A thoughtful post about an important issue. But I'm skeptical about the importance of ideological competition, as opposed to dominance in East Asia. From an ideological point of view, China's state capitalism doesn't seem that different from the East Asian tigers - South Korea and Taiwan were basically dictatorships, Hong Kong was a British colony rather than a democracy, Singapore is still a single-party state. The difference is that China has the power to challenge the US in East Asia.
I think the ideological competition matters because China is a credible hegemon, in a way the other tigers never could be because of their size. So I agree, to an extent. But the issue is not just the balance of power in East Asia, I think. It's about the terms of engagement across the global economy and the legitimacy, broadly speaking, of autocratic systems of government relative to democratic ones. It strikes me as a big deal that would-be strongmen can now point to a country (that isn't simply a city state) which resolutely failed to liberalize politically and nonetheless managed to grow into an economic powerhouse, and which can also serve as a counterweight to America and a patron.
To me the key question is whether China accepts the international status quo, or is opposed to it. If China were to accept the international status quo (as it largely did after Mao and prior to Xi), I don't think its single-party authoritarian politics would be a big issue. From Nixon's trip to China until the end of the Cold War, according to Odd Arne Westad's "Restless Empire", China was a de facto US ally.
The discontinuity here is that under Xi, China is taking on a much more aggressive, "might makes right" approach to foreign policy. But it seems to be relying on its economic weight and on military threats, rather than ideological appeal (or cultural attractiveness).
I also wonder whether there'd be a real difference in the basic conflict if China were a nationalist democracy with similar revisionist goals, e.g. retaking Taiwan in the near future.
A thoughtful post about an important issue. But I'm skeptical about the importance of ideological competition, as opposed to dominance in East Asia. From an ideological point of view, China's state capitalism doesn't seem that different from the East Asian tigers - South Korea and Taiwan were basically dictatorships, Hong Kong was a British colony rather than a democracy, Singapore is still a single-party state. The difference is that China has the power to challenge the US in East Asia.
I think the ideological competition matters because China is a credible hegemon, in a way the other tigers never could be because of their size. So I agree, to an extent. But the issue is not just the balance of power in East Asia, I think. It's about the terms of engagement across the global economy and the legitimacy, broadly speaking, of autocratic systems of government relative to democratic ones. It strikes me as a big deal that would-be strongmen can now point to a country (that isn't simply a city state) which resolutely failed to liberalize politically and nonetheless managed to grow into an economic powerhouse, and which can also serve as a counterweight to America and a patron.
To me the key question is whether China accepts the international status quo, or is opposed to it. If China were to accept the international status quo (as it largely did after Mao and prior to Xi), I don't think its single-party authoritarian politics would be a big issue. From Nixon's trip to China until the end of the Cold War, according to Odd Arne Westad's "Restless Empire", China was a de facto US ally.
The discontinuity here is that under Xi, China is taking on a much more aggressive, "might makes right" approach to foreign policy. But it seems to be relying on its economic weight and on military threats, rather than ideological appeal (or cultural attractiveness).
I also wonder whether there'd be a real difference in the basic conflict if China were a nationalist democracy with similar revisionist goals, e.g. retaking Taiwan in the near future.