George Soros — A Partnership with China to Avoid World War

Soros encourages the US to adopt a Nixonian strategy of detente and cooperation with China to prevent the nightmare of a Chinese-Russian alliance that is already in the works. Because Putler. Yes, the Chinese are probably enemies, but the US can deal with them later.

Fully recognizing these difficulties, the US government should nevertheless make a bona fide attempt at forging a strategic partnership with China. This would involve identifying areas of common interest as well as areas of rivalry. The former would invite cooperation, the latter tit-for-tat bargaining. The US needs to develop a two-pronged strategy that offers incentives for cooperation and deterrents that render tit-for-tat bargaining less attractive....

If a bona fide attempt fails, the US would then be fully justified in developing a strong enough partnership with China’s neighbors that a Chinese–Russian alliance would not dare to challenge it by military force. That would be clearly inferior to a strategic partnership between the US and China. A partnership with China’s neighbors would return us to a cold war, but that would still be preferable to a third world war....

The hard part.

The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnerships, which are currently being negotiated, could offer an excellent opportunity for a two-pronged strategy but the current approach is all wrong. At present China is excluded; indeed the partnerships are conceived as an anti-Chinese alliance under US leadership. The president has asked Congress to give him and his successor authority for up to six years to negotiate trade agreements under fast-track rules that would deprive Congress of its right to introduce amendments. The bill has passed the Senate and at this writing is before the House. If the House approves, President Xi may be presented with an apparent threat on his visit in September. This is an appropriate response to China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and elsewhere, but it leaves little room for an alternative approach. It would, as a result, be difficult for President Obama to make a bona fide offer of strategic partnership.

It is to be hoped that the House will not authorize putting the bill on a fast track. Instead of railroading the bill through Congress, it ought to be taken off the fast track. In that case, Congress would have plenty of time to correct the fundamental flaws in the proposed treaties that make them unacceptable as they are currently written. And that would also allow President Obama to make President Xi a genuine offer of a strategic partnership with China when he visits Washington in September.

The New York Review of Books
A Partnership with China to Avoid World War
George Soros

ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism