Gordon G. Chang: How Would Reagan Handle China?
[Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China.]
Zbigniew Brzezinski has high hopes for President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington this week. Writing in the New York Times — often a showcase for hyperbole — President Carter’s national-security adviser terms the January 19 summit “the most important top-level United States–Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago.”
Why is the meeting so consequential? Relations between Washington and Beijing of late have been frosty and testy. To stabilize ties, Brzezinski thinks the two nations’ leaders should “codify in a joint declaration the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation.”
In fact, President Obama and Mr. Hu did just that at the end of their summit in Beijing in November 2009. The document, entitled U.S.-China Joint Statement, was a comprehensive set of promises to work together for the good of the international community. Yet within three weeks of the end of that meeting, relations between the two countries had soured, spoiling the promise of enduring friendship and making impossible the formation of the much-talked-about “G-2.”
The one-day summit this week, unfortunately, will not change Hu’s outlook and will not appreciably affect his behavior. This is less a prediction than a description of historical patterns...
Read entire article at National Review
Zbigniew Brzezinski has high hopes for President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington this week. Writing in the New York Times — often a showcase for hyperbole — President Carter’s national-security adviser terms the January 19 summit “the most important top-level United States–Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago.”
Why is the meeting so consequential? Relations between Washington and Beijing of late have been frosty and testy. To stabilize ties, Brzezinski thinks the two nations’ leaders should “codify in a joint declaration the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation.”
In fact, President Obama and Mr. Hu did just that at the end of their summit in Beijing in November 2009. The document, entitled U.S.-China Joint Statement, was a comprehensive set of promises to work together for the good of the international community. Yet within three weeks of the end of that meeting, relations between the two countries had soured, spoiling the promise of enduring friendship and making impossible the formation of the much-talked-about “G-2.”
The one-day summit this week, unfortunately, will not change Hu’s outlook and will not appreciably affect his behavior. This is less a prediction than a description of historical patterns...