The White House’s newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) has garnered considerable interest in China, with subject matter experts in Beijing speculating on potential implications for the US-China relationship and the future world order. Our close reading of early Chinese-language analyses finds a view from China positing that the new NSS signals a fundamental recalibration of US grand strategy. We take particular note of the writings of one analyst influential in Beijing, Fu Xiaoqiang, who highlights that the strategy drops the previous NSS’s description of China as America’s “most consequential geopolitical challenge” and focuses more narrowly on economic concerns in the bilateral relationship like trade, supply chains, industrial policy, and technology. While official interpretations remain hidden from view, peering through the window of active debate across China’s expert community provides a hint of the discussions that may be taking place behind closed doors.
Formulaic Official Responses and the Limits of Spokesperson Messaging
So far, the PRC official response to the release of the NSS has been narrowly framed and carefully measured. Government spokespersons representing China’s Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, and State Council Taiwan Affairs Office have commented on the strategy, primarily reiterating Beijing’s standard positions on Taiwan and issuing familiar calls for the US and China to cooperate and avoid confrontation. The highly formulaic nature of these statements stands out given the scope of the strategic changes outlined in the NSS. But this almost certainly reflects structural features of the PRC’s public messaging system rather than a lack of interest in Beijing. PRC spokespersons are tasked primarily with reiterating established Chinese Communist Party (CCP) positions on core issues, which helps explain their focus on Taiwan-related language in responding to the NSS. The absence of new official language likely indicates that the CCP is still reflecting on the more novel elements of the strategy, a process that typically requires extended internal deliberation.
Ministry of State Security Think Tank President Fu Xiaoqiang on the NSS
A livelier discussion of the NSS can be found in the PRC’s expert and foreign policy watcher community. PRC analysts in this space have begun to assess the implications of the new strategy for the US–China relationship and China’s broader strategic interests. Among the expert commentary surveyed, analysis by Fu Xiaoqiang, president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, merits closer examination. This organization occupies a unique position within China’s foreign policy ecosystem, given its institutional affiliation with the Ministry of State Security and its role as one of Beijing’s most influential research bodies on US strategy and great power competition. Fu’s position places him at the intersection of intelligence-informed analysis and policy-relevant research, while still operating outside the formal spokesperson system that constrains official messaging.
The venue and dissemination of Fu’s commentary further underscore its significance. His article appeared in Study Times, the journal of the CCP Central Party School, and was subsequently reposted by People’s Daily, the CCP’s official newspaper. Together, these platforms signal both political acceptability and relevance to ongoing internal debates.
Fu’s interpretation of the NSS identifies three interrelated shifts in US strategic thinking toward China:
Shift 1: US Recognition of China’s Comprehensive National Strength
Fu argues that the new NSS reflects a significant shift in Washington’s assessment of China’s relative power. Fu sees the US as moving away from a long-standing objective of achieving and maintaining absolute superiority vis-à-vis the PRC. He states that the NSS acknowledges that the US and China are now “near-peers,” interpreting this as an implicit recognition of China’s rising comprehensive national strength across economic, technological, and military domains. In Fu’s reading, this shift has forced Washington to recalibrate its strategic objectives—from seeking to ensure and expand absolute dominance over China to focusing on how to maintain advantages in key areas and manage competitive risks amid a relative erosion of US superiority.
Shift 2: From Comprehensive Containment to Economic Competition
Fu further argues that the NSS signals a shift in the “main axis” of US competition with China away from comprehensive, system-wide confrontation and toward a more focused emphasis on economic and technological competition. As evidence, Fu notes that the 2025 NSS no longer labels China as the “most consequential geopolitical challenge” for the United States—a formulation introduced in the 2022 US National Security Strategy—and that most of the strategy’s China-related content centers on trade imbalances, technological leadership, supply chain resilience, and industrial policy.
In Fu’s interpretation, this new emphasis reflects Washington’s recognition that a full-scale confrontation with China would be prohibitively costly, and that complete economic decoupling is neither feasible nor sustainable. Rather, Fu sees the NSS as an effort to preserve US advantages in key economic and technological sectors while avoiding the risks associated with comprehensive containment.
Shift 3: Instrumentalization of the “Taiwan Issue” to Contain China
Fu also states that the 2025 NSS reflects a shift in US thinking on Taiwan. He argues that the US aims to “more directly instrumentalize the Taiwan issue as a strategic lever” against the PRC, citing the fact that the NSS calls out deterring a conflict in the Taiwan Strait as a priority. In the new framework, Fu argues, military deterrence in the Taiwan Strait is not only a means of preventing conflict but also a tool to contain China, increase US negotiating leverage, and reinforce regional alliance cohesion.
Conclusion
In the absence of a settled, authoritative party line, PRC expert commentary offers a useful window into how interpretations are forming and where future consensus may take shape. In China’s foreign policy expert ecosystem, subject matter experts are neither independent critics nor simple mouthpieces; they play an important role in exploring implications and testing the boundaries of acceptable interpretation. PRC experts will continue to analyze the NSS and speculate on its implications for China in internal journals, conferences, and dialogues.
Policymakers and leaders in Beijing, meanwhile, are surely scrutinizing the minutiae of the NSS but may or may not calculate a formal public response to the strategy itself. However, reading through the more substantive dissections of the NSS by PRC experts—especially those as well-positioned as Fu—suggests that many of China’s most well-connected and informed experts appear to view the new NSS as a major adjustment of US strategic priorities and one that has the potential to redefine the nature of US-China relations.
Now that the US has a new NSS, Beijing’s expert community will surely be looking out for forthcoming US strategic documents such as the National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy, and the Nuclear Posture Review to further ascertain the direction of US strategic priorities and the subsequent implications for China’s equities and national security interests.
