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You make good points. US foreign policy after WWII was completely dominated by cold war considerations and opposed all national liberation movements. The realists in international relations find that on the international scene, it is all only about balance of power. Therefore, 1/ https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1263917992821379073
they do not care about human rights or democracy. Only geopolitical alliances matter. Nevertheless, since the end of the wold war, things have changed. There has been the timid attempt to create a rule-based international order. This is still mostly rejected. 2/
Trump rejects it completely. Putin rejects it as total hypocrisy and the Chinese do not reject it as long as their national sovereignty is not constrained in any way. Like Putin and the IR realists, they only understand balance of power. 3/
The past mistakes of the US do not mean that it should not push for rule of law at the international level (I am not sure they are capable of doing that, but that is a somewhat different matter) or that it is only hypocrisy and we should go back to Putin's way with violence. 4/
As for China, it is a too big country for any power to try to influence the political system there, but recent events necessitate the West to revise its policy towards China. Previously, it attempted with great success to introduce capitalism under a communist political regime,4/
what you call political capitalism. Coexistence was, and is still possible, even if political liberalization did not follow economic liberalization, but China's geopolitical ambitions have grown since 2008. Their only expansionist plans right now concern Hong Kong and Taiwan. 5/
Their recent agressiveness on the world stage shows that they aim at introducing an international system of their own. Success at invading Taiwan may lead to invasion of Mongolia and Vietnam and South East Asia and introducing a strict communist regime in invaded countries. 6/
Other countries would become tributary states, remaining independent but owing some loyalty to Beijing, especially by not contradicting China's narrative. This is what is behind the bullying of Australia, France, Prague, ...7/
This is a Chinese-centered order that is the only way autocratic Chinese leaders can understand the international order. This is also the contrary of an international rules-based order. These geopolitical plans of China are likely to lead to a new cold war. 8/
This may imply economically very costly decoupling to prevent China to exploit economic interdependence to blackmail other countries. China is, however, alone in that fight. Logically, it would try to put together a club of autocracies, but none is really prepared to go along. 9/
In that context, China understands only balance of power, so a united front of democratic countries (in a post-Trump era) can put pressure on China like they have done on Russia. The objective is containment of China, not more, but it is becoming a geo-political necessity.
