Just skimmed a position paper entitled China’s Illiberal Challenge. In a nutshell, the authors argue that the real threat to American foreign policy is China’s appeal to developing countries as a model for fast, impressive economic development. This is more of an ideological threat than radicalized Islamic states.

Why? Because if these sucker nations follow through with the Chinese model, they’ll be sacrificing democratic ideals for cash, at the expense of an open and fair governance.

A few quick reactions:

First, how likely is it that other nations could repeat China’s success, if they don’t have that hard-to-copy comparative advantage, a massive supply of labor. If the economic gain you hoped for doesn’t appear, you might think twice about the equalities and freedoms you’ve sacrificed. Which is not to say some won’t try, only that it’s not a model for concrete success if your silenced masses don’t get rich in the same way that the influential growing middle class in China has

Second, The authors could have thought through their recommendations a little more. They basically recommend doing more of the same: increasing the influence of multilateral economic cheerleaders, and pouring more money into development. If America continues to become a force for democratization the way that we’ve been doing it, we’ll continue to get mixed or bad results.

We have to think through why China is being successful in the developing world, and adjust any democratization strategy to match or surpass their appeal. That is, again, if we really want to frame this as a ideological competition. There must be room for a creative synthesis at some point.

Last, the idea that “us right, them wrong” is, I think, at the root of a lot of America’s international policy problems right now. I don’t see this perspective as moving the overall thrust of American interaction with the world any further.

Productive or not, the warning bell rung here is sure to resonate for a while. I’ll sure we’ll be hearing more later.