Transcription
All that has been happening in the last 30 years with the rise of China, America is increasingly concerned. 1996 is another very critical year. I was talking to the author of Lucidus Trap, you know, Professor Graham Ellison. He's old, another old friend. And I told him, I said, you know, you guys really, really made a mistake in 1996 by sending two aircraft carriers to Taiwan when Leiden went to the United States. And so China shot blanks, I suppose, across the island, and the US sent two aircraft carriers. And Graham Allison, who was told me, he said, "Well, oh Ronnie, at that time I was in the defense department. In fact, I was one of those guys who proposed to send the two." And I said, "Graham, I don't think your teacher would have done that." And all that, all the military buildup that I can see since 1996 was a direct result of the Iraq war, the Desert Storm of 1992, as well as the 1996 incident in the Taiwan Strait.
Then, of course, there is the economy. China's economy has been rising very fast. Who can blame anybody who wants to have a better living? Having a better living for all is not a sin. But other people don't like you. They will try to contain you. And so you see the trade deal that is signed, first phase. I don't know the details, but for what I can tell, China made tremendous, tremendous concessions. But as I always tell my friends, I said, "America is not after trade. It is just something that Donald Trump is interested in." But he has surrounded himself with people like Bannon and John Bolton and many others, Pompeo. And as a result, it is not trade. Trade is a tertiary war. Technology leading to military prowess and perhaps the US dollar are far more significant in this conflict.
Then, of course, there's another reason beyond just military and economics, and that is culturally. For the first time, the United States, or the West in general, is being challenged by a non-Western country. And you don't have to believe it altogether, but there's been a paper written by a US State Department individual that's basically said that, well, the Soviet Union was still white people, Caucasian people, but China is not. So the old Cold War is a domestic conflict. This time is something else. A lot of people blame Donald Trump for what's happening today. I said, "Not so. Don't blame him for everything. He's responsible for a lot of things, but not everything."
I remember an old friend of mine, some of you may know, may know him, Paul Wolitz. Remember him? Paul Wolfitz, when he became dean of the Johns Hopkins SAIS school of advanced international studies, he gave me a call and said, "Ronnie, I want to boost my China desk, my China department. Who are really good scholars in the United States?" And that must be what, 1995, maybe. And such a person in 1992 wrote a paper that is later called by some to be the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Basically, what it says is the United States should not allow anybody to rise and become anywhere close to a challenge to the United States, economic or otherwise. So, in other words, there are segments in American society, in particular in the policy institute and policy arena, which has a stated goal of of not letting everybody rise except the United States. I knew that I was afraid of Paul in this regard, but I thought that we should be friends. And so I invited him to speak here. I invited him to many other places, but apparently he hasn't changed his mind.
During and soon after World War II, the United States has amassed more credibility than any other country I know in the world ever. And that credibility comes with it a moral authority the likes of which is not seen in human history. Obviously, you have the other camp, the Soviet Union, China, and a few others. But for the most part, the world benefited greatly from the United States as the economic engine of the global economy. So after World War II, the United States has perhaps more moral authority and credibility than any other country I know. And that matches the, shall I say, unmatched prowess of a country which has never been come close to by any other country I know in human history that I have read. Not the old Roman Empire, not the British Empire, but the United States was rather unique.
In hindsight, a lot of people don't like the Cold War. After all, perhaps we're entering into a new Cold War. So, most people assume that the Cold War is bad. Well, no one liked wars of any sort, hot or cold. And surely, the Cold War was a dangerous time. Just remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mankind has never been so close to a nuclear confrontation like that. However, think about this. Cold War is bad, but perhaps hot war is worse, or even the absence of Cold War can become very, very problematic. For example, during the Cold War, the United States was under restraint because of the presence of the then Soviet Union. The United States had no choice but to work with many of its allies, and it cannot do whatever it wants. It was under certain kind of restraint, self-imposed or otherwise, because of the presence of the Cold War. Everybody was in the free world, so to speak, was happy when the Cold War ended. However, as mankind's wisdom has taught us, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The United States was under constraint, under restraint during the Cold War. After the Cold War, there is no longer any restraint. The United States can wield its power whichever way it wants. Is that good or is it bad? If the adage is correct that absolute power corrupts absolutely, then perhaps we should think twice that the Cold War is necessarily bad and the end of the Cold War is necessarily good.
The United States, as Annie mentioned, often times that which applies to a person applies to a country, or that which applies to a country also applies to a person. And the United States has been just too strong, too powerful for too long. It can do anything it wants, and in the absence of restraint because of the end of the Cold War, the United States actually began to cut down its own credibility and moral authority. This is something that is seldom mentioned. Most people do not spend much time thinking, and certainly not out of the box. And so everyone assumes that the Cold War is bad. And I remember an author, I forgot who it was, that wrote a piece recently, "Cold War is bad, but hot war is worse." Well, we're not at hot war yet. But in the absence of Cold War, the possibility of hot war actually may increase rather than decrease.
So today, we all know what's happening. The United States has decided to make China an enemy. For those of us who have been working for the last, I personally have been working for 30 some years to try to forge a better relationship between China and the United States, I have failed. I've completely failed. And in hindsight, perhaps I too suffer from a syndrome of wishful thinking that perhaps the United States will be wiser than all other former powers, which will make room for other people and to coexist together as other people rise.
First of all, I think it's truly amazing that what America is doing today under Donald Trump and initiating a Cold War, unlike the last one with George Kennan and so forth in 1946, writing the Long Telegram, what, 6,000, 8,000 words there, they spelled out strategies. But this time, I see no strategy, and I see no endgame either. For those of you who are consuls general here, you're diplomats, many of you, and imagine taking a decision that is that critical, that will affect the world for decades to, um, with no strategy and no clearly defined endgame. That is truly, truly amazing. So where will it lead? I don't know. We'll see what happens in the next election in November. But my worry is that the course has been set, and I don't think that it will easily be reversed. Maybe better here, maybe worse elsewhere. I fear that the course has been set not because of China, what it did, but because the United States has decided to fall straight into the Thucydides Trap. Just think about this. The definition of Thucydides Trap is the existing power taking action, taking the initiative to prevent the number two from rising, such as the sad history today.
But then military is not the only thing. Finance, economics means a lot. Consider what Donald Trump did with the NATO so-called allies. They are now asking allies, American allies in Western Europe, to pay for more of NATO. When I first heard about it, I said, "Makes sense. You know, you get protection. Why not pay more?" But then upon further consideration, I decided that perhaps it's more complicated than that. Perhaps by asking the European countries to pay more, it fundamentally changes the relationship between the United States and the European countries.
Let me say this, Commissioner Sher, and all the country generals, please forgive me. I'm going to say something not so good about your profession, diplomacy. Huh? As far as I can tell, and I've been reading about diplomacy for the last 40 years. As far as I can tell, diplomacy operates on the exact same principle as the mafia. It's just one with suits and ties and white gloves, and the other has brass knuckles. That's all. Sorry. So, in the old days, when the United States was willing to pay a lot for NATO because there's a big bad guy supposedly out there called the Soviet Union. And so, the relationship, to use the mafia analogy, is that America is the boss, and all the European countries are the stooges. "I pay you, and you fight that bad guy out there." So, just like mafia, those mafia boys, those stooges are always very loyal to the big boss because he pays you. And by the way, you have no choice anyway. You are stuck in Europe, right next to the Soviet Union in those days. So they're very happy with the arrangement.
But what about today? Today, America says, "Pay up. You have to pay more." That changes the relationship from one of the not-so-nice mafia arrangement to a much nicer one, but still not that good. And that is what America is doing now is extracting protection money. You own a shop in some boat or Timun or somewhere. And there are a little bit of mafia. Hong Kong is not bad. Hong Kong is really quite good compared to many parts of the world. But still, I say there's no such thing, right? The bad guy comes and says, "Hey, give me money. If not, I will do something to you." And so if you are that shop owner, you will think, which is the lesser of two evils, the guy who wants money from me or Russia. And some of them may come to the conclusion, well, perhaps Russia is not that bad of a threat. Perhaps this guy is even a bigger nuisance to us, the simple shop owners and keepers. And so because of that, the fundamental relationship between the United States and its allies has been changed.
America has to do that partly because financially it is in debt. And yet, having been at the top of the world for so long, sometimes you tend to forget that you are not as wealthy as you once upon a time were. I think it can happen to any of us, right? We have seen it in Hong Kong among the wealthy families. Once upon a time they were wealthy, but gradually the finances have deteriorated, but they still think that they are wealthy. But a lot of things begin to change.