracy: ✅
Impact: Massive
As China’s mole, he would delegitimize American democracy, he would stoke internal division, promote conspiracy theories, and convince Americans that their elections were rigged.
Under Trump, this is exactly what happened. The “Stop the Steal” movement, fueled by baseless claims of election fraud, has done more to undermine global trust in American democracy than any foreign propaganda campaign could have hoped for.
Fracturing Military Alliances? ✅
Impact: Massive
One of China’s clearest objectives is to displace the U.S. as the world’s dominant power. This becomes much easier if the U.S. is isolated. During his presidency, Trump repeatedly bashed NATO, threatened to pull out of it, and framed our allies not as partners, but as financial freeloaders. His “America First” foreign policy left traditional allies confused, insulted, and looking elsewhere for leadership.
Abandoning Economic Leadership? ✅
Impact: Massive
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement explicitly designed to counterbalance China’s economic influence in Asia. In doing so, he handed China the opportunity to become the region’s economic linchpin. The administration also waged chaotic trade wars — not just with adversaries, but with allies — damaging trust and increasing costs for American consumers and exporters.
Weaken U.S. Diplomacy: ✅
Impact: Big
The Trump administration slashed foreign aid budgets, pulling back from programs that had long extended U.S. influence in developing regions. Trump publicly insulted and alienated traditional allies — labeling Canada a security threat, threatening to withdraw from NATO, and clashing with leaders of Germany, France, and the UK. He also withdrew the U.S. from key international institutions and agreements — including the WHO, the Paris Climate Accord, and the Iran nuclear deal — ceding diplomatic ground to China and others. The cumulative effect was a significant erosion of American credibility abroad, giving China space to expand its influence and present itself as a more stable and reliable global partner.
Destroying Trust in Science, Media, and Public Health? ✅
Impact: Big
A core strategy for any adversary seeking to destabilize the United States from within would be to erode public trust in the institutions that uphold facts, evidence, and shared reality. Under Trump, this erosion was systematic. He repeatedly dismissed scientific consensus on climate change, vaccines, and especially COVID-19 — while promoting misinformation and unproven treatments. He publicly attacked top public health officials, undermined the CDC, and turned mask-wearing and vaccination into partisan issues. Simultaneously, he labeled mainstream media “the enemy of the people,” creating an information ecosystem where conspiracy theories thrived. The result was a more divided, misinformed, and vulnerable population — less capable of responding to crises, less trusting of expertise, and more susceptible to manipulation, both domestic and foreign.
Block Skilled Immigration: ✅
Impact: Moderate
For decades, America has been the top destination for the world’s best and brightest minds, many of whom are from China. China has been the third-largest immigrant group in the U.S., losing many of their top scholars and entrepreneurs to us. Trump-era immigration policies, including reductions in H-1B visas, attacks on DACA, and hostility toward international students, discouraged that flow of talent. China doesn’t need to block America from getting top global minds; it only needs us to turn them away ourselves.
Neglect and Defund Critical Infrastructure ✅
Impact: Moderate
China has spent the last two decades building cities, ports, and megaprojects. America, under Trump’s first administration, spent four years promising “Infrastructure Week” but delivering virtually nothing. Investing in modern roads, clean energy, and broadband would have made the U.S. more competitive. China didn’t need to stop us — we stopped ourselves.
In Trump’s second term, DOGE has not only stopped any momentum but also made restarting impossible. FEMA’s 72-hour delay in responding to the deadly floods in Texas is the new reality.
Degrade (Defund) Public Education ✅
Impact: Moderate
Trump started 2025 by directing Secretary McMahon to “facilitate the closure” of the Department of Education. Half of the department has been laid off. School debt forgiveness has been canceled. Billions of dollars for essential K-12 services, approved by Congress, are frozen. He has blackmailed colleges and universities with threats of withholding federal dollars and blocking them from accepting foreign students (which are a significant source of funds that support in-state students).
For a country like China, aiming to outpace the U.S. in innovation and productivity, this self-sabotage is welcome.
Explode the Debt and Increase Inequality ✅
Impact: Trivial
The reason this is considered “trivial” isn’t because the impact is insignificant, but rather it is a double-edged sword for China. While they want to compete with us, they still need a strong U.S. economy to trade with. We are their largest market. They don’t want us in the driver’s seat of the global economy, but they still need us to be able to pay gas money.
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill will add $2.4T — $4T in debt over the next decade. 12M Americans will lose Medicaid, which will come back to their communities. Trump also signed an executive order reversing a rule that medical debt wasn’t part of your credit report, because getting sick is just poor choices, like credit card debt.
We have raised the national debt ceiling from $28.9 to $36.6T (27%⬆️). Can you imagine if your credit card debt jumped 27%?! This caused the U.S.’s credit rating to be dropped from AAA to AA1, which means increased interest rates on all future U.S. debt. Expect that to trickle down to your credit cards and mortgages.
Is Trump a Chinese Agent?
It doesn’t matter. The results seem to be the same.
If you worked in a fireworks factory, and some guy kept smoking, it wouldn’t matter if he was trying to burn the place down or not. It doesn’t matter whether it was an accident or intentional. The results are the same.
Intention matters, but we live with the results either way. I don’t think Trump is intentionally sabotaging America’s global leadership to China, but he seems to be smoking next to all the explosives just the same.
I don’t think he is a Chinese agent, but I do believe he is a Chinese asset. In the basketball game that is global politics, Trump keeps shooting “own baskets” for China. He might not be on their team, but he seems to be their MVP.