Tom Friedman had pretty strong insights into the U.S.-China relationship in his most recent column, written from Singapore.
“China is not our economic competitor, economic partner, source of talent and capital, geopolitical rival, collaborator and serial rule-breaker. It is not our enemy or our friend.
“The only effective way to manage a relationship this complex is: 1) with an all-of-government approach. You can’t have the Justice Department doing one thing, the Pentagon another, the Treasury another, the trade negotiators another, the State Department another and the president tweeting another. There has to be a tightly coordinated strategy to get the best out of this relationship and cushion the worst. And 2), we need as many Pacific and European allies as possible so it’s “The Whole World Versus China” on the right rules for trade and technology integration in the 21st century, not just Trump versus Xi over who has the biggest tariff.”
Friedman thus gets at the heart of the policy and intellectual crisis that America is having regarding China. We have a tendency to want to think of someone as either a friend or an enemy. We have a black/white, yes/no mentality. The relationship with China, the world’s most population nation, is extraordinarily complex. The Chinese government is clearly doing some things that are fundamentally aggressive in terms of seeking to strip us of our technological advantage. Yet there are other positive aspects of the relationship. We have to become as sophisticated as they are in managing a conflict and cooperation model.
