BEIJING, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Attempts to contain China through a cold-war-style approach as advocated by some prominent voices in Washington would be an "immense" failure, said an opinion piece carried by the South China Morning Post on Friday.
Some politicians in Washington frame the Joe Biden administration's policy of attempting to find a middle ground through detente as naive and believe that only a hardline approach, similar to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's to the Soviet Union, will effectively counter Beijing, wrote Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions, a cross-border risk advisory firm.
But this presumption is based on a false premise, Wagner said, noting today's China bears little resemblance to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. China is a highly diversified economic goliath with a blend of public and private sectors, he said, adding despite its current economic and financial challenges, China remains at the center of global manufacturing, which accounts for 14 percent of global trade and is the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries.
The opinion piece also pointed out that the U.S. efforts at regime change or containment have not always worked, the report said, mentioning grand U.S. failures in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, or its more recent inability to stop the Houthis from disrupting global shipping in the Red Sea.
"Since the U.S. failed in its quests with these arguably less challenging countries, just imagine how immense its failure would likely be in attempting to do the same with China," Wagner said. ■
