For example, long before Trump took office, successive U.S. administrations pursued approaches to China that misread Beijing’s strategic intentions. While U.S. presidents crafted optimistic statements about the relationship over a nearly 20-year period, Beijing implemented a grand strategy designed to undermine U.S.-Asian alliances. China used geoeconomic tools to coerce its neighbors and others into its sway, most recently through the Belt and Road Initiative. It violated international commercial practices, including by committing massive theft of U.S. intellectual property. It manipulated its currency for trade benefits, threatened Taiwan, built up its military forces to push the United States beyond Japan and the Philippines, constructed and militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea in violation of international law, systemically and brutally violated the human rights of its own people, and patiently and incrementally built its power and influence with the strategic goal of replacing the United States as the primary power in Asia. This U.S. misunderstanding of China’s objectives over nearly two decades ranks as one of the three most damaging U.S. foreign-policy errors since the end of World War II, along with the 1965 military escalation in Vietnam and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Indeed, this prolonged failure in China policy could turn out to be the biggest U.S. policy deficiency in the past seven decades, given the accumulating dangerous strategic consequences of the rise of Chinese power for world order as well as for the United States and its allies and friends. To its credit, the Trump administration has adopted a much more clear-eyed approach to China that breaks with many of the errors of the past. The president’s confrontational trade policy could lead to concessions from the Chinese government that his immediate predecessors sought but could not get through traditional diplomatic means. And on Oct. 4, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence delivered the toughest speech on U.S.-China relations by a U.S. administration since former U.S. President Richard Nixon opened up the relationship. “China now spends as much on its military as the rest of Asia combined, and Beijing has prioritized capabilities to erode America’s military advantages on land, at sea, in the air, and in space,” Pence said. “China wants nothing less than to push the United States of America from the Western Pacific and attempt to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies.” Although his withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and constant confrontations with U.S. allies have weakened his administration’s China policy, Trump’s political push to address the increasing dangers of Chinese power is more important—because his successor can remedy these mistakes. Without the president’s initiative, Washington might well have continued sleepwalking as Beijing drew large parts of Asia into its orbit and away from the United States.
before Trump successive U.S. administrations pursued approaches to China that misread Beijing’s strategic intentions. While U.S. presidents crafted optimistic statements about the relationship Beijing implemented a grand strategy designed to undermine U.S.-Asian alliances China used geoeconomic tools to coerce its neighbors and others into its sway It violated international commercial practices committing massive theft of U.S. intellectual property It manipulated its currency for trade benefits, threatened Taiwan, built up its military forces to push the United States beyond Japan and the Philippines, constructed and militarized artificial islands in the S C S in violation of international law, systemically and brutally violated the human rights of its own people, and patiently and incrementally built its power and influence with the strategic goal of replacing the U S as the primary power in Asia this prolonged failure in China policy could turn out to be the biggest U.S. policy deficiency in the past seven decades, given the accumulating dangerous strategic consequences of the rise of Chinese power for world order the Trump administration has adopted a much more clear-eyed approach to China that breaks with many of the errors of the past The president’s confrontational trade policy could lead to concessions from the Chinese government that his immediate predecessors sought but could not get through traditional diplomatic means Trump’s political push to address the increasing dangers of Chinese power is more important Without the president’s initiative, Washington might well have continued sleepwalking as Beijing drew large parts of Asia into its orbit and away from the U S