Chinese Economy

To avoid catastrophe, both sides will have to accept truths that so far they have not: China must acknowledge the outrage caused by its overreaching bids for control, and America must adjust to China’s presence, without selling honor for profit. The ascendant view in Washington holds that the competition is us-or-them; in fact, the reality of this century will be us-and-them. It is naïve to imagine wrestling China back to the past. The project, now, is to contest its moral vision of the future.

Keyu Jin of the London School of Economics, writing for Project Syndicate:

China is taking advantage of doubts about Western liberalism by pushing a new worldview of its own. The West’s vulnerability has been exposed by its slow economic recovery since the 2008 financial crisis, declining life expectancy among some cohorts, stagnant standards of living, and the breakdown of traditional alliances.

In exporting an alternative agenda, China is unapologetically advocating increased state intervention to improve livelihoods, as well as a value system that ranks collective welfare above individual desires.

Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan, who both served in the Obama administration, writing in Foreign Affairs:

Rather than relying on assumptions about China’s trajectory, American strategy should be durable whatever the future brings for the Chinese system. It should seek to achieve not a definitive end state akin to the Cold War’s ultimate conclusion but a steady state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values.