RIP: America’s “Engagement” Strategy towards China?
Since its historic rapprochement with Beijing in the 1970s, America has approached a rising China with an "engagement" strategy guided by two key assumptions: first, that political liberalization would ultimately follow economic growth; and second, that supporting China's integration into the global order would preempt Beijing from forcibly challenging that order. While confidence in those assumptions has waxed and waned, never did a consensus emerge that they were fundamentally flawed - until now.