Blame Nixon and especially his advisor Kissinger who figured he'd divide and conquer without caring much about consequences and then Bill Clinton for the coup de grace.
Initially it was to weaken communism (I guess it did, but China had long departed from the USSR) and later it was dollar eyes from business and the Clinton admin.
The people deserved a better future, but we didn't have to enable a dictatorship that would soon threaten stability.
In its core, China still believes it's the middle kingdom and believes that's its patrimony and should be the center of the world.
If they were democratic, if flawed, like India or the US, yes, they deserve the ascent, but not if they want to dominate with their vision of a Sino world and throw the world into conflict over this.
Russia and India are wildcards, Russia on the descent and India on the ascent, but both have heft. Now, if only the US, Russia, India and the EU could align for some good.
> Now, if only the US, Russia, India and the EU could align for some good.
The US and Russia will never align. The US is content to have two powerful foes to utilize for various purposes (military industrial complex spending, propaganda, political power, control, espionage excuse, foreign adventurism). The present incarnation of the US would only tolerate Russia as at least somewhat subservient, which is what the US thought it had obtained with the Yeltsin era.
The Russians are intensely nationalistic and independent. They have a serious confrontation coming in the future with China, as China will seek to take their territory and regional influence. Russia is at risk of being put into a badly weakened, near-subservient role with China, and they know it. Russia still had a larger economy than China as recently as 1992; ten years from now China will have an economy ~14 times larger than Russia. 30 years ago Russia still had a superior military to China; China has now passed Russia overall militarily, and will considerably eclipse them in military technology over the next decade or two. China will begin to increasingly push Russia around and treat them as a lesser partner, the Russians will react predictably to that. The two will probably try to continue to coordinate as far as countering the US and EU, where their interests align, other than that their relationship will get more antagonistic with time. The US and Russia had the good fortune to not share a large land border.
From a philosophical point of view, they share more with the US than they do with China. Confucianism is somewhat alien to Western thinking. Russia shares some of the pillars of philosophy with the US (and EU). So I think it depends on how things shape out in the future.
>The US is content to have two powerful foes to utilize for various purposes.
Sadly, this is part of it. I think Putin wants a Détente with the US, but some factions (both Dem and Repub) are allergic to anything Russia due to distrust from the Cold War.
>The Russians are intensely nationalistic and independent. They have a serious confrontation coming in the future with China.
Russia is nationalistic, but maybe even more so is China. They two had military skirmishes in the 60s (Amur). This may happen again as China looks toward Siberia for expansion. On the other hand, Siberia is mostly uninhabitable unless you raze it and pave it, but the temp extremes are quite unique too.
Initially it was to weaken communism (I guess it did, but China had long departed from the USSR) and later it was dollar eyes from business and the Clinton admin.
The people deserved a better future, but we didn't have to enable a dictatorship that would soon threaten stability.
In its core, China still believes it's the middle kingdom and believes that's its patrimony and should be the center of the world.
If they were democratic, if flawed, like India or the US, yes, they deserve the ascent, but not if they want to dominate with their vision of a Sino world and throw the world into conflict over this.
Russia and India are wildcards, Russia on the descent and India on the ascent, but both have heft. Now, if only the US, Russia, India and the EU could align for some good.
Realpolitik is a harsh mistress.