![]() The other proposed measures-often presented in list form-are more familiar: a stronger U.S. The most innovative aspect of this pressure campaign is a call to free up resources for competition with China via rapprochement with Russia. While “The Longer Telegram” does not explicitly call for Xi to be ousted from power, its prescriptions add up to a strategy of diplomatic, military, and economic pressure intended to convince the Chinese of the need for a change in leadership. His leadership is described as the wellspring of China’s new assertiveness abroad and its turn toward more repressive authoritarian measures at home. ![]() “The Longer Telegram” suggests that the only thing that might stop the Chinese Communists from reconciling themselves to a liberal order is President Xi Jinping himself. With the right combination of carrots and sticks, the Communist leadership might gladly embrace such a role again. Our would-be Kennan believes this is a feasible goal: After all, previous leaders of China, despite their CCP membership, were content to accept such a role for their country just a decade ago. The goal of American grand strategy, then, should not be the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the disintegration of the People’s Republic of China government, but convincing Chinese elites to accept a second-place station in an American-led liberal international order. The Chinese cannot be hemmed in or waited out. As Chinese society does not suffer from the Soviet Union’s internal divisions and because Chinese have access to wealth and markets the Soviets could never dream of, the challenge posed by Beijing may be even more difficult to meet than that posed by the USSR. The main tenets of “The Longer Telegram” are these: The rise of the People’s Republic of China is a challenge on a Soviet scale. It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of both the enemy it seeks to deflect and the democratic institutions it is purportedly designed to protect. Unfortunately, the so-called telegram’s contents are not as clever as its title. The document’s anonymous author (described by the Atlantic Council as a former senior government official, presumably but not certainly American) has cleverly titled their report the “The Longer Telegram.” “Longer” is an apt adjective: the full report is 85 pages long. The latest entry in this timeworn genre was published on Jan. ![]() foreign-policy community would face: a future where every few years a scholar, pundit, or government official decides that they too must write a long missive that will redefine American grand strategy for the decades to come. When George Kennan wrote his famous “Long Telegram” in 1949 to warn the United States about the nature of Soviet ambition, he did not appreciate the true threat the U.S. ![]()
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