by Jerry Dunleavy
The Pentagon has provided the clearest picture yet on the CCP's global ambitions. Previous administrations sought to bolster China's rise to global eminence.
The Department of War is arguing that the Chinese military is boosted by the Chinese Communist Party in an effort to fulfill China’s goal to replace the United States as the globe’s preeminent superpower — a striking change from just over a decade ago when the Pentagon was welcoming the rise of China.
The Pentagon’s annual report, put out just before Christmas to little fanfare, noted that the Chinese military “has for decades marshaled resources, technology, and political will to achieve its vision of a world-class military” and assessed that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is a key component of China’s ambition to displace the United States as the world’s most powerful nation.”
This represents a rhetorical shift, especially as compared to the annual Pentagon reports between 2006 and 2011, during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, where the Defense Department repeatedly spoke of the U.S. “welcoming” China’s rise, with the reports even bragging about the extent to which the U.S. had facilitated China’s ascent on the world stage.
A number of U.S. national security and foreign policy assessments during the Trump and Biden presidencies also found that China was seeking to replace America as the preeminent world power, but it took years for these findings to make it into the Pentagon’s annual reports on China in a direct way.
The threat posed by China has been a major influence on many of the Trump Administration’s recent foreign policy moves, including the U.S. military raid aimed at and the arrest of CCP ally and Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. President Trump has also pointed to the Arctic threats posed by Russia and China in arguing that the U.S. needs to acquire Greenland from Denmark.
Pentagon's latest annual China reports show shift in recent years
The 2025 report which called out the CCP’s ambitions to “displace” the U.S. on the global stage in part through the growth and modernization of the Chinese military, noted that “the PLA measures its concepts and capabilities against the ‘strong enemy’ of the United States” and that “China’s top military strategy focuses squarely on overcoming the United States through a whole-of-nation mobilization effort” that Beijing had dubbed “national total war.”
The Pentagon report warned that “China’s historic military buildup has made the U.S. homeland increasingly vulnerable. China maintains a large and growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime, conventional long-range strike, cyber, and space capabilities able to directly threaten Americans’ security.”
“China’s National Strategy is to achieve ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049,” the 2025 report said. “In this vision, a rejuvenated China would have raised its ‘influence, appeal, and power to shape events to a new level,’ and it would field a ‘world-class’ military that can ‘fight and win’ and ‘resolutely safeguard’ the country’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.”
The report also pointed to “Beijing’s stated ambition to field a ‘world-class’ military by 2049” and assessed that the PLA “has already made significant progress in this regard.”
The 2024 report — the final one under the Biden era — repeated similar language about China’s “great rejuvenation” goals and assessed that “the PRC’s strategy entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a ‘leading position’ in an enduring competition between systems.”
The Pentagon’s annual reports in 2023, 2022, and 2021 had all also used the “great rejuvenation” and “leading position” language when describing Chinese grand ambitions.
Interestingly, the annual report in 2020 came closest to the eventual 2025 assessment, with the Pentagon again using the “great rejuvenation” and “leading position” language but also stating more than half a decade ago that “it is likely that Beijing will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to — or in some cases superior to — the U.S. military, or that of any other great power that the PRC views as a threat.”
The 2019 report said that “China sees itself as an emerging major power that will be able to gain influence as long as it can maintain a stable periphery.” The assessment said that “the CCP’s contemporary strategic objectives” included the perpetuation of CCP rule, the maintenance of domestic stability, the defense of national sovereignty, and the securing of “China’s status as a great power” — without a mention of Chinese ambitions to displace America.
The report in 2018 had found that “In support of the goal to establish a powerful and prosperous China, the ‘China Dream’ includes a commitment to developing military power commensurate with that of a great power.”
The reports in 2017, 2016, and 2015 all said that “China’s leaders remain focused on developing the capabilities to deter or defeat adversary power projection and counter third-party intervention — including by the United States — during a crisis or conflict” with the Pentagon assessing Chinese ambitions were more local or regional in nature.
The 2014 and 2013 reports found that China “continues to pursue a long-term, comprehensive military modernization program designed to improve the capacity of its armed forces to fight and win short-duration, high-intensity regional contingencies.”
The 2012 report by the Pentagon had similarly assessed that China “is pursuing a long-term, comprehensive military modernization program designed to improve the capacity of China’s armed forces to fight and win ‘local wars under conditions of informatization,’ or high-intensity, information-centric regional military operations of short duration.”
Pentagon under Bush and Obama said U.S. “welcomes” rise of China
The chasm between the current assessments about Chinese ambitions and the assessments from earlier in the 21st century are striking, with the Defense Department claiming that the U.S. welcomed the rise of China not too long ago.
The 2006 version of the Pentagon’s annual report said that “China’s rapid rise as a regional political and economic power with global aspirations is an important element of today’s strategic environment — one that has significant implications for the region and the world” and that “the United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China.”
The report added that “U.S. policy encourages China to participate as a responsible international stakeholder by taking on a greater share of responsibility for the health and success of the global system from which China has derived great benefit” and that “China’s leaders face some important choices as its power and influence grow” with the choices spanning a range of issues including “China’s expanding military power.”
U.S. under Bush "welcomes the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China"
The report in 2007 repeated that “China’s rapid rise as a regional political and economic power with global aspirations is an important element of today’s strategic environment — one that has significant implications for the region and the world.”
“The United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China, and it encourages China to participate as a responsible international stakeholder by taking on a greater share of responsibility for the health and success of the global system,” the report added. “However, much uncertainty surrounds the future course China’s leaders will set for their country, including in the area of China’s expanding military power and how that power might be used.”
The 2008 report said that the U.S. “welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China” and bragged that “no country has done more to assist, facilitate, and encourage China’s national development and its integration in the international system” than the U.S. had.
“China continues to face many problems, but the CCP’s accomplishments cannot be overlooked,” the report added. “The United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China. However, there are forces — some beyond the control of China’s leaders — that could divert China from a peaceful pathway. Which pathway China pursues, or finds itself upon, will be determined in large part by the choices of China’s leaders.”
The report in 2009 echoed the U.S. previous sentiment.
“China began a new phase of military development by articulating roles and missions for the People’s Liberation Army that go beyond China’s immediate territorial interests,” the 2010 report said. “Some of these missions and associated capabilities have allowed the PLA to contribute to international peacekeeping efforts, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and counterpiracy operations. The United States recognizes and welcomes these contributions.”
The 2011 report assessed that “China’s rise as a major international actor is likely to stand out as a defining feature of the strategic landscape of the early 21st century” and claimed that the U.S. “welcomes a strong, prosperous, and successful China that reinforces international rules and norms and enhances security and peace both regionally and globally” and that the U.S. “welcomes PRC contributions that support a safe and secure global environment.”
Pentagon’s latest China report catches up with other U.S. assessments
The Pentagon’s recent Chinese military power assessment now assessing that the CCP is seeking to displace the U.S. as the leading superpower brings the department’s annual assessments more in line with other recent findings by a number of U.S. agencies.
The Defense Department’s own 2018 National Defense Strategy had stated that China was “asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy” and that “it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”
It is unclear why this displacement language didn’t make it into the Pentagon’s annual China reports until nearly a decade later, in late 2025.
Defense and State Departments saw China's grasp expanding
The State Department’s Policy Planning Staff issued its own 2020 report on “The Elements of the China Challenge” arguing that an “examination of the CCP’s conduct in light of its communist and hyper-nationalist ideas demonstrates that by achieving ‘the initiative’ and attaining ‘the dominant position,’ Xi means displacing the United States as the world’s foremost power and restructuring world order to conform to the CCP’s distinctive way of empire.”
The 2022 National Security Strategy published by the Biden Administration argued that China “is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it” and added that “Beijing has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power.”
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last year also put out an assessment arguing that “Beijing has also continued its concerted efforts to establish regional economic and military hegemony in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands as stepping stones for projecting power toward its long-term goal of displacing the United States as the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific and, eventually, the world.”
The U.S. military’s recent air campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen, the U.S.’s years-long effort to supply a massive number of armaments to Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders, and U.S. assistance in the defense of Israel against Iranian missile barrages have all eaten into the U.S. weapon supply. In addition, Taiwan is facing a feared invasion by the Chinese, with the potential for the U.S. to get involved in defending the island nation against a near-peer and nuclear-armed adversary.
It remains unclear whether the defense industrial base would be able to manufacture the number of weapons and ships needed to sustain a long-term engagement against the PLA and the Chinese navy, but Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been encouraging defense company leaders to ramp up production and ordering military leaders to innovate, and the War Department now directly acknowledges the true scale of Chinese ambitions.
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/china-wants-replace-us-most-powerful-nation-dod-says-after-old-reports-welcomed
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