The Duel is between the US and China
by Giorgio Cuscito
This essay appeared on Limes n. 4/2025 Assalto all’Oceano Cosmo.
1. Donald Trump has a goal: to restore America’s past lustre by freeing it from the constraints and costs of the informal empire it built in the aftermath of World War II. No longer the sole superpower, it would be a nation with an imperial vocation limited to North America, including Greenland and Canada. Europe, thoughn still in a subordinate function, would be charged with greater responsibility, above all in managing pressure from Russia, with which Washington could find some kind of understanding on Ukraine to distance it from the People’s Republic of China. The objective is to propose a trade agreement to Xi Jinping from a position of strength, on the assumption that the internal fragilities of America and China would discourage them both from going to war in the Indo-Pacific. At least in the short term.
The Trump Revolution, initiated by wielding tariffs, involves convincing indigenous and foreign companies to produce in the United States again: to re-industrialise the country in order to restore prosperity to the population and no longer depend on the manufacturing of others. The success of this plan is far from a foregone conclusion, given the risk of shattering the relationship with America-linked countries in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. As an expression of the profound change in the way the United States thinks about itself and the world, Washington’s moves are already bringing about a rapid erosion of the international system that has rested on Western primacy since the mid-20th century. This is a period of “change not seen in a hundred years”, as Xi asserted in 2023 during a meeting in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. Beijing could take advantage of this time to propose to Washington a division into areas of influence, which in the view of the Empire of the Centre requires the annexation of Taiwan. By force, if necessary.
2. Net of possible medium-term compromises, America has named the Empire of the Centre its main challenger. It therefore wants to hit the Chinese economy (which still depends heavily on exports) and cut it off from high-tech production chains. In particular from that of artificial intelligence, intended as a multiplier of economic and military capabilities, with sea and Space as crucial domains where the Sino-US challenge is played out.
The strategic approach to the sea has long influenced space exploration. In 1964, engineer Dandrige Macfarlan Cole developed his space colonisation project based on the theories of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914). In The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Mahan stated that America’s primacy depends on its ability to protect its coastline, control the world’s sea lanes, and militarily garrison choke points. This concept is particularly clear to the Trump administration, currently engaged in expelling the Chinese from the Panama Canal. It is understood that the Indo-Pacific is the main theatre where to wear down China’s ambitions so that China’s presence does not translate into a permanent garrison of the Arctic and Oceania and thus into a direct threat to the security of US coasts.
In Space, routes are dictated by gravity wells, electromagnetic waves, and rivers of variously concentrated energy. The priority is the construction of spaceports and satellites with which to scan the Earth and explore the Cosmos Ocean. The most suitable and therefore particularly used locations for such vectors are low orbits, geostationary orbits, and Lagrange points. The latter are relatively stable gravitational anomalies located between our planet and the Moon where such vectors can be placed with almost no energy consumption.
Satellites have dual functions, civilian and military. They are decisive in monitoring sea lanes, coordinating multi-domain warfare activities, and gathering of information. They also serve as an alternative to the more vulnerable undersea cables to ensure the operation of critical infrastructure in the event of environmental disasters or sabotage. That is why major powers gear up to knock out others’ satellites by jamming their communications, hacking their software, sabotaging their sensors and solar panels, hitting them with other counterparts or with ground-launched missiles.
As regards satellites, America’s advantage over China hinges on the resources provided by Elon Musk through Starlink and SpaceX. The DOGE Chief, tasked by Trump to target the infidel ganglia of the American state, has launched more than seven thousand satellites into orbit, making up almost two-thirds of all satellites currently orbiting the Earth. The dominance of Musk’s technology can be seen in the Ukraine war, in which Kiev is using Starlink to monitor Russia’s movements and strike its navy in the Black Sea. This has triggered apprehension in the People’s Republic, which envisions similar applications in the event of war over Taiwan.
SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir are the main companies involved in the Golden Dome project, a satellite constellation that will be tasked with detecting enemy missiles and destroying them with its launchers. The fact that Musk has proposed that the US Government pay for the use of the devices with some sort of subscription signals the entrepreneur’s business-like approach to national security issues.
Beijing is attempting a run-up. It wants to equip itself with at least two constellations to wrest the dominance of low orbits from Musk. Within the next decade, the Guowang (“National Network”) and Qianfan (“Thousand Sails Constellation”) projects are expected to make use of 13,000 and 14,000 satellites respectively. In 2027, China will launch the next generation of BeiDou, a system based on devices in high, medium, and low orbits to make autonomous operation capability more precise. The aim is to take customers away from the American GPS along the “new digital silk roads” that from the People’s Republic articulate to Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas via data centres, 5G antennas, fiber optic cables, and smart cities. Obviously built by Chinese companies.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been studying anti-satellite solutions since the early 2000s. In 2023, the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha (linked to the Armed Forces) made a space war-game to train cadets, especially to carry out a secret mission in low orbits. The following year, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics simulated the hunt for 1,400 Starlink devices using ninety-nine Chinese counterparts coordinated by a sophisticated binary artificial intelligence algorithm inspired by the tactics whales use to catch fish. The juxtaposition with the marine world and the fact that the Harbin Technological Institute, a benchmark of Chinese projects in the Arctic, took part in the simulation underscore the importance of the strategic connection between sea and Space for Beijing. In the words of Ye Peijian, Head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, “We lost our right to the sea during the Ming Dynasty. The Universe is an ocean, the Moon is the Diaoyu Islands [controlled by Japan, which calls them Senkaku – Ed.], Mars is Huangyan Island [claimed by the Philippines as Scarborough – Ed.]. If we do not go there now as we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants”.
Xi does not seem satisfied with the pace at which the PLA is equipping for “intelligentisation” (zhineng hua). Two factors signal this. The first is the technological intelligence reform, which in 2024 resulted in the replacement of the Strategic Support Force (SSF) by three separate entities: the Information Support Force (ISF), the Cyberspace Force (DCF), and the Aerospace Force (AF). The second factor is the ongoing two-year cycle of purges in the PLA and the military industry. Among those ousted are high-ranking officials such as Defence Minister Li Shangfu (experienced in the Space sector), Central Military Commission (CMC) Deputy Secretary He Weidong, and CMC Member and Director of the PLA’s Political Work Department Miao Hua. A dozen officials belonging to the Rocket Force and the Equipment Development Department (in charge of developing new technologies) have also been removed. These elements, coupled with rising youth unemployment, declining demographics, a fragile real estate system, and dependence on exports are prompting Beijing to look first and foremost at domestic reforms rather than the immediate takeover of Taiwan.
In the Indo-Pacific theatre, spatial and maritime dimensions merge. The US presence is articulated at bases in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Australia (the Five Eyes member closest to Chinese shores), Guam, and Hawaii. The Space Force has recently established a presence on South Korean and Japanese soil. Contextually, America provides weapons to Taiwan and trains Taiwanese soldiers to resist a possible invasion.
In response to US containment, Beijing has intensified exercises around the island and boosted patrols in the China Seas. It has also stepped up satellite launches from floating platforms and from the coast, making use of facilities in Haiyang and Wenchang. The latter is located on Hainan Island, which hosts the Yulin Naval Base and serves as a pivot for naval activities in the China Seas. Concurrently, the People’s Republic has entered into economic and security agreements with several countries in Oceania to place itself along the trajectory between Australia and America and one day increase pressure on Taiwan’s eastern flank.
China also surpassed America in operational naval units: 234 versus 219. The gap could widen given the difficulties the United States faces in getting the naval industry back on track. This dynamic, coupled with the recruiting crisis, alarms several US strategists since throughout history the largest fleets have been those that, by absorbing losses better, have won the most wars. Yet it is not only “throwing ships in the water like dumplings” that counts, to quote a phrase circulated some time ago in the Chinese blogosphere. The quality of technology and combat experience also matter, and these are categories in which America’s Armed Forces still seem to have the edge.
For Beijing strategists, the daunting attempt to attack Taiwan would be multi-domain. Blinding Taipei’s satellites, cyberattacks to knock out its critical infrastructure, and sabotaging Internet cables (already tested by Beijing around the Penghu and Matsu archipelagos) would allow the PLA to carry out the naval blockade of the island thereby preventing American and Japanese intervention. It would then proceed with the deployment of air and sea drones, and then the amphibious landing using civilian assets as well. The landing would likely be followed by Taiwanese resistance and then urban guerrilla warfare.
As the Arctic too is a key junction between World Ocean and Cosmos Ocean, Trump is claiming Greenland. The world’s largest island is desolate but rich in energy and mineral resources useful for technological production chains. Here the US Space Base at Pituffik supports the American missile defence system. Having a station in the Arctic allows communication and tracking of satellites placed on the polar orbit, which enable global coverage of Earth by moving between North and South as the planet rotates on itself.
Add to this the fact that the Deep North lies along the shortest trajectory of the intercontinental ballistic missiles that the United States and China aim at each other. Radar and sensors placed at the Pole contribute to the detection of launches and of hostile satellite operations. Not to mention that the climatic conditions in this part of the world are ideal for training to operate in Space.
This is clear also to Russia. Its dependence on energy exports to the People’s Republic has enabled the growth of Chinese military and civilian activities in the Arctic, but here the Kremlin does not want to give Beijing a free hand. Mutual distrust between China and Russia could further the US plan to separate the two Eurasian powers.
In South America, Beijing’s departure may be more complicated than expected. Net of the complex sale of ports controlled by Hong Kong’s CK Hutchinson to Panama and the latter’s withdrawal from the New Silk Roads, the People’s Republic enjoys several landmark infrastructure hubs: the port of Chancay in Peru, the first Chinese-controlled port on South America’s western flank; satellite stations in Patagonia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela; listening bases in Cuba; and the possible space observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Washington will hardly be able to dissuade those countries from doing business with the Empire of the Centre.
3. The Sino-US game in the exploration of the Cosmos Ocean is wide open, even though the US has an advantage on China. The United States is the only country to have sent men to the moon. It intends to return in 2027 with the Artemis Program, in which the European Space Agency (ESA) and Italy are also participating. But the activities are years behind schedule, experiencing several logistical problems, and the original budget has been heavily overrun. Musk would like to get astronauts to Mars by 2029, to set up a colony there in the next two decades. In 2030, Washington will decommission the International Space Station (ISS), one of the symbols of NASA’s historic technological record. A SpaceX tugboat will return it to Earth’s atmosphere, to destroy it in the heart of the Pacific. It will fall at the so-called oceanic pole of inaccessibility, or Point Nemo. This location, often chosen for the re-entry of spacecraft debris, is the farthest point from any landmass. The association with the protagonist of Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is more than appropriate, since in the early 20th century the French writer himself expressed in his works the close association between the exploration of the deep sea and the exploration of the cosmos.
In 2030 Beijing plans to send its taikonauts (taikong means Space) to the Moon, to whose hidden side it has already sent a rover. From there the device communicates constantly with Earth via a satellite placed at the Lagrange point 2. No other country has succeeded in this feat. Last year, the People’s Republic recovered soil samples collected at the lunar South Pole. The aim is to build a permanent space station there, as its solar panels placed there would store energy twenty-four hours a day all year round, unlike on the rest of our natural satellite. In addition, a large amount of ice could be concentrated there, which could potentially be used to produce oxygen or fuel. In sum, the lunar South Pole could enhance Earth observation capabilities and become a small trampoline from which to project into the Cosmos Ocean.
China operates its space station, Tiangong, solo. Italy was supposed to contribute to the construction of the facility’s pressurised modules, but in 2019 Rome broke off the collaboration. In Washington’s eyes, it was unacceptable for a NATO member to contribute to the space projects of America’s rival. That choice, which was followed by Italy’s membership in Artemis, preceded Italy’s withdrawal from the New Silk Roads by four years, perceived by Beijing as image damage. The lunar soil sample donated by Xi to Italian President Sergio Mattarella in November 2024 after the adoption of a new three-year Sino-Italian collaboration plan may have been a subtle reminder that Beijing has made great progress in the space field despite Italy’s choice not to contribute to its geopolitical projects.
4. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, has labelled DeepSeek’s introduction of the R1 artificial intelligence model “AI’s Sputnik moment”. The reference to the 1957 launch of the eponymous satellite by the Soviet Union and thus the beginning of the Space Race conveys America’s fear of Chinese technological progress. Especially since DeepSeek has apparently been able to achieve the same results as its American rivals but using lower quality microchips and spending significantly less money.
Trump and Xi have openly involved their respective techno-vassals in the Sino-US duel. Musk (SpaceX, Starlink, and Starshield) is tasked with driving American tech innovation along with Sam Altman (OpenAi), Jeff Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin), Peter Thiel (Palantir), Palmer Luckey (Anduril), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Larry Ellison (Oracle), and Masayoshi San (SoftBank). These entrepreneurs are currently aligned, but they remain competitors. Not to mention that The Donald’s goal is to redefine US geopolitical priorities; Musk’s is to pioneer life away from the planet. Some of the US techno-vassals are involved in the Stargate project, aimed at creating a new generation of artificial intelligence by first building a large number of data centres on US soil. Their ambitious construction will require the diversion of some waterways to allow cooling of the particularly energy-intensive machinery.
Shortly after Trump’s election and the Stargate announcement, Xi also quickly summoned his tech champions for a high-level summit. The Chinese leader empowered them on domestic economic challenges and enjoined them to contribute to Beijing’s efforts in competing with America. Among those summoned were Ren Zhengfei (Huawei), Jack Ma (Alibaba), Pony Ma (Tencent), Yu Renrong (Will Semiconductor), Wang Chuanfu (Byd), Zeng Yuqun (Catl, which makes electric batteries), Lei Jun (Xiaomi), Xu Ming (Galaxy Space), Wang Xingxing (Unitree Robotics, a robotics company), Liu Yonghao (New Hope, an agricultural company), and last but not least DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng.
In official Chinese contexts, protocol – including the arrangement of summonses – is meticulous. The central location given to Ren and Wang Chuanfu (and thus physical proximity to Xi) underscored Huawei’s and Byd’s special connection to the President’s plans. Jack Ma’s front-row but sideways presence signalled his partial rehabilitation after he criticised China’s financial system in 2020. In the years since, the Alibaba leader disappeared from the scene, and Beijing regulators subjected several tech companies to stringent scrutiny to send a clear message that the tech giants (many of them concentrated in the south of the People’s Republic) must operate in the vein of the government’s plans and not pose as centres of power alternative to the Communist Party.
One of the paradoxical factors in the technology match between Washington and Beijing is that 38% of the top artificial intelligence researchers in the United States received their Bachelor’s degrees in the People’s Republic. The Americans among those researchers account for 37%. Now China is trying to capitalise on the know-how accumulated by its young people abroad by luring them back home. This is nothing new. Between the 1980s and 2000s, access to US universities and companies allowed entrepreneurs such as Jack Ma, Zhang Ya-qin (former Chairman of Baidu) and Tang Xiao’ou (founder of SenseTime) to put their skills to use in the People’s Republic.
In the new technology race, Nvidia plays a decisive role. Since 2022, the graphics card company founded in California by Taiwanese Jensen Huang has been trying to circumvent Washington’s export limits on microchips by selling lower-quality versions in China, which also have been affected by US bans. Yet Huang does not want to give up the market in the People’s Republic. He confirmed this himself last April when he met with Chinese top management and Liang Wenfeng.
5. The US and China are preparing for space wars, but for now the stakes remain on Earth. China will probably not be able to project its naval power steadily into the rest of the World Ocean in the short term, but in the Indo-Pacific the PLA’s combination of maritime, air, missile, cyber, and space activities makes US primacy less certain than it used to be. To rein in the People’s Republic, Washington will call for greater support from regional partners. Starting with Japan and Australia, which are also grappling with integrating artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons into their respective arsenals.
That is, if the revolution going on in America does not end up weakening Washington’s clout in this part of the world in favour of Beijing. The meeting between the foreign ministers of China, Japan, and South Korea last March had as its topic the revival of trade relations in reaction to US tariffs. Strategic rivalries and maritime disputes were not on the table for the occasion.
In April, Xi put himself forward as a defender of globalisation during a significant mission to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia, all in the cross hairs of US tariffs. With the construction of a Chinese sphere of influence in mind, he encouraged these countries: “Together we will safeguard the bright prospects of our Asian family”. Beijing had recently responded to Washington with tariffs against US products, restrictions on the export of rare minerals, and the addition of American companies on the list of entities to which Chinese companies cannot sell dual-use technologies. Meanwhile, the narrative has prevailed in Communist Party-linked media that “the sky will not fall” because of Trump: Beijing’s willingness to bargain with Washington remains firm.
The bloc of countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the People’s Republic’s largest trading partner. However, many of these countries historically fear Beijing’s naval and space ascent and seek to understand the extent to which Trump will maintain the US military presence in the Indo-Pacific. If ASEAN economies deteriorate due to Washington’s policies, Beijing would more easily promote trade agreements, investment, and cultural exchanges. It would then reinvigorate its soft power, which has been diminished in recent years by the winds of war blowing around Taiwan and disputes in the China Seas, particularly those with the Philippines. Recently, the People’s Republic occupied one of four small sandbars called Sandy Cay near the island of Thitu. Manila, which uses the latter to monitor PLA movements, responded to Beijing’s move by landing on the other three atolls.
On the western flank of Eurasia, the People’s Republic could encourage Europe’s autonomy from America. Disoriented by the reconfiguration of US geopolitical priorities and unaccustomed to thinking strategically, veteran continental countries scramble haphazardly over how to respond to tariffs and the establishment of an unlikely European defence. Provided it does not descend into total Eurasian chaos, the souring of relations between America and Europe is music to Beijing’s ears. Beijing eyes a chance to penetrate the Old Continent again by making common cause against US tariffs. Beijing could propose new collaborations to Italy as well. Not only to permanently erase Rome’s abandonment of the New Silk Roads, but to root itself technologically in the Mediterranean, between Africa (where China has long taken root) and the creaking American sphere of influence in Europe.
Even the relationship with the Vatican will be a major factor. Not at all in tune with the United States and Trump, Pope Francis had placed the periphery at the centre of his geopolitical project. In the wake of the missionary work of his Jesuit confrere Matteo Ricci, in 2018 Bergoglio entered into a confidential agreement on the appointment of bishops in China. The goal was to better protect the local Catholic community and expand pastoral work in the Far East. The People’s Republic sees the informal relationship with the Holy See (the only government in Europe that recognizes Taiwan’s sovereignty) as a tool with ecumenical reach that allows it better to understand the West (to undermine it, not replicate it) and enhance its soft power abroad. The degree to which the new Pontiff will be inclined to look Eastward will also affect the China-US confrontation, between the Cosmos Ocean and the World Ocean.
Translated by Dr Mark A Sammut Sassi.
