Thomas Friedman: After the War on Terror. The War on China?

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of failed attempts at nation-building has left many Americans and analysts saying, "If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone down that road." I'm not sure that's true, but it does raise an important question: What are we doing today in our foreign policy that might make us look back 20 years from now and say: "If we knew then what we know now, we would never have gone down this road." I think the answer to this question can be summarized in one word: China.

The forty years from 1979 to 2019 was an important era in U.S.-China relations. True, it had many ups and downs, but overall it was an era of great economic integration between the two countries. This integration helped deepen the globalization of the world economy much further and supported four decades of relative peace between the world's two superpowers, and we must always remember that superpower conflicts are what cause destabilizing global wars.

This era of U.S.-China globalization has left some American manufacturing workers out of work after opening huge new export markets for others around the world, while hundreds of millions of people in China, India and East Asia have been lifted out of poverty, but it has also made many products more accessible to more American consumers.

In short, the relative peace and prosperity the world has experienced in the past 40 years cannot be explained without looking at U.S.-China relations.

But over the past five years, the U.S.-China relationship has seen some missteps, perhaps a trend toward direct confrontation, and I believe that China's bullying leadership style, the country's trade policy, and the changing composition of its economy are largely responsible for this change in the shape of the relationship.

If the current situation persists, there is a good chance that the two countries, as well as many others, will look back 20 years from now and say that the world has become a more dangerous and less prosperous place because of the breakdown in U.S.-China relations in early 2020.

One of the points fueling the conflict between the two countries is Chinese President Xi Jinping's leadership strategy of extending the Communist Party's control over all aspects of Beijing's society, culture, and commerce, while ensuring that the country is not dependent on America for advanced technologies, and is willing to do whatever it takes, including buying or stealing technology, to ensure this.

The level of technology theft and infiltration of American institutions has become intolerable, not to mention China's desire to eradicate democracy in Hong Kong, eliminate the Islamic culture of Uyghur Muslims in the west of the country, and use its economic power and wolf-warrior diplomats to intimidate neighbors like Australia into not requesting an investigation into the origin of the Wuhan coronavirus.

There is no doubt that the best way America can respond to China is by doing the one thing Beijing hates: confronting it with a broad cross-border alliance based on shared global values regarding the rule of law, free trade, and human rights.

I believe that when we make the confrontation with China a confrontation between the American president and the Chinese president, then the latter can benefit from bringing all the Chinese nationalists to his side, but when we make it a confrontation between the world and China, then we isolate the hardliners in Beijing and benefit from bringing more Chinese reformers to our side.

But China will not respond to talk of international norms even in the face of a global coalition, so such talk must be backed up with economic and military leverage.

Some question whether prioritizing reform at home by addressing the massive deficits in infrastructure, education, income, and racial equality, after the 20-year war on terror, will be more beneficial or more dangerous to the Chinese threat. But I think our grandchildren will thank us for it in 2041.