{"id":43023,"date":"2018-10-26T12:30:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T01:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=43023"},"modified":"2019-01-17T13:32:55","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T02:32:55","slug":"us-foreign-policy-and-the-start-of-a-new-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-foreign-policy-and-the-start-of-a-new-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"US foreign policy and the start of a new cold war"},"content":{"rendered":"
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America\u2019s greatest error was not the Iraq war, calamitous self-inflicted wound though it was. Rather, it was adopting Francis Fukuyama\u2019s now discredited idea that the end of the Cold War marked<\/a> \u2018the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government\u2019.<\/p>\n

That proposition rested on the notion that individual liberty, supported by mature democratic institutions, is a prerequisite for long-term social stability and national economic prosperity. It is a falsehood sustained for decades by an admirable truism of the American soul: the belief that everyone, deep down, is secretly an American\u2014that if you\u2019re just given the right opportunities, institutions and freedoms, you too will hold the same values, dreams and ideals.<\/p>\n

This attitude sustained American foreign policy towards Beijing for 40 years. Washington actively fostered China\u2019s rise, thinking that as people grew more educated and prosperous they would invariably demand and achieve greater political freedom\u2014and that in the end, prosperity would socialise a newly democratic China as a \u2018responsible stakeholder\u2019 in the US-led global order.<\/p>\n

When this process began, China\u2019s economy was roughly the same size as Australia\u2019s. Since 1979, China\u2019s economy has grown 50-fold. Instead of democratic reform, Chinese President Xi Jinping has centralised authority, changed the constitution and extended his term indefinitely. Meanwhile, China\u2019s government is rolling out<\/a> a so-called social credit system profiling every citizen\u2019s financial records, social media, purchasing behaviour and political affiliation\u2014extending absolute control under an AI dystopia, in real time.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s policy of fostering Chinese growth has led the United States to near disaster. In Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s speech on China<\/a>, however, there was at last a formal declaration of failure:<\/p>\n

After the fall of the Soviet Union, we assumed that a free China was inevitable. Heady with optimism at the turn of the 21st century, America agreed to give Beijing open access to our economy, and we brought China into the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n

Previous administrations made this choice in the hope that freedom in China would expand in all of its forms\u2014not just economically, but politically, with a newfound respect for classical liberal principles, private property, personal liberty, religious freedom\u2014the entire family of human rights. But that hope has gone unfulfilled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Minus the theatrical flair, this was the Iron Curtain speech of the 21st century. The post\u2013Cold War era is over. The China\u2013US struggle has now begun.<\/p>\n

During my lifetime, no political and strategic analysis has been so reliably abysmal as commentary on President Donald Trump and his administration. One source of constant headaches is the misinterpretation of his \u2018America First\u2019 foreign policy. Put simply, Trump\u2019s approach can be summarised in six guiding principles:<\/p>\n