In a recent
episode of American Thought Leaders, host Jan Jekielek and Jonathan Ward discussed some key strategies the United States must adopt to outmaneuver and triumph over the Chinese Communist Party. Ward is a China scholar, founder of the
Atlas Organization, and author of “The Decisive Decade: American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China.”
Jan Jekielek: We find ourselves at an interesting time in history. In your book, you call it the decisive decade. You argue that figuring out how to deal with the geopolitical threat of the Chinese Communist Party will benefit not only America, but the free world as we know it.
Some people believe that China has already won, that their ideological system will be dominant. How do we know that’s not the case? And why are you so sure we can turn it around?
Jonathan Ward: This will be a long-term contest. It will likely stretch out for the foreseeable future, but we have advantages that we cannot relinquish. That’s one of the most important pieces here.
The Chinese Communist Party seeks to place itself at the center of the world economy and to increase dependence on China, while at the same time reducing its dependency on the world. Ultimately, they want to convert that into military and diplomatic power so that they’re an unstoppable force.
Today, they’re at about 80 percent of our gross domestic product. We have to ensure that we remain the world’s largest economy and that our economic strategies will guarantee this for the future.
We need to rebuild peace through strength, which is dependent on economic power. We also need the diplomatic structure of the world to be one that heavily favors the United States, our allies, and other democracies.
We have these advantages today, but we’re losing them. We’re watching our position in the world economy challenged across strategic industries, critical technologies, and global markets. Our position is not guaranteed unless we have real strategies to back it up.
In the 2020s, there are two pillars to this strategy. One is economic containment of the People’s Republic of China, and the other is rebuilding and re-industrializing the United States and the alliance system
Mr. Jekielek: The U.S. multinationals have their own interests, and some of those don’t align with the American idea you describe in your book. In some cases, they don’t care about that anymore. How do we deal with this?
Mr. Ward: The important thing here is to work through those problem sets and begin to restructure the global economy so it depends far less on the People’s Republic of China. That’s what we have to win in the 10- to 15-year period ahead of us. We need to maintain deterrence and restructure the economy. We have to work through this company by company, market by market, and then outpace them across the board.
Ultimately, we need America’s economic engines to be aligned to U.S. national security, or at the very least not to be against it. We want free market capitalism to win this contest, but we’re going to need a reality check in boardrooms. They need to realize that their decisions in dealing with the People’s Republic of China affect geopolitics.
Mr. Jekielek: One of your key elements on the economic side is to industrialize America.
Mr. Ward: We have a thriving, innovative private sector, and that is where our power lies. At the same time, our government research and development, science and technology, and national laboratories are major achievements. We need to have a collaborative system that utilizes some of the long-term strategic thinking of the government while at the same time drawing upon a thriving private sector with its innovation, research, and development. That’s the sort of system that won the Cold War.
Mr. Jekielek: I love your focus in your book on the need to connect around the American idea once again.
Mr. Ward: The American Dream and everything it stands for are intimately linked with the free world. These are values that free countries everywhere can gather around. And it’s a unifying issue in our country, too. You see that in Congress with the establishment of the House Select Committee on China. Leaders from both parties are working in a collaborative and professional way on this issue.
We’ll also have to ensure that America keeps its goodness to deal with what’s coming. Leaving aside economics, diplomacy, and the military, the fundamental sense that this country is a force for good is what got us through the hard stuff in the past, and we have to rediscover that.
Mr. Jekielek: As we finish up, I want to get to the realm of ideas. Some of the most effective tools that the CCP has used against the free world, especially America, is information warfare, that China is the ascendant power and the United States is declining. After a while, people started believing this is a foregone conclusion. How do we deal with this?
Mr. Ward: First, we have to understand what the Communist Party of China represents, its human rights atrocities, and the fact that it’s responsible for the most deaths in history. Mao Zedong presided over something like 40 million deaths. They’ve fought wars against most of their neighbors, and they’re carrying out a genocide today.
Then we must also realize the United States represents, to some extent, a quest for perfection. That’s part of how we see ourselves as a nation, as a work in progress, as one that can do better and be a greater force for good.
We’re headed into something where the stakes are high. There’s still a chance to win in a peaceful way, but we must have confidence in ourselves that we can do this and that it matters whether we come through on this one. It matters as much as anything that has come before.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
