President Trump’s confrontation with China provides a master class in communist China’s strategy to defeat the U.S. without firing a shot.

The Chinese Communist Party, CCP, is waging “war by other means” against the United States. A coordinated campaign of property theft, coercive technology appropriation, illegal subsidies, government-owned companies and the export of below-market-priced goods and deadly drugs is designed to bankrupt our industries, weaken our society and render America unable to compete with China economically or militarily.

But there’s more. Michael Pillsbury, author of "The Hundred Year Marathon" and Hudson Institute China expert who advises the Trump administration, has described how Beijing employs the classic Chinese military strategy of “use your enemy’s forces against him” to gain the upper hand.

The CCP is running a relentless influence operation to roll back the tariffs President Trump imposed on China.

It receives assistance in its efforts from individuals and institutions inside the United States.

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On any given day, the media will present some prestigious “expert” or Wall Street mega-billionaire telling us it’s absolutely imperative President Trump scrap the tariff and strike a deal with China immediately in order to ensure the American economy remain strong.

These assertions are presented as facts when they are merely opinion.

And more importantly, we’re typically not told who is paying these people.

There is for example Sheila Bair. You’ll see her on television and read her columns. You’re told she’s former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, the government outfit that insures your bank account against bank failure.

Bair will tell you China tariffs target American consumers and are not good. She will tell you the administration’s talk about China is reckless.

Bair will tell you the long-term interests of the U.S. and China are aligned. (John Maynard Keynes said in the long term we’re all dead.) Bair is “concerned” the president took on China alone and did not “work with allies” to confront the dragon. She will also tell you President Trump is going after the Bill of Rights.

What Sheila Bair won’t tell you is that she sits on the board of communist China’s biggest commercial bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, ICBC.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is owned by the Chinese government and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

You’re not told the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China paid over $6 million in fines for money laundering violations.

Reuters reports the bank was the conduit for a massive multi-million-dollar money laundering and fraud racket in Europe. ICBC was a front for tax fraud and smuggling by Chinese criminal organizations. Beijing tried to kill the investigation that led to the arrest of several senior bank executives.

Reuters also reports, “ICBC is a flagship in China’s quest to become a global banking giant. At the direction of the ruling Communist Party, it and other Chinese state-run banks have aggressively expanded into offshore markets.”

Meanwhile, Sheila Bair tells us China should be involved in developing international banking rules and “We should learn from China.”

Beijing spends millions of dollars on think tanks, lobbyists and hiring prestigious figures in finance and politics to buy influence in Washington. It’s why they put money in Hunter Biden’s private equity fund (and why the Ukrainian energy company hired him, too).

Influence peddling is the second oldest profession in Washington and we need to know who’s doing what for whom.

How many of these people we see mouthing China’s talking points have registered as agents of a foreign power?

Coverage of the trade talks shows how the Chinese Communist Party has used our news media, political divisions and our financial system to achieve its goals.

Here’s how it works:

A Chinese official claiming to have “inside information” feeds an American correspondent the spin that a deal (favorable to Beijing, of course) is in the works.

The newspaper, citing “anonymous sources,” then reports it as “fact.” Broadcast media from CNBC to Bloomberg et al, pick up the story, further amplifying the spin.

Markets reflexively move higher on reports from unnamed sources that “a deal to end the trade war is imminent.”

Wall Street and U.S. Chamber of Commerce mouthpieces declare the president’s re-election chances are directly linked to the upward movement of the Dow and that we need to remove all tariffs and reach a deal with China now, now, now.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Blue collar and rural voters in crucial battleground states, not Wall Street elites, elected Donald J. Trump president. They support his standing up to China and would see backing down from his tough stance as a sign of weakness.

The next time someone says it’s imperative we make a deal with China, you know what side their bread is buttered on, and who buttered it.