In this respect, both the Trump administration’s doctrinal documents and the White House’s March document, which anticipated the imminent emergence of the National Security Council 2022, largely echo the reports of the leading American think tanks that influence the formation and implementation of Washington’s real foreign policy. The National Defense Strategy 2022 declares China the number one challenge, and its containment in the IPR, the main strategic priority. More assertively, China was hailed as the main geopolitical challenge to a stable and open international system, while issues of interaction and cooperation with it enjoyed little attention. As in the 2017 National Security Strategy, the return to great-power rivalry, which had acquired a strategic character, was stated. Biden admitted that the balance of power in the world had changed unfavorably for the United States, and the world simply cannot return to its previous state therefore, the United States must develop a new course in its foreign and domestic policy. In the very first doctrinal document of the Biden administration, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, published in March 2021, J. The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) highlighted China as a strategic competitor and noted that, as China continues its economic growth, it will develop a military modernization program aimed at asserting its hegemony in the IPR and achieving global dominance. No previous NSS used such categorical, confrontational language to describe Beijing’s behavior in the world and towards the United States. The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS), which has become an expression of “principled realism” with an emphasis on national interests, declared China a revisionist force that seeks to supplant the United States in the Indo–Pacific region (IPR), impose its economic model on others, and change the regional order in its favor.

The old paradigm has been replaced by a new consensus, backed by the presidential administration, both parties, the military establishment, think tanks, and the mainstream media, which suggests that China is a threat to the United States, that the US China policy has failed, and that Washington needs a new, tougher containment strategy for Beijing.

The American political establishment has abandoned the premise that interaction with competitors and their inclusion in international institutions and global trade will inevitably turn them into bona fide players and reliable partners.

There is every reason to believe that China has come to be perceived by American elites as a direct and primary threat to US national interests.

Us military think tanks