The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in China, or as some experts hold was created was created as a bio-weapon as intuitively written in Dean Koontz’s 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness, in one way or another has benefited the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its aggression against the U.S.-led free society.  As foreign policy commentary for the Washington Examiner Tom Rogan wrote, just as it was with Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ -- an economic and social campaign by the CCP from 1958 to 1962 to reconstruct China from an agrarian economy into a communist society -- “Xi Jinping’s coronavirus legacy is built on a mountain of bodies and lies” in order to enhance China’s global hegemony.

Perhaps it is no accident why Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump’s national Defense Production Act policy coordinator, recently stated:  “As soon as I saw a novel coronavirus emerge in Wuhan, my radar went up” -- he had written in his book The Coming China Wars (2006) that “China has become the world’s prime breeding ground for new and exotic strains of influenza and other viruses.”  He accused Chinese officials who visited the White House in mid-January for the signing of the phase one trade deal of suppressing crucial information -- even possibly transmitting the disease.  “They shook our hands.  We broke bread with them,” he said.  “They smiled and left with nary a warning about the severity of the crisis.”

We know how the CCP lied over its claim in December 2019 that the coronavirus was under control, simultaneously refusing to allow access to Western medical officials, failing to instigate an effective quarantine and deflecting responsibility during that period.  It was not, however  until late January that President Trump started regularly talking about the outbreak in relatively concerned terms.  That shift suggests the issue had, by January, become a significant element of Trump’s daily intelligence report.  It is likely that Trump was then warned that the risk of a global pandemic was growing.

While we are at war with the “invisible enemy” (the coronavirus),  we are also at war with China and most of us are not even aware of it.  The CCP is ultimately responsible for the deceptions that allowed the coronavirus to become a global pandemic as it daily destroys lives and economies.  And yet, much of the mainstream media through the world has been sympathetic to General Secretary Xi Jinping -- his actual state title is goujia zhix: “state chairman;” the English translation “president” is a misnomer to give the impression that Beijing’s body politic is parallel to American democracy, when in fact, as clearly explained by Newt Gingrich in his book Trump vs. China (2019), Xi is actively seeking the ultimate demise of the U.S.-led free market and capitalist society, to be replaced by a Chinese-led socialist one.  Xi, in the Leninist tradition, is fully dedicated to ensure that (China’s) communism rules the world.  He had told the members of China’s Central Committee in 2013: “The most important thing on running our own affairs well, continuously, strengthen our comprehensive national strength…continuously build socialism with superiority over capitalism, and continuously lay a more solid foundation for us to win initiative, advantage and future.”

President Trump, while trying to openly maintain a positive attitude towards China -- the last thing the public needs is to be told of another crisis -- has angered Beijing when he signed a  legislation last Thursday that will help U.S. diplomats from keeping Xi’s attempts to isolate Taiwan, a sign that antagonism between China and the United States continues to ramp up.

The signing took place following a new round of saber-rattling in the Pacific Ocean.  An American guided-missile destroyer navigated the straits of Taiwan on Wednesday, just days after the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet conducted live-fire drills in the Philippine Sea.  Taiwanese government analyst Su Tzu-yun said: “The U.S. has never conducted missile drills in the South China Sea, and the drill that it conducted in the Philippine Sea near the South China Sea is meant to tell China that the U.S. is capable of dealing with any situation despite the coronavirus outbreak.”

Then-presidential candidate Trump said in 2015: [China is] an economic enemy, because they have taken advantage of us like nobody in history.  It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world what they've done to the United States.  They’ve taken our jobs.”  And at a campaign rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana in May 2016, Trump said, “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing.   It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

Aside that China’s hacking and intellectual property theft that costs the U.S. hundred of billions of dollars every year, the CCP “is engraved in a systematic campaign to pilfer valuable trade secrets for countless industrial and consumer goods.  This effort aims to reverse engineer non-Chinese goods and then flood foreign markets with stolen and knockoff products and technologies.”

Trump has taken direct aim at China.  In 2019, under a long-term deal sealed by the Obama administration, a Chinese Communist company was set to control America’s second-largest container port behind the nearby Port of Los Angeles.  In an unreported Trump administration victory, the Chinese had to withdraw after a drawn-out national security review forced a unit of China-based COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. (Orient Overseas Container Line -- OOCL) to sell the container terminal business, which handles among the largest freight of imports into the U.S.

He has also raised tariffs aimed at pressuring China to cease giving its industries unfair economic advantages and violating the norms and rules of international commerce.  China and its trading partners retaliated, which wound up hurting the competitiveness of U.S. firms overseas, suppressing manufacturing employment by more than protection from imports boosted it.  Yet when one is at war, there are always going to be unwanted, and at times, unforeseen casualties. 

China’s economy is not as strong Beijing makes it to be.  As of last year, China's debt has topped 300% of gross domestic product, according to the Institute of International Finance.  China suffered an even deeper slump as the coronavirus shuttered factories, shops and restaurants across the nation, underscoring the fallout now facing the global economy as the virus spreads around the world.  Just like the pandemic, which we will eventually defeat, we can win the war against China but we must first acknowledge that it is an enemy that must be stopped.