Want to Make America Great Again? Try Copying China

It’s now conventional wisdom that the US blundered in hoping to convert China into a liberal democracy through free trade. For the past four decades, the Chinese Communist Party never disguised and never deviated from a long-term strategy focused on economic development — precisely in order to strengthen one-party rule at home and increase China’s influence abroad. Economic reforms served to rejuvenate totalitarianism, not to weaken it.

Rather than lamenting that fact or criticizing previous American leaders for not recognizing China’s strategy sooner, the US ought to mimic it to strengthen its own economic and political system. Imitation wouldn’t be flattery but the ultimate payback.