Countering China Is for the BIRDs
The following is an excerpt:
In 1950, as Cold War tensions were on the rise, President Harry Truman asked allies to stand and be counted. Israel reflexively stepped up and backed the president who bravely supported the creation of the Jewish state just two years before.
Seventy years later, new cold war tensions are stirring. This time, the adversary is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The White House is once again asking allies to step forward. Israel is expected to oblige. After all, America is its most important ally. But Jerusalem can’t afford to move too quickly, this time. Its financial stability is at stake.
It all began with Washington’s miscalculation that money would seduce the hard men of Beijing to become responsible global stakeholders. This notion dominated the thinking of U.S. foreign policy and business since President Richard Nixon and his national security consigliere Henry Kissinger began wooing China in 1972 in order to drive a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.
American money soon flowed east. China-U.S. investment and trade skyrocketed. By 2018, the economic relationship between Washington and Beijing topped $778 billion, an increase of roughly 4,750 percent in real dollar terms from 1980. The rest of the West followed. For example, Chinese trade with Germany stood at $231 billion in 2018, an almost 2,000 percent increase in real dollar terms since 1992.
However, after years of Chinese hacking, intellectual property theft and challenges to the American-led world order, Washington is coming to grips with what we might call “Nixon’s Nonstarter” or “Kissinger’s Collapse.” The Chinese Communist Party is not a responsible global stakeholder. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has turned his country into a wealthier, more belligerent authoritarian state.
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Read Mark and Jonathan’s article for Newsweek on the outlet’s website here.