Thread by @MultipolarOrder

1. #NixonMao #rapprochement 50th ANNIVERSARY: SOME FACTS & LESSONS.
In only 50 years, everything changes. Strategic interests of two great powers aligned then as much as they clash today.
I hate threads but my blog is not out yet: here some disorderly thoughts.

2. In 1972, China needed to avert a terrestrial invasion from #USSR. The #UnitedStates was keen to gain a heavy-weight partner to checkmate #Moscow; but the long-term objective was to bring the most populous country into a rising US-led global economic order for the US to profit

3. In the following decades, the relationship was not void of tensions. However, strategic interests were important enough to save it from #TaiwanRelationsAct, #Reagan anti #communism and support for #Taiwan; #TiananmenSquare; #StraitCrisis 1995-1996; #Belgrade bombing

4. If the US-China train did not derail, was because at the time the US continued to prioritize geoeconomic interests. After Tiananmen, #GeorgeHWBush genuflected & bypassed "his own ban" writing a secret letter to #DengXiaoping, addressing him as old friend

5. Similarly, with a passionate speech #BillClinton convinced the American Congress that supporting the PRC’s entry into the World Trade Organization was the right thing to do for those leaders who believed in “greater openness/freedom for China" & "greater prosperity" #America

6. These were the years of the post #Cold War #hangover when hyperglobalism reigned in American policy circles. Ideas such as strategic pause, end of geopolitics, and of the state etc. led to a major strategic oversight of the rise of China.

7. #GeorgeWBush was keen to take on China, but #9/11 contributed to the strategic distraction. Since late #HuJintao China became more assertive while in the 2010s #Obama #Trump sought to contain China. They had the same strategic objective but different recipes.

8. #Biden is very much in continuity with his predecessors but has a finer strategy based on the #BuildBackBetterWorld #B3W. This is a more exclusive club compared to the LIO - a sort of LIO 2.0 - to #decoupling from China through a coalition of like-minded states.

9. The B3W, coupled to #XiJinping campaign of #commonprosperity and China's effort to be seen as representative of the #developing world - eg in Glasgow #COP26 or with the #RCEP - are leading the world towards a partial divergence

In hindsight Obama #TranspacificPartnership #TPP, Trumo #tradewar Biden #B3W were different recipes to stop erosion of the LIO & coerce China into accepting free-market reforms to break the synergic connection between the #ChineseCommunistParty #CCP & strategic industries.

10. This is not a new #coldwar: ideological competition is nuanced; there is economic interdependence. But in a way this is a new type of cold war: it involves many countries, especially US allies; restrained competition is geographically global; 2 parallel orders can take shape

11. LESSON 1: Diplomatically speaking, nothing is eternal. Fifty years is a short time in historical perspective, and in this time we went from a cold war to something resembling a new type of cold war.

The West's winner takes it all attitude after the Cold War was informed by a short-term logic. But this is often the case in history. The #Versailles order did not last.

12. LESSON 2: The Liberal International Order (LIO) was never a truly global order. It did spread unevenly. While this is a critique to the West’s tendency to see the world through “civilizationism”, amidst this lesson there probably is an even harder truth - see next post.

Conceptions of two competing order are taking shape. As two China-based scholars pointed out, “[o]ne person’s ‘wolf warrior foreign policy’ and ‘debt trap diplomacy’ may be another person’s pursuit of a ‘harmonious world’ and ‘community of common destiny’”.

This is a highly controversial statement. Yet, it is a hard truth. Hopes for integration & democratization of the 1990s were ideology-driven and unrealistic.
There are 2 irreconcilable truths: China is right in saying the #LIO is US-led; the US is right in saying China cheats

13. LESSON 3: There is no history of modern China without the #West. The Opium War is a wound in Chinese history as much as the trigger of China's catch-up dreams. There is no US without China. Both powers’ trajectories have been tied to one another during the last fifty years.

Conversely, what would be of US-led globalization without China? Similarly, it is possible that the Cold War between Washington, D.C. and Moscow would have lasted for longer had Mao and Nixon not met.

14. LESSON 4: American grand strategy is structurally flawed. It can only reproduce itself by integrating into the US-led global economy national locomotives including former and potential rivals - #Japan #Germany China. China rise is a structural #blowback for #Washington

15. Is another #rapprochement possible, this time with #Russia? This idea has been in the minds of #Obama and #Trump, but also #Biden who said that Russia will be "squeezed" by China. #Ukraine in 2014 and #UkraineRussiaCrisis today is an obstacle. However - see below

Russia, contrarily to China in 1972, does not see an enemy in #Beijing at least in the short term. On the contrary, #Putin and Xi released a joint statement at #BeijingOlympics which was an ode to sovereignty, #multipolarism and mutual respect for domestic differences

16. Most people admire Nixon & Mao pragmatism. Nowadays, why we do not have a diplomatic agreement b/w US & China? The same pragmatism is impossible. This is not about individual leaders, but about a declining power unwilling to change rules & a rising power to bold to negotiate.

@DSD_Kings @ItssVerona