How very Nixonesque
I always thought the Biden team were wrong in viewing China as the primary threat to the West. It’s actually more imminently from Putin’s Russia. Perhaps the Biden team now realise they have to get China “on side” if they are to box off Putin, even defeat him.
See https://www.ft.com/content/663bcc8f-1d44-4131-a9e5-43aeb02a79dc
Putin hates Western Liberal Market Democracy as he fears Russians actually crave that and it means his ouster. So since 2007/08 he has been at war with the West, trying to corrupt us from within - buying our politicians and business leaders with cash, positions on the boards of Russian SOEs and cheap energy. He has been supporting far right and far left politicians, and Brexit, to sow disunity in the West. He has attacked our allies - his friendship with Erdogan, Trump and Orban is exactly about creating Trojan Horses within our systems.
And he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams - our system is under attack and on the edge, at threat from populists and populism, far right and far left promoted by Putin.
It’s possible to imagine the end, collapse of Western Liberal Market Democracy which would mean the longer term threat of Chinese hegemony will be hypothetical. The first battle has to be against Putin. We have to win that - the battle against kleptocracy. And the front line is in Ukraine - Ukraine has been the wake up call as to what is at risk here and the real and very present danger from Putin.
Now sure China threatens US economic and military hegemony over time. But China does not want to destroy our system. It loves our system and likes the status quo as it thinks globalisation and free trade will bring it inevitable economic and military hegemony over time. China is happy to wait - but the immediate threat to the West is from Russia. For Putin it’s about getting the West before it gets him.