Breitbart News Executive Chairman and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon warned Monday that America’s attention needs to be focused on China, or it will be left behind in the communist country’s wake.

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, since our great victory over communist ideology…we’ve been on a strategic holiday, y’know ‘the end of history’ – we acted as if we are a hyperpower with nothing else to worry about,” Bannon told attendees at a Gatestone Institute event in New York City.

He pointed to recent developments in Beijing, specifically a recent three and a half hour speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 19th Party Congress. He noted that, at the same time, a Brown University study found that since 2001 the cost of the global war on terror is $5.6 trillion.

“This is how you see great powers collapse,” he warned.

He explained how President Xi’s speech claimed victory for the Chinese way over that of Western liberal democracy, with Bannon describing Xi’s remarks as “chilling.”



“It said that the mercantilist, Confucianist, authoritative system of China is the victor over the Judeo-Christian, liberal democratic free-market West; that their system is better, and they go over how it is better and how they’ve beaten us,” he argued.

He warned that there are five things that China is going to achieve in the next few years, and if America does not thwart them, “China will in fact be a hegemonic power.” They are:

The rollout of fifth generation mobile technology — known as “5G.” The expansion of the One Belt One Road Initiative — a transport system to go through central Asia and connect China to the Middle East. Plan 2025 — 10 industries the Chinese have aimed to dominate by 2025. Bannon described the Chinese as “way ahead.” Bannon said three of those are silicon chips, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Conversion of all oil transactions into Chinese currency, which he said will end America as a reserve currency and force the U.S. to start paying off the 20 trillion debt. Financial technology. Bannon said the true piece of leverage with North Korea is the ability to decouple countries from the world’s financial system, sanction companies, and shut banks off from capital markets. He predicted that in 5-10 years that ability is gone.

“If they accomplish those five things, they win,” he predicted.

Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.