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For all the recent talk of the need for 'strategic empathy,' this is the best place to start. Great piece from Francis Fukuyama at @aminterest https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/05/18/what-kind-of-regime-does-china-have/?fbclid=IwAR0SW_slJ0jFnRBgMSD4PQYltY4CNDht9PUHFl8Umlmz8ELw-S7fLfs5giY
"[China] aims to shift the center of the world economy to Eurasia through the Belt and Road Initiative, away from the current trans-oceanic one centered on the United States."
"It has for the first time staked out expansionist territorial claims through its creation and militarization of islands within the “Nine-Dashed Line” in the South China Sea. Xi has stated very clearly his intention to re-absorb Taiwan within the decade, if necessary by force."
And, in sharp contrast to the period before 2012, [Xi] has touted the “China model” as one that is available for export."
"The starting point is to recognize that we are dealing with an aspiring totalitarian country like the mid-20th century Soviet Union, and not with some kind of generic “authoritarian capitalist” regime."
"Though the Trump administration’s campaign against Huawei has been clumsy and in many respects self-defeating, the goal is essentially correct: It would be crazy for any liberal democracy to allow this firm to build its basic information infrastructure."
"The atrophy of Western providers of end-to-end 5G infrastructure is something that should never have been allowed to happen."
Important Caveat: 
"The regime is totalitarian in aspiration, but not necessarily in reality...Earlier dalliances with totalitarian control proved self-defeating: The Qin Dynasty lasted only for 16 years, and the Cultural Revolution exhausted itself within a decade."
"The regime is totalitarian in aspiration, but not necessarily in reality...Earlier dalliances with totalitarian control proved self-defeating: The Qin Dynasty lasted only for 16 years, and the Cultural Revolution exhausted itself within a decade."
"What Americans need to keep in mind is that their enemy and rival right now is not China, but a Chinese Communist Party that has shifted into high-totalitarian mode."
[The U.S.] has blithely thrown away the moral high ground that used to be the foundation of its power and [Trump] has governed the country with such incompetence during the largest crisis of the past three generations that it is no longer taken seriously by friends or enemies."
