October 15, 2025
America’s Self-Loathing Is a Losing Hand
This article was originally published in The Washington Post.
Around 10 years ago, the United States began a historic shift in its grand strategy toward China, abandoning the belief that engaging Beijing would liberalize its regime and integrate it into a U.S.-led world order. It was a fragile but significant turn, the result of an accumulation of concerns that ideally would usher in a more effective U.S. strategy.
U.S. competition with China demands strength and clarity — not exhaustion and doubt.
And it did — in many ways, even more dramatically than expected. President Donald Trump forced a rethinking of China policy as no conventional leader could. Then came the Biden administration, which repudiated many Trump policies but kept his approach to China largely intact. This prompted a thousand headlines about Washington’s new hawkish bipartisan consensus on China and the likely dawn of a New Cold War.
Read the full article on The Washington Post.
More from CNAS
-
Indo-Pacific Security / Energy, Economics & Security / Technology & National Security
Selling AI Chips Won’t Keep China Hooked on U.S. TechnologyU.S. policy should not rest on the illusion that selling chips can trap China inside the American tech ecosystem....
By Janet Egan
-
Will New Delhi-Beijing Move Beyond Friction Points? | Ex-White Official On India-China Reset
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that India and China, as two major economies, must work together to bring stability to the global economic order. NDTV's Gaurie Dwi...
By Lisa Curtis
-
How Big Will China’s Nuclear Arsenal Get?
China’s nuclear expansion is already feeding an arms race—a contest that is accelerating partly because the finish line remains unknown....
By Jacob Stokes
-
China Military Scholar Elsa Kania on the PLA’s Dramatic Modernisation
Today we speak with Elsa B. Kania, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, about China’s military modernisation. How good is the People’s Liberation A...
By Elsa B. Kania