Frum agrees with Ferguson that China’s rise is a threat:
If living standards mattered most, then Denmark would be a superpower. A China that becomes richer in aggregate than the U.S. will exert new global sway—and make this planet a less congenial place for those who cherish liberal democratic values. … The prospect of the U.S. as number 2 is a threat and challenge. So long as China remains a repressive authoritarian oligarchy, the prospect of a world reordered to meet Chinese imperatives is an ugly one.
The premise behind this is that freedom requires a superpower to enforce it. But it’s one of the great contradictions of neoconservatism that its real founder is Rousseau, not Burke. It was Rousseau who argued that people must be forced to be free, a paradox he seemed to savor but the neocons do not see. In fact, the desire for freedom springs from within, filtered through history and culture and accident. The US did not force the people of Egypt to be free; which is why their revolution has a chance of succeeding. The US did try to force Iraq to be free, which is why I remain profoundly skeptical of that country’s “democratic future.” And China is not Mao’s China. It is not powered by nineteenth century delusions, but by 21st Century economics. And so an almost completely China-dependent Burma has nonetheless moved toward democracy even as China’s power waxes, as it must. This is not to say that handling China’s rise is not one of the most pressing issues we face – and it will be as hard as managing Germany’s rise in the nineteenth century. But this is not a return to the past, however much Romney needs it to be. Greg Scoblete explains:
By all means the U.S. should take China seriously – more seriously than it has to date. As far as potential challenges to global stability goes, the territorial disputes in Asia are arguably more dangerous than an Iranian nuclear weapon. But we’re not facing a Cold War style contest for global supremacy. Acting otherwise is not conducive to clear-headed thinking about what the U.S. does next.
Larison sides with Scoblete:
The world wouldn’t be reordered to meet “Chinese imperatives” because most of the world would not accept Chinese “leadership.” The main error that hegemonists make is in asserting that U.S. hegemony has to be replaced by another state’s hegemony. In fact, the existence of a single global hegemon is extremely abnormal and cannot be sustained over the long term.
Further thoughts from yours truly here.
The Dish 