Humanity’s Greatest Threat (1)

The Shadow of a U.S.-China War

Author: Mr. Y

What is the greatest threat to humanity on a global scale - climate change, artificial intelligence, or a worldwide pandemic? I believe none of these is enough to wipe out humanity or fundamentally reshape the course of civilization. In fact, some of them have been around us for a long time, and we even went through one not that long ago.

What we are going to talk about is a topic which is extremely heavy, yet impossible to avoid - what may be, in a fundamental and practical sense, the “greatest threat” to humanity: a war between the United States and China.

You might say: this topic is too far-fetched; it sounds like a conspiracy theory, or like fearmongering.

But if you follow the news even a little, you will see that this anxiety does not come out of nowhere. Starting with Trump, it seemed that America’s decision-making circle has formally put “pressuring and confronting China” on the agenda. By the time of the Biden administration, partly due to Trump’s effort, “being tough on China” gradually became a kind of “political correctness” in Washington.

Along with the development of the Taiwan Strait crisis - especially marked by Pelosi’s “visit” to Taiwan in August 2022 - U.S.-China relations once reached a dangerously tense point.

In China, anti-American sentiment has also been burning hot. All kinds of claims like “the American empire has never stopped wanting to destroy us”, arguments that “A war between China and the United States is inevitable”, and even slogans like “wipe out the American imperialist wolves” can easily find resonance on the Chinese internet.

“Wolf warriors” and “Little pinks” sometimes throw out harsh lines such as “’Dongfeng delivery’(missile) will send nuclear bombs to the U.S. territory.” You may think that sounds exaggerated, but the fact that such language exists already shows how restless and heated the public mood has become.

So, it gives people a feeling: US-Sino relations seem to be approaching the "cliff of war" state of the early 1950s once again.

But I still want to warn everyone: This time, the shadow is far larger than the shadow of the Korean War more than 70 years ago.

Why?

Because today, the United States and China are not just “two countries” - they are two pillars of the globalized system. If the two sides really start fighting, the rest of the world will almost certainly be unable to stay out of it. It would be like a steel bar jammed into an engine - everything could collapse and explode together.

Even scarier is this: once a war breaks out, it may not be “one battle”, but a “total war”. A true total war! A true world war!! Its impact on human civilization cannot be described with just one word like “brutal”.

I. Why would a U.S.-China war likely become a “total war”?

Us Soldiers Marching at street

Let’s start with a basic fact: the way modern states wage war is vastly different from that of past dynasties.

Under monarchies or feudal systems, wars often occur between interest groups. Civilians had no legal duty to fight, and rulers had neither the capacity nor the legal legitimacy to mobilize every person in the country into a war machine.

But modern states are different. Once a modern state enters a state of war, finance, industry, transportation, manpower, and propaganda can all be brought into the mobilization system.

In one sentence: “the whole nation becomes soldiers” is no longer just rhetoric - it is an institutional capability. And both the United States and China are superpowers among modern states.

So once war starts, it is very hard for it to stay at the level of a “local clash” or a “short conflict”. It becomes more like a “fight to the death” - at least in narrative, in mobilization, and in the logic of institutions, it will be pushed toward a situation where neither side can be the first to step back.

If you ask: why do modern wars last for a shorter time but cause more casualties?

One reason, of course, is the development of weapons and military technology - put bluntly, higher killing efficiency. But the more crucial reason is that modern states can turn the entire society into a war machine.

II. Why was World War II so terrifying, and what does it show about “total war”?

Now let's turn our attention to history. World War II was the pinnacle of modern total warfare.

Common estimates place total deaths in World War II at about 70 million to 85 million, roughly 3% of the world’s population at the time. And some statistics say World War II involved about 61 countries and about 1.7 billion people, close to three-quarters of the world’s population at the time.

So, the horror of World War II was not just that “a lot of people died”. It was that the whole world was engulfed in it, and trade, finance, industry, population, and resources were fully militarized.

US Navy Ships in World War II

Another key point that many people overlook is this: in World War II, the Axis and the Allies were not truly “evenly matched”.

The Axis started earlier, mobilized earlier, and was more willing to bet everything, but the Allies had a much thicker overall foundation.

For example, one classic comparison in economic history said that around 1942, the Allies had about seven times the territory of the Axis, about three to four times the GDP, and more than ten times the population.

The overall strength of the two blocs was not on the same level to begin with.

Industrial output also reflected the Axis disadvantage: during World War II (1939 - 1945), the total aircraft output of the Axis was about 150,000 to 170,000 planes, which was less than half of the United States’ output alone (about 300,000 planes).

In terms of aircraft carriers, the United States had about 111 carriers of various types during World War II, while the Axis powers (mainly Japan) had only about 25.

Once you see this gap clearly, you'll realize that the outcome of World War II was determined long ago. Because in the end, total war depends on "comprehensive national strength".

III. Why would a U.S.-China conflict be even more frightening?

Because the two sides are closer to being “evenly matched”.

What truly sends chills down your spine is this: if you compare today’s China and the US, it is hard to reach a simple conclusion like in World War II that “one side completely crushes the other”.

Instead, from a comprehensive perspective, including economics, technology, military, industry, and alliances, the two sides are evenly matched, each with its own strengths.

1) Economics: there is still a gap, but not a gap of whole orders of magnitude

China’s nominal GDP is roughly 67% of the US’.

But from a “real-world economic feel”, China’s economic size would be closer to the U.S. than that ratio suggests, because of the significant difference in price levels between the two countries.

Many goods and services that are expensive in the U.S. are priced much lower in China. For example, if you buy a bowl of noodles, in China it might add about $1.5 to GDP, while in the US the same kind of purchase might add about $5.

So if you measure only in nominal U.S. dollars, you can underestimate China’s real purchasing power and real output to some extent.

Of course, in the industrial and intermediate goods sector, price differences are usually not too large due to international trade - for example, globally standardized products like the iPhone.

And if you also look at the scale of imports and exports, the United States and China are the world's largest exporters and importers of goods, respectively, forming the two pillars of the global trade system.

Taking all these factors into account, if purchasing power is taken into account, China’s “real economic size” may be closer to that of the United States than nominal GDP suggests, and under some measures, the two may be comparable.

2) In the field of technology: the U.S. leads but may not have created an insurmountable "generation gap".

For example, in the field of artificial intelligence, the US still leads the world with leading companies like OpenAI, but China also possesses highly advanced AI tools such as DeepSeek. The US has not yet achieved an absolute advantage that can "suppress its opponent with a single click".

Under these circumstances, any "urge to wage war" is less likely to arise with certainty.

Cargo at international terminals

3) In the supply chain: the two sides will be strangled by each other at most.

For example, China is the world’s biggest consumer of chips and imports hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of chips every year. And the US has a systematic advantage over China in chips, but if the U.S. uses chips to “choke” China, then the U.S. will be “choked” by rare earths (we already witnessed this in 2025).

The US uses rare earths widely in core areas such as defense and military industry, new energy, advanced manufacturing, and petrochemicals. According to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data, from 2019 to 2022, more than 70% of the rare-earth compounds and metals used by the US came from China.

So, in extreme confrontations, it is often not “I win”, but rather “we hurt each other”. The deeper the interdependence, the higher the threshold for war should be.

IV. What is the cost of war?

Not slogans, but real jobs and real lives

According to statements on the website of China’s Ministry of Commerce, one quarter of China’s jobs - about 200 million people’s livelihoods - come directly or indirectly from foreign trade.

This means that if the US and China were to completely decouple or enter a state of war, the first to feel the pressure in the short term would not necessarily be on the "front lines," but rather on ordinary people's paychecks, businesses' cash flow, and families' expectations for daily life.

Furthermore, transnational families would also be thrust into the spotlight of moral and public opinion pressure. There are nearly 60 million overseas Chinese globally; of which approximately 11 million reside in the Americas and Europe.

This doesn't even include international students, business expatriates, and cross-border family networks.

Once bilateral relations become extreme, the suffering of these groups becomes very concrete in real life: their jobs, travel, assets, and personal safety can all be affected.

V. If the U.S. and China really fight, it will inevitably become a “world war”

Both the U.S. and China have many allies.

The US has the OECD and its traditional alliance system, while China also has many allies around the whole world. If war really happens, the difference in the amount of support each side could obtain may not be significant.

Therefore, this conflict could very well escalate into a war between one half of the world's population and the other half - a true world war in a very real sense.

Einstein has a widely quoted line: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”.

What this sentence tries to emphasize is not a specific weapon, but this: once a full-scale war breaks out between great powers, its destruction could wipe out the material and institutional foundations of human civilization from scratch.

Therefore, if the U.S. and China really reach the point of total war, the global supply chain, the financial system, and social order that modern civilization depends on may suffer systemic shocks.

The stable life and convenient services that middle - class people are used to - everything from cross-border trade and energy supply to healthcare and communications - may become hard to maintain, and daily life may clearly slide backward, returning to a more insecure and unpredictable status.

VI. The most important thing is not “shouting victory”, but to understand the cost

War has never been something that hot-blooded slogans can carry.

It is a stress test of balance sheets, supply chains, jobs, energy, and a society’s ability to endure.

World War II became a deep abyss in human memory not only because so many people died, but because it dragged the entire world into total war: 61 countries and 1.7 billion people were pulled in, leaving 70 million to 85 million deaths and long-term trauma.

The uncertainty in U.S.-China relations can be seen as the greatest threat facing human civilization today.

The most terrifying aspect of all the hypothetical scenarios of a possible war between the US and China precisely this: lies precisely in the fact that both sides are more deeply embedded in the same global system than the main belligerents of World War II, and on many hard indicators they are closer to “each holding some winning cards”.

This makes any conflict harder to keep “controlled”, and harder to end in a dignified way.So the questions we should keep asking are: if we really get to that point, how many people are we prepared to pay what price, and do we truly understand what that price would be?