How we can beat China
The trick is to let them beat themselves.
In 1946, George Kennan, who was the head of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow at the time, penned a message to the Secretary of State entitled the "Long Telegram". Within this document, Kennan proposed a theory on how to defeat Soviet power. He believed that Soviet leaders would always harbor hostility towards the U.S., yet they were also cautious.
Kennan asserted that the Soviet system was inherently weak and unstable, and that given sufficient time, it would inevitably collapse due to its internal contradictions. This concept later materialized as the doctrine of "containment", a strategy that the U.S. employed to ultimately triumph over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
It took 45 years for this strategy to bear fruit and for the USSR to dissolve. While the author of this piece isn't George Kennan, nor has he ever resided in China or spoken to its leaders, they do aim to write a blog post with a similar objective to Kennan's Long Telegram. However, they wish to make clear that their perspective is not as authoritative or insightful as Kennan's.
Despite this, they still proceed to pen a post on "how to beat China", as they believe engaging in strategic discussions about U.S.-China competition is valuable, particularly in light of their previous series of posts on geopolitics during the Biden administration.
Written by urgent.news from Noahpinion's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
