China is a strategic competitor; firmness, derisking and export controls justified

This position treats China as a strategic competitor. It holds that Chinese coercion and unfair practices, and China's reach into ports, minerals and shipping routes from Latin America to the Arctic, justify firmness, derisking, export controls and coordination among allies. In technology its advocates describe a close race the US must keep winning, and they call dependence on China for critical minerals a strategic vulnerability.

It is held mainly by Western and allied outlets, with US voices carrying the Arctic and Latin America strands. It appears in the competition between the US and China over economy and technology, the race over artificial intelligence, export controls on semiconductors, critical minerals, Chinese restrictions on Japan, which it calls economic coercion, Australia's position as a middle power, and trade and tariff rivalry. Some advocates add that summit diplomacy is stabilising the rivalry.

It is answered by the view that China's trade and technology measures are lawful and defensive and that Washington is the aggressor, and by the view that tariffs and trade coercion are self-harming. Recent events show both sides of the ledger: continuing rivalry between Nvidia and Huawei in AI chips, but also a summit with an AI hotline and tariff cuts worth about 30 billion dollars.