Peter Harris, Clements Graduate Fellow, Writes About China in The National Interest

He cites examples such as the British perspective on the rise of America in the late-1800s and Truman’s response to the Soviet Union during the early Cold War. Mr. Harris stresses the importance of combining domestic and foreign policy when approaching the rise of states. “Yet it is not just in the realm of foreign policy that the U.S. must prepare for China’s rise. In domestic politics, too, there are significant moves that must be made to prepare the U.S. for relative decline vis-à-vis China—and, indeed, other rising states.”

“Whatever foreign policy the United States adopts vis-à-vis China today, then—be it conciliatory, á la the Anglo-American rapprochement and the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of détente, or confrontational, as with U.S.-Soviet relations under Truman and Reagan, attention to domestic politics will have to play a major role. To date, however, U.S. elites have shown little foresight in this realm.”

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