While the media frequently reduces U.S.-China relations under the Trump administration to a so-called “trade war,” the U.S. federal government has, after decades of willful blindness and neglect, embarked on a multifaceted mission to reorient the relationship towards America’s national interest.

IFA has two prayer guides to help you understand and pray for U.S./China relations:

Profiting from the Prosecutors

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Red Flag on China: A War with Currency and Trade

This underappreciated, revolutionary effort was borne of an almost intuitive understanding by President Trump, increasingly accepted across the national security and foreign policy establishment, that China itself is engaged in a multifaceted—and malign—struggle to achieve global superpower status, at the cost of our people, and ultimately our freedom.

Seemingly with each passing week, a new story emerges illustrating the magnitude of China’s ambitions, and the litany of issues such ambitions present for the free world. Recently, many recoiled at the ghastly revelations of the Uighur concentration camps of Xinjiang, which, on top of the chaotic and bloody scenes from the streets of Hong Kong, have underscored the totalitarian nature of a Communist regime that the rest of the world has effectively been underwriting. If this is how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) treats its own citizens, and those in its orbit, how will it treat the rest of us should it achieve global dominance? . . .

The scope of these efforts tied to merely one element of China’s arsenal speaks to something sorely missing from the public discourse: A realization of the overall scope of China’s ambitions—and the myriad ways it is pursuing them—and the fact that the ultimate ambition is hegemony. Absent a widespread understanding of these issues in the American public, there will never be the popular groundswell needed for the relentless, comprehensive effort needed to counter the threat of a China itself engaged in such all-encompassing effort. . . .

One takeaway from the [Newt Gingrich’s new book, Trump vs. China] is that the prudent way of evaluating the Communist regime’s efforts is to assume that they are “dual-use” – that is, while they may have a civilian component, they also have a political/military function, contributing to the party’s strategy for dominance. Economic growth, for example, then should not be thought of as an end in itself for the benefit of the Chinese people, but a means for the CCP to achieve its priorities. That Americans broadly may not yet see things this way illustrates the importance of Gingrich’s book.

In the way of immediate threats, one of Gingrich’s most trenchant arguments concerns the ramifications if China is able to control the all-important fifth-generation (5G) technology on which the Internet of Things and all communications will run. Beyond the danger of Huawei’s dominance in this area, and America’s as yet unsuccessful effort to dissuade several critical allies from contracting with Huawei to build their 5G networks, Gingrich highlights the ways in which complacent actors in the federal government and private sector have hamstrung our ability to compete in telecommunications. . . .

Another (unfortunately) recurring theme Gingrich has harped on throughout his career—particularly poignant in context of the U.S.-China competition—concerns the stifling nature of our bureaucracy. As Gingrich writes in Trump vs. China, “if we can build a consensus about dealing with the Chinese communist totalitarian dictatorship, we will discover that we have more internal challenges than any mobilization effort since the Revolutionary War.”

This is no understatement. Gingrich adds:

Our current problem is the exact opposite of the Founding Fathers’ mobilization problem. We have the largest entrenched bureaucratic structure in American history. The massiveness of our rules and regulations, the growth of lawyers as the dominant definer of acceptable government behavior, and the defense of entrenched public and private interests, all will be vastly more difficult to navigate and coordinate with than in 1860, 1939, or 1946. Our own systems, habits, interest groups, and bureaucracies may be a bigger problem than the threat from China’s communist system.

Gingrich adds that even to the extent we engage China in the manner he recommends: “There is a grave danger that all of our vast expenditures and massive professional bureaucracies will find it easier to engage in war posturing, while retaining the habits, doctrines, and organizational structures that make them comfortable and that they are used to living with.” . . .

Gingrich warns, “There is every reason to believe that China is catching up rapidly and may outpace us. This is because of us not because of them.”

(Excerpt from The Federalist. Article by Ben Weingarten.)