I helped defend against China’s economic hybrid war. Here’s how the US can respond.
While serving as a senior official in the US State Department and Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), I visited key leaders across the world’s developing countries as part of multi-agency economic missions to support US business interests and investment abroad. At almost every stop, our delegation was greeted with much fanfare—yet behind closed doors, the message we heard was clear: China is already here, and the United States is falling behind.
China is projected to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2028. But relative size is only part of the problem: The Chinese Community Party (CCP) is pursuing an insidious, intentional, and coordinated strategy of economic subversion—a classic form of “hybrid warfare”—that poses an existential threat to US national security. If the United States fails to respond to this threat with its own strategic effort, it risks compromising its global economic and geopolitical leadership.
