U.S. foreign policy experts have failed for decades to recognize China’s ambitions to move beyond its status as only a regional power. The latest mobilization of large-scale Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait in early August was a resounding signal of Beijing’s intent to reassert control over its sphere of influence. 

Since President Nixon’s famous trip to China in 1972, Western politicians have sought to engage China through a measured expansion of trade and the diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate Chinese government. By the 1990s, China had become a global market for cheap manufactured goods, and all signs pointed toward economic liberalization being just around the corner.

Aaron Friedberg, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, explains in his book, “Getting China Wrong,” the failure of the West’s strategy of engagement. Friedberg argues that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the West underestimated the resilience, resourcefulness, and repressive tactics of the Chinese Communist Party.

Instead of becoming a more tolerant and liberal government, Friedberg argues the Communist government of China became more militaristic and repressive at home and openly aggressive abroad. The CCP cleverly navigated the pitfalls of engagement by exploiting the West’s openness through an early push for open trading relations in the early 1990s and 2000s.

While the odds of the CCP liberalizing politically were low at best, Western thinkers hoped greater economic engagement with China would prompt the country’s government to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system and promote a greater level of human rights. Yet, the CCP quietly and carefully cracked down on political opposition.

Friedberg notes that the CCP, for decades, has sought to flex its unwavering support from the citizenry by ensuring no open disagreement among the party elite. The purge of political moderates within the political elite in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square in 1989 was the greatest example of this doctrine. Dissent must be crushed absolutely by the Party to maintain political legitimacy and cohesion within the country. 

In the early 1990s, most Western experts hoped that focusing on economic liberalization in China would foster greater demand for political liberty. This strategy was built on the assumption that China would allow private ownership of capital and eventually adopt greater human rights, culminating in the nation’s admission to the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The CCP has sought to counter the West’s economic engagement by fostering an aggressive push toward technological acquisition fueled by domestic investment. The Chinese central planners rejected the principles of comparative advantage in favor of a single-minded focus on acquiring technological and scientific supremacy to recenter the global economic order around China. 

However, China faces many challenges in its quest to secure a technological monopoly. Friedberg observes the country still lags behind Western markets in the development of critical technologies, which leaves it vulnerable to a strong defensive counter-reaction, such as trade friction with the United States and its allies. Additionally, China’s aggressive investment toward technological development could ultimately end up being ineffective and wasteful. 

“Getting China Wrong” identifies the critical failures of the U.S. optimistic but tragically flawed approach to China by laying out an objective analysis of China’s emboldened ambitions. Friedberg’s analysis poses a crossroads for the U.S. to recognize the failures of the past and engage China as a competitor or remain reactionary to Beijing’s aggressive course of action.