Be you own judge and jury. Further to this post from April,
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster on How to Appreciate, and Deal With, the Dragon
the lieutenant general, now retired as well as being an erstwhile national security adviser to President Trump, recalls some moments from their visit to Beijing in November 2017; that time now seems about a lifetime ago. From a major article by Ann Scott Tyson (tweets here) at the Christian Science Monitor:
Fueling US-China clash, years of disconnects
…
As General McMaster settled into a black swivel chair at a conference table in the great hall, he and his team had one simple goal: to wrap up the meeting quickly so the president could prepare for the evening’s lavish dinner. Premier Li Keqiang began speaking, reading from 5-by-8 cards – as Chinese officials often do to stay on message. The general girded himself for more empty diplomatic speak.
But what came next surprised General McMaster. Despite Mr. Li’s reputation for being friendly to the West and relatively pro-reform, he spoke bluntly, echoing Chairman Xi’s assertive 3 1/2 hour speech at the October party conclave. His brusque message: China no longer needs the U.S. China has come into its own. Beijing would, however, help Washington solve its trade problem by importing U.S. raw materials for China’s emerging high-end manufacturing economy.
What struck General McMaster was how Mr. Li’s monologue suggested an almost neocolonial relationship between a superior China and a servile U.S. It was “remarkable for the aura of confidence, you could almost say arrogance, and the degree to which he dismissed U.S. concerns about the nature of not only the economic relationship but the geostrategic relationship,” he recalls.
Such encounters helped convince General McMaster that a dramatic shift in China strategy was critical. “It reinforced the work we were doing and highlighted the urgency of it,” he says.
…
Looking back, General McMaster, who has a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, sees deception. “The party officials with whom we engaged for so many years, in so many different dialogues, were just great at stringing us along and holding the carrot in front of our donkey noses,” he says.
U.S. engagement “underestimated the will of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to constrain the scope of economic and political reform,” concludes a White House report on China strategy published in May…
If one thinks the PRC’s aggressiveness is essentially a product of Xi himself, consider what China’s then-ambassador to Canada said in 2012 almost immediately after Xi became Top Dragon. Clearly the will to intimidate lesser countries was already well ingrained:
And a piece by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong:
Xi’s dictatorship can’t be trusted
When I was governor of Hong Kong, one of my noisiest critics was Sir Percy Cradock, a former British ambassador to China. Cradock always argued that China would never break its solemn promises, memorialised in a treaty lodged at the UN, to guarantee Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and way of life for 50 years after the return of the city from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Cradock once memorably said that although China’s leaders may be “thuggish dictators”, they were “men of their word” and could be “trusted to do what they promise”. Nowadays, we have overwhelming evidence of the truth of the first half of that observation…
Read on. Plus a post from May:
Mark Collins
Twitter: @mark3ds
Mark Collins 3Ds Blog 
Meanwhile, the horrible on-going repression of the Uyghurs and intimidation of those abroad, and other unpleasant CCP/PRC doings–from Australia:
“Uighurs tell Australian inquiry of ‘intimidation and harassment’ from Chinese government
Chinese Communist party accused of ‘increasing its oppressions and control of Uighurs at an alarming rate’”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/09/uighurs-to-tell-australian-inquiry-of-intimidation-and-harassment-from-chinese-government
Mark Collins
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A friend with extensive international experience responds:
“My take is that the Chinese Communist Party artfully deceived the West and the Rest. I don’t like the idea behind ‘suckered’ because it suggests to me that the innocents in the West were hapless idiots. What these highly intelligent anW experienced politicians and officials were was infatuated by their own preconceptions of reciprocal love. And more than a little arrogant, partly like the German elites who thought that Hitler would be malleable in their hands.
The entire story is also a testimony to the failings of the cult of instant expertise. There wasn’t even much camouflage if people who actually understood China’s long history and that of the CCP took time to look but when they tried to cool everyone’s jets, they were pretty quickly brushed aside. After all, there was money to be made and in the West, money had become the universal solvent dissolving other national interest considerations and ethical flags. And after the glorious victory of the Cold War, what could go wrong?
China played the game skillfully but western elites ceased to use their own hard-won Cold War era skills because they believed their own propaganda, largely driven by American triumphalism (New World Order of Bush 41, etc.). Judging by our own Government, I wonder if very many in the West and the Rest yet understand what is happening.”
Hmm. See this post from 2013 that features one who blew the whistle on the CCP early and often, Simon Leys. PRC reality has indeed always been knowable for those willing to see:
“Dragon Update: The Truth about Red China; Plus Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics and…”
Mark Collins
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