Way back in June of 2021, I wrote an article titled The War of the Red Dragon, in which I asserted that China was at war with the Western World, particularly the United States. That war was of course not kinetic (a shooting war), but nor was it cold, with China mounting economic, informational, cyber, political, ideological, legal (regulatory), and biological warfare against America and her allies, in what a 1999 Chinese military treatise by PLA colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, called ‘Unrestricted Warfare.’

If you have not yet read that earlier piece, you might consider doing so, as my contentions, while largely considered fringe in 2021, have now been shown to have been spot-on. Time will give this piece the same verdict.

In 2021, China was leveraging access to its much larger population to force our media to self-censor, lest they lose access to the Chinese media market. China got caught red-handed when ESPN reported that a General Manager of an NBA team tweeted ‘Free Hong Kong,’ and China, which was at the time not concerned with sports news, went ballistic.

To the degree that our allies and our government were also fighting this war, for the most part, they fought on China’s side. Whether or not COVID-19 was released intentionally, it was arguably weaponized by both China and factions within our own government, with the effect of helping to remove Donald Trump.

Now that Trump is back, it makes sense to see where we are in this war with China. Spoiler: It is not going well for China.

I generally like to avoid comparisons to Hitler, except where they can legitimately apply. Hitler killed about six million Jewish people and about twelve million civilians in total. Stalin killed at least thirteen million Ukrainians and about twenty million of his own people. Mao killed between 40 million and 80 million of his own people, depending on the estimate. Stalin and Mao were worse than Hitler and arguably much worse.

Xi Jinping can be compared to Hitler, and particularly in relation to his treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, who have been sent to concentration camps, killed in unknown numbers, harvested for organs, forcibly sterilized, raped, sodomized. The atrocities are too numerous and horrific to list in full. A comparison to Hitler is fitting.

I would not compare Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton to Hitler. However, I have written many times how much the progressive agenda resembles other (not Hitler) fascist regimes.

What I will say about Hitler is that on June 6, 1944, as American, Canadian, and British troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, Hitler had several Panzer divisions standing by to counterattack any Allied invasion attempt.

Hitler liked to stay up late and sleep in. Hitler was also an authoritarian dictator, kind of like Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Hitler had given orders that the tank divisions standing by to repulse any invasion attempt could only be released by Hitler personally.

When the first Infantry waves hit the beaches at about 6:30 AM, Hitler was sound asleep, and nobody dared awaken him. By the time Hitler got up (around 10 AM), the Allied beachheads were already secure, such that the Panzer divisions could no longer repulse the invasion.

Authoritarianism fails at least partially because of the fear subordinates have of the authoritarian leader. This has contributed to the fall of many authoritarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, China didn’t just survive the Cold War’s end – it inherited the ghost of the USSR’s global propaganda machine. Over the decades, China carefully rebuilt and expanded that machine, positioning itself as the new ideological challenger to the West. It spread soft power through Confucius Institutes, infiltrated media and universities, manipulated social discourse, and seeded division inside liberal democracies.

But in a twist of historical irony, the same propaganda war that China thought would bring down the West may ultimately destroy the Chinese Communist Party instead. Because China didn’t just attack Western values; it undermined the very markets it needed to survive.

Europe, once a potential buyer of Chinese goods, is crippled by its own energy mismanagement, high inflation, and shrinking industrial base. China’s influence campaigns helped push Europe into self-defeating green absolutism and economic policies that gutted consumer purchasing power. Canada, once a reliable trade partner, has followed suit, with figures like Mark Carney using anti-American rhetoric as a platform, seemingly unaware that doing so cripples their own economies and drives up the cost of living for their people.

Even so, the United States was the linchpin – the market China depended on above all others. And under Donald Trump, that market is slamming shut. Tariffs are rising. Supply chains are decoupling. And Xi Jinping, rather than seeking a diplomatic offramp, is doubling down on a trade war he simply cannot win. Why? Because he thinks he holds a strong hand. He doesn’t.

Xi believes China is in a position of power. He sees America as divided, Europe as irrelevant, and China as the rising hegemon. He sees the BRICS nations rallying behind him, China’s military swelling, and the Belt and Road paving the way for a Chinese-led world order. He thinks the future belongs to him.

The problem is that Xi Jinping doesn’t know what’s actually happening. No one dares tell him.

By purging rivals, centralizing power, and ruling through fear, Xi has surrounded himself with sycophants and cowards. His advisors have learned the hard way that honesty is dangerous. So they lie. They massage data. They report only victories. They frame failures as successes. And the higher up the information chain it goes, the more distorted it becomes. Xi lives in a curated reality – one that tells him China is strong, the West is weak, and history is on his side.

But the real numbers paint a different picture. China’s real estate market is in a state of collapse. Youth unemployment is sky-high. The domestic consumer base is shrinking, both in size and in purchasing power. Xi’s vaunted military is untested, bloated, and logistically suspect. His allies are Russia, Iran, and North Korea – a collection of geopolitical liabilities so dysfunctional they make the Axis of 1942 look like a G7 summit. All three countries are led by autocratic rulers who have a penchant for disappearing those they do not like, making them more like the Three Blind Mice than an Axis of Evil.

China’s debt crisis is another iceberg Xi pretends doesn’t exist. Officially, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio looks manageable. But unofficially, the real figure is staggering. Trillions in off-book debt are hidden in local government financing vehicles – shadowy entities that operate like state-backed loan sharks. These bodies borrowed vast sums to fund ghost cities, failed infrastructure projects, and local political vanity projects. There is no transparent accounting. No coherent repayment plan. And no way to unwind the mess without triggering widespread default or a financial crisis.

China did have a plan. It was to grow its own consumer base through rising wages and increased domestic prosperity, and only then begin to challenge or undermine the Western nations that bought Chinese goods. But that plan completely failed. Rising costs and capital flight hollowed out Chinese industry faster than demand could rise. Private enterprise was smothered by ideological control. Youth unemployment soared. And household savings rates stayed high because the population lacked any real confidence in the system. Instead of becoming self-sufficient, China ended up trying to destroy its customer base before securing a viable replacement.

China today is often compared to Japan in the 1990s – but the comparison doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Japan entered its stagnation era as a wealthy, democratic nation with honest accounting, a secure middle class, a high standard of living, and trusted institutions. China is facing its collapse while still a developing economy, with widespread corruption, doctored data, no social safety net, an aging workforce, and a brittle authoritarian system that can’t adapt. Japan had a lost decade. China could be facing a lost century.

Even his prized Belt and Road Initiative has turned into a global slumlord operation. Much of the infrastructure China financed either doesn’t work, wasn’t completed, or is already crumbling. Many of the countries that accepted BRI loans are now so deep in debt that they’re functionally worthless to Beijing. Xi wanted influence; what he got was a portfolio of deadbeat tenants he can’t evict.

Should these policies fail, Xi may play the Taiwan card — using war to rally nationalism and mask economic collapse.

But the world has seen this play before. Putin thought Ukraine would fall in three days. He thought his army was prepared, his people were united, and his global position was unshakable. Instead, the invasion exposed how rotten his system really was. Russian fuel trucks ran dry. Supply lines collapsed within days. Soldiers didn’t have food, maps, or working equipment. Convoys stalled for lack of spare parts. Generals issued orders based on delusion because lower officers had falsified readiness reports to avoid punishment.

Putin had no idea, and his officers were terrified to tell the truth. The result was a delusional war plan that ran headfirst into reality — and broke. Russia’s vaunted army, which he thought could take Kyiv in a weekend, couldn’t even keep its tanks fueled.

Xi is heading down the same path, with even more at stake. And if his regime falters, it won’t be because of rebellion or revolution. It’ll be because the truth finally caught up to a man who ruled by lies.

And when China’s propaganda engine finally collapses – an engine that, until recently, was ironically subsidized by American tax dollars through USAID-backed development and academic exchange programs – the propaganda fog may finally clear. The West won’t need to impose its values. It will only need to let the truth breathe — and truth has a way of winning on its own.

The emperor has no data. And time may be running out.

Image: AP