(Directed by John Pilger, 2016, 113 minutes)

The Coming War on China is John Pilger’s 60th film for ITV. This documentary details how the world’s greatest military power, the United States, is engaged in a huge armed build-up against China, the world’s second economic power. The “pivot to Asia” began under Barack Obama, transferring almost two-thirds of US naval forces to the Asia-Pacific region. Obama’s strategy to surround China with troops, aircraft carriers, bombers and missiles has been continued by Donald Trump, who takes anti-China threats to an even higher level. The danger of nuclear war is no longer unthinkable. Filmed on five possible front lines across Asia and the Pacific over the course of two years, the story is told in chapters that connect a forgotten past to the rapacious actions of great power militarism today, and to a resistance of which little is known in the West.

Left Film Nights are presented by the Centre for Socialist Education, Young Communist League, and the Vancouver East Club of the Communist Party of Canada.