Dec
4
The U.S. Is Being Diplomatically Outmaneuvered by China
It’s not just China’s huge armies we have to be concerned about, or their technological know-how. To put it bluntly, we are losing the diplomacy game to Communist China. But, we don’t have to.
I have posted before about the threat China poses not just to American dominance but to freedom and prosperity around the world. This time, I point readers to an article by Heritage’s economic research fellow Anthony B. Kim, in which he describes the threat and gives recommendations for the U.S. to follow. Here are a few quotes:
“[T]he world has entered a new era of geopolitical competition between states — an era where competitors like the U.S. and China each attempt to win vital allies to their side through battles of strategic diplomacy, and one where the U.S. is regrettably falling behind.”
“China has been expanding its diplomatic staff and presence around the world. In addition, China focuses on helping these developing countries with projects such as its Belt and Road Initiative, which is China’s ambitious geoeconomic connectivity initiative…. [Fortunately,] China has had to rein in the program as countries have grown increasingly wary of participating in it.”
“[T]here should be a drive to recruit more experts and diplomatic staff that understand Latin America and Africa, so they can effectively represent American interests in those regions…. America will help itself and the world more if it moves from handing out aid to creating real partnerships. To that end, for instance, the International Development Finance Corporation needs to be more strategic. This development agency helps finance overseas infrastructure and other projects so that America can compete with infrastructure development, but it needs to be better focused.”
“Instead of propagating far-left goals in its foreign policy, such as promoting abortion, the U.S. must focus on its national interests and develop a plan to achieve its goals. These sorts of policies, while pleasing to the left side of the political spectrum, divert scarce diplomatic capital from advancing core U.S. interests and undermine diplomatic relations with more conservative nations.”
I highly recommend reading the full article, which isn’t very long but provides more information than I could here.
