Successive Washington administrations have, since World War II, worked on the assumption that the Chinese Communist Party, deep in its soul, wants to make China like the United States. From Harry Truman to Donald Trump, US presidents have seen their mission in Asia to change China. That has meant avoiding confrontation, offering all kinds of inducements, and aiding the CCP’s economic development agenda in the belief that these would make Beijing a strategic partner rather than a strategic competitor. These policies were always based on a misreading of the CCP’s acute sense of insecurity in power, coupled with throbbing nationalist ambition. It is no wonder, then, that they have failed.
