We have all heard this idea thrown around now for some time. It’s only in the last few years it seems people have accepted that it wasn’t going to work.
In the context of the trade war and everything lately, I’ve really been thinking about this theory.
On one hand, we know the current reality. An ascendant authoritarian country looking to return to great power status. We have a trade war as a result of years of toxic codependency. It remains to be seen how far the trade war goes and wether or not it is the catalyst for some future war.
Now on the other hand, what direction would China have gone had Nixon not gone to China to open up trade negotiations in the 70s.
It’s impossible to know, but I can imagine quite a number of scenarios that are far worse than a trade war with China. Imagine a North Korea type situation where the country is much larger and influential and does not have such a co dependent trading relationship with the United States.
Is that really a better outcome?
Also important noting that China already had nukes when they began joining international trade in the 70s.
The situation could’ve been much worse.
- The US foreign policy of regime change and bullying hegemony was a complete failure, and totally counterproductive.
- We should have deployed soft power, like aid, diplomacy, and the Peace Corps, to places that were vulnerable to falling into authoritarian rule long term, and invested in the development of poorer countries.
- We should have more seriously considered deploying hard power to places that initially fell into authoritarian rule. I know Cuba was a failure and I know military action has serious consequences (especially for civilians), but compared to authoritarian governments wielding vast nuclear arsenals and ponderous economic weight... it's a tough choice.
- We should internalize that as the US goes, the world tends to follow. Whenever we violate sovereignty, human rights, or our own values and laws, the world takes notice. Like it or not, we're responsible for showing the world how a liberal superpower behaves. We need to take that responsibility seriously.
I'm impressed how you blatantly assume that marching into some foreign country, guns blazing, will magically turn them into a liberal democracy.
I mean, your track record is abysmal. There are exceptions (eg Japan) but generally when the US puts boots on the ground somewhere, the place turns to shit.
It is important to realize that experts believe the NK situation would be totally unsustainable without China.
Ergo, if China were like NK, it wouldn’t last long, because there is no big-brother economy that could support the (disaster) situation.
The free market did not turn either country into an efficient democracy, that's true. It did not improve the tolerance to dissent to Western levels (sadly, not a particularly high mark recently). It did not prevent an authoritarian regime in either country, too.
There's no silver bullet.
Yeah I don't have any sympathy for him or for the CCP. Appealing to nationalist sentiment to amass political power is making a deal with the devil, and we know how that goes. Let's just hope the US doesn't need to learn this lesson as well.
The sad fact is that when these kinds of authoritarian regimes rise to power, it takes years of abhorrent violence to tear them down. The West naively thought the "free market" would liberalize China (and Russia) and we were very wrong. We're reaping the consequences of that policy mistake on a global scale.
It's the rule of law and human rights that are liberalizing (which careful readers will realize is a tautology). The West needs to stop legitimizing and funding regimes that don't respect these fundamental ideas, and here I'm thinking of China, but also other totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. Furthermore we need to build alliances against these regimes across the world.