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It may be one of the most insane reports ever produced by a US think-tank, and that's saying something.
The Hudson Institute has just published a 128-page plan entitled "China after Communism: Preparing for a Post-CCP China", edited by Miles Yu (director of the Institute's China Centre), which provides detailed operational plans to bring about the collapse of the Chinese regime through systematic information operations, financial warfare and covert influence campaigns, followed by detailed protocols for post-collapse management by the United States, including military occupation, territorial reorganisation, and the installation of a political and cultural system subservient to the United States.
I really don't know whether to laugh or cry about it.
Cry at the arrogance and casualness with which they write about overthrowing the government of the world's largest economy, the main economic lifeline for most of the planet and a quarter of the human race.
Laugh at this cartoonish wickedness of believing that a declining empire, which can't even maintain its own infrastructure and has lost every major conflict it has provoked in the last two decades, could orchestrate and manage the controlled collapse of a country of China's importance.
Regardless, the report is fascinating to read because it reveals so much about the sick soul of the American empire and some of the main reasons for its decline – a comical detachment from reality, an inability to learn from past failures, a zero-sum worldview, a denial of sovereignty in others, and, more than anything else, the fact that this report screams despair.
There is a common pattern well-known to political sociologists: when groups face existential threats to their status and identity, they often exhibit compensatory extremism – becoming caricatured versions of themselves to defend themselves against irrelevance. This was, for example, the case of the Southern Confederacy before the Civil War, which responded to growing abolitionist pressure by becoming more fanatically committed to slavery and “the honour of the South" than it had ever been before.
This Hudson Institute report reads a little like this: Witnessing the end of American primacy, some members of the imperial establishment are transforming themselves into a grotesque caricature of themselves, taking every toxic aspect of American foreign policy and amplifying it to absurd extremes, becoming more imperially ambitious and delusional than ever before, planning interventions of unprecedented scale and audacity, as if doubling down on their worst impulses might somehow restore their waning dominance.
As such, this report should not be read as a true policy blueprint – its analysis of China is so detached from reality as to be completely worthless. Rather, it should be read as an anthropological specimen, a fascinating window into the fever dreams and neuroses of a dying empire, where compensatory extremism strips away all pretence and reveals what US hegemony has always been – just as the Confederacy's fanatical focus on slavery exposed the moral rot that had always defined that system.
So let's examine this artifact piece by piece and see what it reveals about the dying empire that produced it.
Below is a summary of the main points in the rest of the article:
Core criticisms
- Misreading Chinese History and National Identity
The report assumes Chinese citizens want US-led "liberation" from the Communist Party, ignoring:- China's “century of humiliation” under Western colonial powers.
- The Communist Party’s legitimacy stemming from restoring sovereignty, not just economic growth.
“The idea that the Chinese people are secretly dying to see the Communist Party collapse… is beyond absurd: it represents the exact opposite of everything around which the Chinese national psyche is organised.”
- Advocacy of hyper-colonialism
The report proposes measures worse than 19th-century colonialism:- Support for secessionist regions to fragment China.
- Nuremberg-style tribunals and rewriting of Chinese history.
- Military occupation with “20 US Special Operations Forces” in every major city.
- US restructuring of China’s financial system and constitution.
“In short, the report proposes colonialism on steroids.”
- Instrumentalising Ethnic Tensions
The document suggests using separatist movements purely for American gain:- Xinjiang independence is encouraged, but Tibetan independence discouraged – because of Indian sensitivities.
“These are mere tools to be exploited for American geopolitical interests.”
- A Vision of ‘Controlled Fragmentation’
The plan is to:- Break China into manageable units.
- Keep it economically useful but politically weak.
“They want to create an ‘ideal point’ of permanent subordination for China.”
Hubris of “managing civilisation”
- The report outlines a technocratic blueprint for rebuilding Chinese society:
- A 151-201 person convention to write a new constitution for 1.4bn people.
- Governance suggestions treated as if China were a business merger.
“This is hubris of the highest order… as if one of the youngest nations on the planet can somehow teach governance to a 5,000-year-old civilisation.”
- The author points to the failures of US nation-building in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as evidence of the folly.
Projection and delusion
- The report accuses China of coercion, corruption, and economic fragility – yet the US exhibits many of these traits more acutely:
- Declining global trust in US leadership.
- A weakened domestic economy and crumbling infrastructure.
- Low public trust: “literally single digit”.
“The somewhat rogue world state they describe as China is just themselves, to a much greater extent than China.”
- China, by contrast:
- Has 95.5% central government approval (Harvard study, 2016).
- Grew 5.4% in Q1 2025, while the US shrank by -0.5%.
Final judgment
The author sees the report as:
- A reflection of imperial nostalgia and delusion.
- Evidence that American strategists cannot accept decline.
- A naked expression of imperial ambition without pretence.
“They may have accidentally produced the most honest document ever written about the American empire.”
Arnaud Bertrand is an entrepreneur and China analyst. Can be found on X @RnaudBertrand. Bertrand founded HouseTrip, a leading European vacation rental marketplace, and is the founder and CEO of Me & Qi, one of the premier English-language platforms for Traditional Chinese Medicine. He is also a graduate and honorary professor of Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.
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