Traveling through China a number of years ago, I was buttonholed by an earnest young man who spent the morning trying to convince me that Taiwan was part of China, that the United States should recognize that unification was inevitable and should get out of the way (which, at that moment, meant end its support for the Chen Shui-bian government in Taipei).
What stayed with me from that conversation roughly 20 years ago was his dogged conviction that the Chinese people would never give up their desire for reunification and that even if they lost a war, they would continue to fight for that cause — whether the time horizon was 10 years or 50.
I’ve revisited that chat several times in the last few weeks, most recently after reading a new study from Rand Corp., the venerable U.S. think tank, on “competing visions of national competitive advantage.” It asks which societal characteristics do Chinese and Russians think make a country strong. In other words, what do they think is inherent in their culture that gives them a leg up in geopolitical competition?
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