Our picks: China syndromeChina’s Paths to Global Domination | Rising Chinese Cyberthreats | Deindustrialization Means Disarmament, and more

Xi Jinping Is Not Stalin (Michael McFaul, Foreign Affairs)
A lazy historical analogy derailed Washington’s China strategy.

·  “[I]n a series of speeches this summer, senior officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump have cast the United States and China as antagonists in a new Cold War. … U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien compared Chinese President Xi Jinping directly to the Soviet dictator in power when the actual Cold War began: ‘Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization. The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor.’”

·  “[I]s Xi really Stalin’s heir, as O’Brien claimed and as other U.S. officials seem to think? The basis for such a comparison is thin.”

·  “Xi most closely approximates Stalin in the way he rules his country: he could well remain in power for decades and has created a cult of personality that would impress Stalin’s propagandists. … But ‘Xi-ism’ is still not Stalinism. Stalin’s regime was far more totalitarian in its control over every aspect of Soviet citizens’ lives. … Chinese citizens enjoy much greater autonomy over their own economic well-being than Soviet citizens did. … Stalin openly proclaimed his desire for a global communist revolution. … Xi, by contrast, has not orchestrated the overthrow of a single regime.”

·  “The United States must understand China ‘as it is,’ … not as some in Washington want it to be. The Trump administration undoubtedly would like a Stalinist leader to be in charge in Beijing, if only to better mobilize and unite Americans against him. But China ‘as it is’ is not ruled by a new Stalin. Asserting otherwise doesn’t change that fact and gets in the way of developing a sophisticated, successful U.S. policy to contain, deter and engage China over the long haul.”

Nine Theses on U.S.-China Relations (Robert D. Blackwill, National Interest)
Henry Kissinger observes that the current state of U.S.-China relations reminds him of the period before World War I when Europe’s leaders would not have made the decisions they did if they had known the horrible consequences—twenty million dead.

China Has Two Paths to Global Domination (Hal Brands and Jake Sullivan, Foreign Policy)
And a lot is riding on whether Washington can figure out which strategy Beijing has chosen.