Will Reagan’s Strategy Work With China?

As Donald Trump prepares to take office as the 47th President of the United States, among the most important policies he will formulate and implement will involve our Cold War conflict with Communist China. His incoming national security team consists mostly of “China Hawks” — Marco Rubio, Michael Walz, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Elbridge Colby, Peter Navarro — but Trump prides himself on avoiding wars and being a “deal maker.” That makes him, according to the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson writing in Foreign Affairs, like Ronald Reagan, who won the Cold War against the Soviet Union without firing a shot.

Ferguson’s essay notes the remarkable similarities between Reagan and Trump. Reagan, like Trump, was derided by the American foreign policy establishment as a B-Movie actor — an “amiable dunce” in the words of Clark Clifford — who was unfit to be president and dangerous to world peace. Ferguson notes that “Reagan was mocked, belittled, and condescended to more than any other major politician of his era — and so, today, is Trump.”

Both Reagan and Trump won decisive political victories — Reagan by landslides: Trump by carrying the House and Senate along with him. Both men survived assassination attempts in courageous and valiant fashion. Both viewed tax cuts as essential to economic recovery. And both succeeded failed presidencies (Reagan succeeded Carter, Trump succeeds Biden) that had left the world a more dangerous place.

Reagan won the Cold War against the Soviets not by defeating them in a kinetic war, but by conducting what James Burnham called “economic-political-subversive warfare” which exploited Soviet political, economic, and structural vulnerabilities. Economic pressure was exerted by Reagan’s military build-up, the promotion of the Strategic Defense Initiative, trade barriers to strategic items, and increased domestic oil production and agreements with Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices relatively low (the Soviets relied on selling oil at high prices to keep their economy afloat and to feed their military-industrial complex).

Political-subversive pressure was exerted by Reagan’s assistance to dissident groups within the Soviet empire, a verbal propaganda war in which Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” predicted that communism would end up on the “ash-heap of history,” and challenged Soviet leaders to tear down the Berlin Wall.

Reagan combined economic-political-subversive warfare with the “art of the deal” when he negotiated seminal arms control agreements with the Soviets. But those arms control agreements were only made possible by Reagan’s more hawkish, offensive policies that put the Soviets on the geopolitical defensive. Reagan’s policies attacked the political and economic structures of a failed communist system and paved the way for the rise of Gorbachev.

Ferguson in his Foreign Affairs piece urges Trump to replicate Reagan’s strategy in his policies toward China. And the timing may be propitious, according to an article in The Diplomat by Irene Chou, a policy analyst with Safe Spaces, which consults on Indo-Pacific security in Taiwan and Washington. Chou writes that China is currently experiencing a structural crisis in which its social safety net is failing to provide sufficient resources to placate its working-class population. The structural crisis, she writes, is threefold: “inadequate social welfare, a slowing economy, and austere censorship.”

Living standards for most working-class Chinese are falling, unemployment is rising, and China’s social welfare programs are insufficiently funded to alleviate these conditions. This has caused widespread “economic alienation” among the working class, especially among young people between the ages of 16 and 24. Economic inequality in this communist “workers’ state” is also rising.

These conditions, Chou explains, have led to many instances of public violence, known as “revenge of society crimes.” Chinese workers have turned to violence, Chou believes, because other outlets are closed to them by the CCP’s repressive apparatus which includes extensive social media censorship. China’s leader Xi Jinping has called for more surveillance and repressive measures. That is how most communist leaders throughout history deal with dissent among their populations. Chinese leaders made it clear after the Tiananmen Square Massacre that there would be no Chinese Gorbachevs.

The structural vulnerabilities noted by Chou provide areas for U.S. economic-political-subversive exploitation and could lead to the rise of a Chinese Gorbachev out of necessity. Then, Trump the “deal maker” could possibly replicate Reagan’s strategy that won the first Cold War. Ferguson notes that Trump in his first term talked about doing a “big deal” with China so that a kinetic World War III could be avoided. But Trump the hawk must precede Trump the deal maker — just as Reagan the hawk set the global chessboard for Reagan the deal maker.

There is another reason why Trump the hawk must come first. Chou writes that one possible consequence of China’s internal turmoil could be a more assertive China on the world stage, especially toward Taiwan in an effort to distract attention from internal problems by focusing the nation on external crises. Ferguson, too, raises the possibility of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, which could replicate the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse — with China holding the upper hand.

Joe Biden and his national security team are leaving Trump a bad hand to play this delicate game, just as Jimmy Carter and his team left Reagan a bad hand to deal with the Soviet empire. Reagan pulled it off. Trump’s challenge is arguably greater than Reagan’s because China poses a multi-dimensional challenge to global stability. Trump will need the skill of Reagan and a good bit of luck to pull this off.

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