The Cold War lasted 40 years. For most of that period, victory was uncertain. For Washington to be successful in what may be an even longer contest, it must diagnose the severity of the threat precisely and calibrate efforts to contain and deter Beijing accordingly. False analogies from the Cold War hurt both of these efforts.
TikTok is not just China’s revenge for the century of humiliation between the Opium Wars and Mao’s revolution. It is the opium — a digital fentanyl, to get our kids stoked for the coming Chinese imperium.
Xi Jinping intends to be the Leader of the “Second Hundred” just as Mao Zedong is regarded as the Leader of the “First Hundred”. This means the world will be dealing with President Xi Jinping for some time. It is, therefore, important to get a proper measure of the person.
The Chinese government is likely to face a tricky economic policy choice in the second half of this year. If it loosens its fiscal stance, public finances will worsen significantly. But if it cuts expenditure to offset the pandemic-related revenue shortfall, growth will be lower, with dire consequences.
What are the costs and benefits of friendship with an easily offended China? Who would want to be a friend of China today? Can countries live without China’s friendship? Do they have a choice not to be friends with China? If the Chinese government is not a friend, what is that relationship? Can bilateral ties with the world’s second-largest economy be reduced strictly to trade and investment, minus the warmth of friendship?
If it’s going to compete with the United States for superpower status, it will have to match America’s soft power… But China has a distinct disadvantage: It’s not as attractive as America. Few people around the world voluntarily listen to Chinese songs, watch Chinese television, use Chinese slang (or any Chinese words), or dress like the Chinese people they see on TV.
By any measure, China’s recent foreign policy has displayed an astonishing level of assertiveness. That Beijing has shed its prior inhibitions in the midst of a devastating global health and economic crisis for which the Chinese leadership itself bears culpability, and a still-fragile economic situation in China itself makes it all the more remarkable.
Most Americans think with its democracy, the United States has the best form of government. China, with its one-party dictatorial state, communist or otherwise, has the worst form. This is China’s Achilles’ heel and will spell the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party. In reality, from the Chinese people’s perspective and theirs alone, their government today enjoys greater legitimacy and popularity than any American or Western government with respect to their own citizens.
Although the main objective of Beijing’s nationalist push has been to build domestic support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it has also stoked tensions with Washington, as each side tries to outdo the other in shifting blame and avoiding accountability for its handling of COVID-19.
