Posted on 07/21/2026 10:53:03 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
Published reports suggest that China is inundating its citizens with stories that America is on the decline, inferring that the rest of this century is China's for the taking.
It would be wise for China to read up on global history: those who have mistaken America's raucous domestic debates for weakness often find themselves shocked and defeated.
Time and again, adversaries have looked at the United States — loud, divided, seemingly distracted — and concluded that it lacked the stamina or strength for a prolonged fight. Time and again, they have been proven wrong — very wrong.
Imperial Japan during WW II offers one example. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who knew America well, reportedly feared that the attack on Pearl Harbor would "awaken a sleeping giant." His warning went unheeded by Tokyo, whose leaders believed a decadent, isolationist democracy would sue for peace after a knockout blow. Instead, the attack unified a fractured nation overnight. Within four years, American industry would be completing more than 70 new warships every week and Japanese cities would be unrecognizable.
Nazi Germany made the same error, dismissing Americans as little more than racially inferior citizens of a nation incapable of sacrifice. Hitler declared war on the United States almost casually in December 1941, confident that our military potential was inconsequential. He failed to grasp that America's true weapon was not its standing army — modest at the time — but its capacity to convert automobile factories into bomber plants and boys from Brooklyn to the Bay Area into liberators.
Enter the Cold War. The Soviet Union assumed that a capitalist democracy could never sustain decades of confronting the Bolsheviks' efforts to expand their empire across Europe. Instead, the United States outlasted and outspent its rival across 45 years, and it was the Berlin Wall — not American resolve — that fell.
Even Osama bin Laden built his strategy on the belief the United States lacked sufficient resolve to confront his brand of radical Islamic terrorism. The plume from the fallen Twin Towers and fires at the Pentagon had not even dissipated as America planned its revenge following 9/11.
Now Communist China is confusing America's noisy democracy with paralysis and our debate over Iran, voter fraud, and the economy with the inability to focus on the strategic threat that China presents to America's future. They see our domestic arguments and miss the underlying fact that Americans unite to face a threat; they see an open society that will call out its own faults, while they miss the industrial, financial, and human depth upon which our society is built.
American democracy remains inexplicable to the Chinese communist leadership — so it assumes America is weak, divided and in decline.
The ghost of Mao may want to check in with Hitler, Tojo, and Khrushchev and ask, "So how did that work out for you?"
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
“China is inundating its citizens with stories that America is on the decline,”
Not just its citizens, they are spewing this propaganda online and in social media too. The videos they put out are Potemkim village 2.0. And don’t get me started on importing 600,000 chinese “students”. Do you really think our current education system will magically convert them into flag waving americans?
I think the democratic party has underestimated the American people’s resolve.
I hope that they, and the muslims, have greatly underestimated it.
The CCP is allegedly paying US media to broadcast the same inside the US--21st century Tokyo Roses or Axis Sallys.
The CCP doesn’t need to read up on American history - it needs to stop believing its own lies about prospects for the Chinese economy.
I bet most of them would still want to move to America
Well if the new Democrats (Marxists) win elections outside their curated big city collection of 9th generation welfare queens, 3rd world sh!thole imports and their sh!thole families with their sh!thole cultures, and blue haired nose ringed tatted females then yes I’d say the USA is in decline otherwise no. If you judge by Seattle, NYC, Chicago and pretty much all of California then I can see where the Chinese got that idea
Oh here we go again with another Gatestone piece designed to insult America into more foreign war.
Gatestone we can do without your opinions.
Thank you. Now mind your own damn business.
I think R.I.N.O.’s can also be added to that list.
"Much all of California" is not true, it's just the Liberal coast cities, most of the state is rural and conservative. Look at the election map sometime and see all of the red.
This is what American resolve looks like:
the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and,to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States
This resolve has not been present in any conflict since 1945, and the results are glaringly obvious for anyone who has eyes to see.
And this is supposed to be a Constitutional website.
What about Iran in 2026?
Yep. Cut them off from selling us stuff and they crumble.
The US is the only major power that can be almost totally independent in both raw materials and tech. Every other major power, including China, has severe strategic deficits in materials, tech, manpower or some combination.
The danger is that we are too big in population and economy to ignore so any opponent's strategy must aim at a quick-strike to grab what they want and/or defeat us at the outset before we can mobilize, just as Japan tried to do.
China is right this time: just look at all those people whining about cheap gasoline & want to war with Iran to end soonest, preferably before midterms, regardless of the consequences. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson has asked 47 to “wrap it up”. All of them seem to prefer to wait until Iran can launch ICBMs with nuclear warheads to their city.
Ok comrade
You’re making a common error in mistaking geography for votes. The coastal cities have a much greater fraction of the population than the rural areas. People vote acreage does not
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.