A Far-Fetched Goal for China Policy

The U.S. should always try to distinguish between peoples and their governments, but we know from past experience that policies defined by confrontation and rivalry do not preserve that distinction.

Liza Tobin and Michael Auslin call for making a democratic China the goal of U.S. policy. They write:

First, U.S. policy should distinguish between the Chinese people and civilization, on one hand, and the CCP regime, on the other. The United States and other democracies can laud the achievements of the first while contesting the actions of the second.

The U.S. should always try to distinguish between peoples and their governments, but we know from past experience that policies defined by confrontation and rivalry do not preserve that distinction in practice. It is all very well to say that the U.S. should distinguish between the people and the regime, but this distinction starts breaking down when the U.S. sets out to weaken Chinese economic development as part of the “competition.”