Quote of the Day (Ross Terrill, on China as a Calculating—But Conservative—Dictatorship)

“The expansionist claims of Beijing are transparent and unique among today’s powerful nations. But the Beijing regime, while a dictatorship, is a rational dictatorship. It can count the numbers. It is often patient in fulfilling its goals. Equipped with a growing cadre of younger, well-trained officials, Beijing does not, like the Ming and Qing courts, deceive itself with beautiful fictions to hide the gap between reality and China’s preferred worldview. China, in sum, is an ambitious power that, if faced with countervailing power, will act prudently in its long-term strategy. It surely knows that a formidable list of powers—the United States, Japan, Russia, India—has many reasons for denying China the opportunity to be a 21st-century Middle Kingdom. China was not as weak as it seemed when it was the ‘sick man of Asia.’ It may not be as endurably strong as it now seems to those who fear or admire it.”—Australian historian and China specialist Ross Terrill, “What Does China Want?”, The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2005

This article, as you can see, was published 13 years ago. Much has happened in the interim—notably, an American government continually talking about standing up to China on trade, but pulling in its horns around the world. 

This may be as good a time as any to suggest that America’s principal advantage over China is freedom. If only our leaders could remember that…