Experts on China at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) panel on Thursday sounded the alarm about the Communist nation’s efforts to defeat the United States and without ever having to fire a shot.

The experts on the panel, hosted by the Committee on the Present Danger: China, warned that China is laying the groundwork to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower, which will have profound implications for Americans.

China expert and author Gordon Chang said China is becoming more belligerent to the U.S. — not less — and is trying to lay the groundwork in China to blame the coronavirus on the United States.

China recently had a famous health expert — a “hero” of fighting the SARS epidemic — raise doubts in China Daily, a Chinese state-run media outlet, that the coronavirus originated in China.

The Chinese Communist government is “laying the theoretical foundation that the U.S. spread disease in their country,” Chang said.

Chang also laid out remarks and actions that Chinese leaders have made or the Chinese military has done that show hostility to the U.S., such as that China had the right to use force to settle trade disputes, directing blinding lasers at U.S. pilots in Djibouti, and conducting sonic attacks against American diplomats.

“Why do we maintain a cordial relationship with a regime that is harming Americans?” he asked.

Chang also mentioned a recent news report that said China plans to buy 1.4 million units of body armor, citing potential military conflicts with “Taiwan secessionists” and “U.S. provocations.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is “warning us about what he wants to do,” Chang said. “We are in a war, and the enemy is the People’s Republic of China.”

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, who recently retired and speaks about the threat of China as a private citizen, said China is pursuing a strategy of seeking dominance while “trying not to awaken the great giant” — the U.S.

He said the plan is to steal U.S. intellectual property, duplicate the technology using their party system, flood the market with that technology, and dominate the market. He said the Chinese are trying to dominate all cutting edge technological markets, including telecommunications, drones, quantum computing, super-computing, and facial recognition software.

“They have stated openly they see our freedom as an existential threat to their survival over time,” he said.

He said if the China dominates 5G networks, through which all telecommunications will transmit, the U.S. could someday find itself in the position of not being able to counter lies and misinformation from China.

China is trying to “strangle us [so that] we go out with a whimper,” he said. Yet, he added, “We are going about our lives.”

Rep. Scott Perry, a retired Army brigadier general, said that China has already stolen the designs for the U.S.’s most expensive weapons systems, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, as well as the C-17, and the F-22.

Sean Lin, a former U.S. Army Captain and Ph.D. with Hong Kong Goes On Foundation, said he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of China as a college student during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

He said he witnessed Chinese tanks rolling over students’ heads and bodies. He said today, one only needed to look at the way Beijing is treating China’s Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province.

He said China was harvesting organs from them for profit. He said a million people dying in China is “just a number” to the government.

“Communist regime is the enemy of all humanity,” he said.

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