Every time a container ship docks at a U.S. port with another load of low-cost Chinese goods—electronics, furniture, toys, tools—it might as well be unloading ammunition.
Sound dramatic? According to Edouard Prisse, author of We Are Funding China’s Growth: That Must Stop!, it’s not just dramatic—it’s economic reality.
Since 2001, when the U.S. backed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), we’ve allowed a historic trade imbalance to form. Chinese exports flooded Western markets, and in return, Western dollars poured into China. The result? China has become the first country in history to be financially armed by its rivals.
Prisse points out that this isn’t theoretical. As of 2024, China’s annual trade surplus is in the ballpark of $870 billion—a staggering figure. This money doesn’t disappear; it goes into Beijing’s $3 trillion war chest of foreign exchange reserves. And it doesn’t sit idle.
Some of it props up China’s inefficient, state-controlled economy. But a lot more is spent on expanding influence abroad—and yes, on military capabilities.
China’s military budget has risen steadily, and while it’s difficult to pin down exact figures due to lack of transparency, analysts agree that the country now has the world’s second-largest defense budget, trailing only the United States. And that budget is indirectly funded by… us.
Prisse describes this paradox with uncomfortable clarity: “With our money, we are helping the exponential growth of our biggest opponent.”
It’s not just the spending that’s alarming—it’s what that spending achieves. China’s military build-up is focused on:
- Expanding control over the South China Sea (illegally claimed as its own),
- Increasing pressure on Taiwan, home to the world’s most advanced semiconductor industry,
- Building a blue-water navy capable of challenging U.S. dominance in the Indo-Pacific.
Meanwhile, China’s global Belt and Road Initiative—the diplomatic twin to its military expansion—is funded with the same trade surplus cash. That’s how Beijing can outbid the West in Africa, offer predatory loans in Sri Lanka, and fund infrastructure across Asia and Europe that doubles as strategic leverage.
It’s like we’re handing over the keys to the arms locker, one transaction at a time.
And Western consumers? They’re not the villains—but they’re part of the cycle. Every time we click “Buy Now” on a cheap Chinese product, we’re unwittingly supporting an authoritarian regime’s global ambitions.
Prisse isn’t calling for fear-mongering. He’s calling for a rational, measured response: end free trade with China and replace it with equal trade—a system where the value of imports and exports is balanced.
This isn’t isolationism. It’s economic self-defense.
Because if we continue to act as China’s customer, financier, and enabler, then we shouldn’t be surprised when those shipping containers come back not with goods—but with geopolitical consequences.