Straight Thought about China

Given the current political configuration it is devilishly difficult to find any straight thought about China. By straight thought I mean a cogent and objective analysis that might be the basis for a constructive policy.

Some people are at war against China because they want to relive the glory days of the Cold War. Since we won it, why not replay it.

And then there is the chorus of shrieky schoolgirls who are waving their weapons at the big, bad CCP.

And finally, we have the experts who have been telling us, for some quarter century, that the end of the Chinese regime is imminent. In some quarters being wrong all the time makes you an expert. 

Don’t we live in a great country?

Now we have one David Purdue, recently named to be the new ambassador to China, saying this:

The C.C.P firmly believes its rightful destiny is to reclaim its position as the hegemon of the world order and convert the world to Marxism.

As it happens, this is not true. For a counterargument we turn to Thomas Friedman, last seen in these pages pontificating about Israeli politics, and largely getting it wrong. In all fairness, since I have never hesitated to criticize Friedman’s ramblings I owe it to him to point out when he offers some straight thought.

In a recent column, Friedman points out that China is communist in name only. It is a mix of state directed capitalism and wild cowboy capitalism. 

Considering that China has since the time of Deng Xiaoping grown its economy by some 3,000% we surely do not want to suggest that Communism deserves the credit.

Know thy enemy… one might say. Know thy competition… might be more accurate. It is best not to make your competition into your enemy. 

As it happens, Friedman continues, the Chinese would rather deal with Donald Trump than with Joe Biden. They see Trump as another Deng Xiaoping, a capitalist deal maker.

Better yet, consider that Prof. Marshall Goldman once opined that Russia and China had chosen two different ways to overcome the ravages of communism. Russia under Gorbachev had chosen Jeffersonian liberal democracy while China had chosen Hamiltonism industrialism.

We are all convinced that you cannot have one without the other. Clearly, the Chinese authorities disagree. See Tiananmen Square.

Friedman’s idea is that the United States and China should join together to fight world disorder. What the Chinese call, in my translation, turmoil. He recommends something that I have long since recommended in these pages-- detente between America and China.  

Friedman is thinking the way Nixon was thinking, to break up the axis of our enemies by allying ourselves with one of them. At the very least, Donald Trump is probably the only one who could pull this one off.

All things considered, Donald Trump would be the man to do it. Joe Biden evidently was not.

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