Chang noted that ‘this is a consequential moment’ in which the Chinese regime could lash out, for internal reasons unclear to the West.
Rewriting the script on the Middle East began in May 2025 when President Donald Trump visited three Gulf states, securing hundreds of billions of dollars in deals and resetting relations.
“Trump’s triumphal tour through the Middle East, those three Gulf states, really pushed China and Russia out of the region … and what we have witnessed since then is the further reduction of Russian and Chinese influence there—and that’s culminated with the strike on Iran of the 28th of February,” Gordon Chang, China commentator and author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America,” said on an episode of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders,” which aired on March 2.
According to Chang, the U.S.–Israel strikes on Iran have shown the limits of China’s power and, like the U.S. operation in Venezuela, have cut down the Chinese Communist Party’s global power without directly engaging with Beijing.
Trump’s recent actions, Chang said, are a message to the Party: “Not on my watch.”
“And this is what Americans need to hear, because we underestimate our own power,” he said.
“We have a lot of people in our country who say, ‘Oh, the Chinese are going to take over.’ … But no, that’s not the way we are. That’s not in American DNA.”
Proxy Wars?
Chang said Trump’s national security strategy—which makes few mentions of China directly but states that the United States will not allow hostile powers to encroach on the United States’ ability to move and trade freely, such as in the South China Sea—shows that “China is foremost in President Trump’s mind.”
“I believe that President Trump is going after the Chinese [authorities], and he’s not doing it directly, but he is doing it indirectly, and he’s cutting off their sources of support,” he said.
For example, Chang said, the operations in Venezuela and Iran could end China’s ability to obtain the cheap oil it has become dependent on. China is by far the primary buyer of Iranian oil, which is sanctioned and therefore available to Beijing for a discount, and Venezuelan oil was likewise purchased by China at a deep discount. The loss of leaders in both countries also reduces Beijing’s ability to expand its influence and project power in those areas.
He noted that Venezuelan oil is also a lifeline for Cuba, where China has a military presence. Trump has also reset relations with Panama, which has driven out Chinese influence over the canal.
“This is freedom moving forward,” Chang said.
Furthermore, Beijing’s response thus far—limited to rhetoric—reinforces the idea that “China is not a superpower,” he said.
“It always criticizes the U.S., but when the U.S. is determined to do something, it cannot stop us, and that shows the limits of Chinese power,” Chang said.
Although some reports state that Beijing intends to use chaos in the Middle East to distract the United States from the Indo-Pacific, Chang said decisive action in the Middle East can hit Beijing where it hurts. He said he believes that Ukraine may be a similar case.
“The Chinese are looking at Ukraine really as the template and the future, and the people in Taiwan say that their future is being written on the battlefields of Ukraine,” he said.
“If the United States allows Russia to keep territory through acts of aggression, then the Chinese will think that they, too, can do the same thing, and the United States will accede to a Chinese grab of Taiwan or parts of Japan or the Philippines.
“We have to understand that just because we do things in one part of the world, it affects other parts of the world. It’s not isolated.
“That’s why I think it’s very important to prevail and make sure that Iran becomes a free society. We do that, we certainly put China in a very difficult position.”
By Jan Jekielek and Catherine Yang
