16 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL as constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, and freedom of the press) and cultivating so-called “anti- government forces” within China to subvert CCP rule and prevent China’s rise. This was followed by a crackdown against human rights lawyers, media outlets, academics, and other such independent thinkers within China; against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang; and, later, the people of Hong Kong. This Beijing narrative has served to mobilize populist and nationalist anti-U.S. sentiment within China to justify the CCP’s increasingly tight political controls. Abroad, Beijing has also sought to promote the same narrative while utilizing trade and investment ties, e.g., through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as acts of economic coercion intended to expand China’s economic and political influence. To the extent that this narrative prevails, it lends support to those who argue against having to choose between the United States and China, focusing instead on protecting and advancing their countries’ own interests in the context of this geopolitical rivalry. In a series of essays published by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in 2023, for example, scholars from the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries were asked to address the issue of how each of their countries has viewed and responded to U.S.-China geopolitical competition in the region. A summary of these essays concluded that “they all emphasized developmental security and strategic diversification as priorities” to protect and advance their own national interests without reference to issues of human rights and international law. Notably, “none of the papers featured especially prominently the importance of the United States as an economic partner. In contrast, China’s economic initiatives and expanded economic relations with individual states loomed large.” Highlighting the views of these countries, Indonesia’s then President-elect Prabowo Subianto said in an interview with Al Jazeera in May 2024 that his administration would maintain an open foreign policy approach and not be drawn into choosing sides between the United States and China as they compete for global influence. “Our guiding philosophy is to be friends with all countries,” Subianto said. “We invite the U.S., the Japanese, the Koreans, the Europeans. The fact that we are friends with you doesn’t mean we can’t be friends with China, India, Russia.” Defending Values and Interests While cognizant of the difficulty of “changing China” and the need to engage diplomatically with Beijing, I would argue here that it is critical that the United States openly and directly challenge the Beijing narrative by making clear, first to the Chinese people, that our strategic goal has never been to suppress China’s rise but rather to encourage and convince the government in Beijing that it needs to change many of its current policies, which undermine the fundamental values and principles of the rules-based liberal international order from which China has greatly benefited. We need to underscore that the United States and the West have helped China achieve its remarkable rise over the past 50 years with the hope and expectation that it will eventually assume the role of a “responsible stakeholder” in this international order. I certainly believed this to be our goal while I served several tours in China during the past 30 years, working with my colleagues to expand trade and investment relations through China’s eventual accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), facilitating the travel of millions of Chinese students to the United States, and building broad government and people-to-people ties between our two countries. At the same time, we should make explicit to those countries that have chosen not to take sides that they have, in fact, chosen to accept Beijing’s narrative, thus ignoring or even denigrating the values of the liberal international order, implicitly condoning China’s practices and fueling its threat to this order. Although the United States cannot make other countries choose sides, we should at least warn them that unless Beijing changes and abides by the rules and principles of this order, it may eventually pose a threat to their own interests, if those conflict with China’s interests as Beijing further extends its sphere of influence. We have already witnessed this during the past decade in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in the East and South China Seas. As Beijing has significantly expanded its aggressive military and gray-zone activities, both Japan and the Philippines have now become increasingly aware of the dangers of neutrality and are beginning to work with the United States to respond to Beijing’s threats. Similarly, Beijing’s continued support for the DPRK and its nuclear arms program should be a clear warning not only to Korea and others in the region but even beyond the region with the DPRK now sending its own troops to assist Russian forces in Ukraine. While we should continue to counter Beijing’s coercive policies by reshaping
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