(William A. Galston, holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program. He writes the weekly Politics & Ideas column in the Wall Street Journal where this column appeared on June 22, 2021)
- American attitudes toward China have changed dramatically over the past decade. There is much less confidence that the democratic world can bring China into a rules-based international order—or that the growth of the Chinese middle class will create internal pressure for liberalization and democracy. Elites in both political parties agree that competition with China is now at the center of U.S. economic and foreign policy, a stance that many Americans endorse…