The battle against communism has been going on for a long time and it was an important factor in most of the major wars of the 1900s when it openly stated it needed to establish global dominance. In the grand scheme of things, this is more of that, but now China is the center of gravity for communism rather than Russia. The Arctic opening up and taking Taiwan are both elements that increase potential for power projection, which is a serious threat given that CCP leadership has shown to be very bullish on Marxism-Leninism.

If they could not be insane and trade, that would be great. Unfortunately that's not the world we live in and the US has to push back against it or the world can fall into ruin. So we're cleaning up Venezuela. Maybe Cuba and Iran.