Editor’s Note: The following article contains excerpts from Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power (Oxford University Press, 2024) with the permission of the publishers.

From Washington’s Farewell Address to Biden’s national security strategy, the core U.S. national interest, unsurprisingly, has not changed: to ensure the fundamental security of the homeland and its people in freedom. As Alexander Hamilton put it, “Self-preservation is the first duty of a nation.” Vital U.S. interests are all increasingly threatened by China and can be defined as the following:

1) To prevent the use and reduce the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and catastrophic conventional terrorist attacks or cyber attacks against the United States, its military forces abroad, or its allies.

China’s burgeoning intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and nuclear capabilities present a threat to the American homeland and its forces abroad. China plans to increase its stockpile of strategic nuclear warheads from an estimated 500 in 2022 to 1,500 by 2035. This rise is accompanied by increased infrastructure-building to produce and separate plutonium. Beijing is reportedly constructing 300 new missile silos in the country’s western desert—a tenfold increase over the number operational in 2022—in addition to its arsenal of an estimated one hundred road-mobile ICBM launchers. 

2) To stop the spread of nuclear weapons, secure nuclear weapons and materials, and reduce further proliferation of intermediate and long-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons. 

Beijing continues to permit state-owned enterprises and individuals to violate the Missile Technology Control Regime (MCTR) and “proliferate technology that Iran has used to improve the accuracy, range, and lethality of its ballistic missiles.” At the same time, Beijing has undermined sanctions against Tehran by dramatically boosting its economic support for the Islamic Republic. China has steadily remained the Islamic Republic’s top trading partner, and commerce between the two countries exceeds $15 billion annually. If Iran eventually acquires a nuclear weapon, Beijing, through its economic and technical assistance, will bear substantial responsibility.

Beijing has also looked away as its citizens and corporations violate the MTCR vis-à-vis North Korea, despite China’s stated aim of finding a peaceful solution to Pyongyang’s nuclear program. A January 2023 Congressional Research Service report indicates that “Chinese financial companies set up paper companies to act as agents for North Korean financial institutions, evading sanctions to finance the North’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs.” 

3) To maintain a global and regional balance of power that promotes peace, stability, and freedom through domestic robustness, international power projection and influence, and the strength of alliance systems.

Beijing has mounted an all-out assault on the military, economic, and diplomatic balance of power in Asia and on America’s alliance system in the region. China’s military modernization, made possible by unprecedented increases in defense spending, laid the foundation for this rapid change. The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) modernization includes a new command-and-control structure, upgraded equipment across the navy, air force, and army, expanded and improved training for cadets, and the establishment of the Strategic Support Force to centralize its new combat capabilities. In addition to the buildup of its nuclear arsenal, Beijing now boasts the world’s most oversized navy, as well as the largest ballistic and cruise missile inventory. 

On the economic front, China has pursued two strategies to undermine American power in the Indo-Pacific. First, Beijing threatens and coerces America’s partners in Asia to adopt policies conducive to Chinese regional dominance. Second, the People’s Republic (PRC) created and now promotes international economic organizations and initiatives that exclude the United States, privilege China’s position, and undermine global rules and standards. 

China also sought to expand its leadership in international governing institutions and weaken U.S. influence. At the United Nations (UN), in particular, Beijing has become more assertive and activist, mounting an assault on democratic norms, including the rule of law, human rights, transparency, and accountability. 

4) To prevent the emergence of hostile powers or failed states in the Western Hemisphere. 

Beijing has successfully attempted to deepen its strategic involvement with Latin American nations, increasingly at the expense of the United States.

China is now South America’s top trading partner and the second largest for Latin America as a whole, after the United States. That is a significant leap for a country that, in 2000, accounted for less than 2 percent of Latin America’s exports. China has built ports, railroads, and dams, installed 5G networks throughout Latin America, and loaned the region’s nations $138 billion. 

Notably, China has made a concerted attempt to engage Latin America and the Caribbean in the security domain. Beijing’s 2008 and 2016 policy papers for the region outline Chinese commitments to increase “military exchanges and cooperation,” assist the “development of the army in Latin American and Caribbean countries,” and “enhance cooperation in military trade and military technology.” Between 2002 and 2019, senior PLA leaders conducted 215 visits to the region, with Chile, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina accounting for over half of these interactions. 

5) To ensure the viability and stability of major international systems (trade, financial markets, public health, energy supplies, cyberspace, the environment, freedom of the seas, and outer space).

Over the past fifteen years, China has sought to weaken virtually all these major global systems.

Through its repeated violations of international commercial practices, Beijing has disrupted the stability of world markets. It uses hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies and intentional overproduction to flood global markets with artificially low-priced Chinese goods and services. Beijing also restricts market access to foreign companies and imposes arbitrary non-tariff barriers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, China delayed the transmission of crucial data for weeks and continues to resist any serious inquiry into the origins of the virus.In addition, China’s role in the fentanyl epidemic poses a direct threat to American citizens. China has created a sprawling and immensely powerful cyber operations command, which it employs to interfere with other nations and repress its own citizens. It uses cyberattacks and cyber espionage as elements of influence campaigns in the United States, through which it tries to shape public perceptions of China, suppress criticism, and mislead American voters. It has penetrated U.S. infrastructure and critical facilities and continues to steal data from hundreds of millions of Americans. 

China consistently hampers global efforts to slow climate change and mitigate its impact. It emits more greenhouse gases than any other country and constructs new fossil fuel infrastructure across the world as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. It also exposes its own air, soil, and waterways to immense pollution. 

China claims sovereignty over the South China Sea (SCS) and declares the area its “inherent territory,” inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Beijing’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea challenges established norms in the maritime domain, such as geographical boundaries, the rights of countries to control natural resources within their delineated zones, and international dispute resolution mechanisms. 

In pursuit of Xi’s “eternal dream” for China to become a “space power,” Beijing has also made a concerted effort to expand its private and state industries rapidly. The PLA draws an explicit link between space and conflict; its 2020 Science of Military Strategy document describes “the dominance of space [as] inseparable from the outcome of war.” 

This enumeration vividly demonstrates China’s comprehensive policies to undermine each of America’s five vital national interests that safeguard and enhance Americans’ survival and well-being in a free and secure nation and bolster international order. As U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained in late 2022, “The PRC is the only country with both the will and, increasingly, the power to reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preferences.” 

In weakening these five vital U.S. interests by threatening nuclear annihilation, Beijing could deter the United States from acting in a crisis. In attempting to dominate Asia, China could prompt nuclear proliferation across the region, beginning with South Korea or even Japan, as countries seek a last-ditch nuclear deterrent capability. A China-dominated Asia could fatally fragment the United States’ Asian alliance system, as one U.S. ally after another kowtows to Beijing. The PRC could undermine U.S. ties with Mexico and other countries in Latin America to distract the United States from pursuing its national interests in Asia and elsewhere. A China that dominated Asia would alter global values, rules, and practices to the United States’ disadvantage. 

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, summed up the Chinese president’s ambitions. “Xi Jinping,” he said, “is not trying to out-compete America in the existing liberal international order dominated by the [United States]. His long-term goal is to change the world order into a Sino-centric one.”

Robert D. Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Richard Fontaine is the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security. Follow him on LinkedIn and X @RHFontaine.