U.S. simply misunderstood China, Bolton states

The U.S. miscalculated regarding China.

China is now perceived as the principal hazard to Western democracies in the forthcoming decades “and I don’t believe we’re ready for it on multiple fronts,” asserted John Bolton, the former national security adviser to President Trump during his initial term.

During a discussion about U.S. national security at Harvard Kennedy School on Monday night, Bolton remarked that the U.S. “misread” how China’s economic progress and growing influence would impact global dynamics, mistakenly assuming that the emergence of a middle class would encourage the nation to adopt more democratic measures.

“We were incorrect on both counts,” stated Bolton, who also held the position of acting United Nations ambassador during the George W. Bush administration.

Instead, President Xi Jinping has emerged as the most influential leader of China since Mao, and China could attain nuclear parity with the U.S. and Russia by 2030, possibly even sooner. The emergence of a third nuclear superpower could disrupt the fragile equilibrium established by the U.S. and Russia after prolonged negotiations and agreements on arms control and deterrence.

“China’s development of a nuclear striking capacity comparable to or equal to that of Russia and the United States, I think, is the most severe threat to world peace this century,” Bolton informed Ned Price, an adviser to former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and State Department spokesman during the Biden administration. Price is currently a fall fellow at the Institute of Politics.

The U.S. ought to be greatly concerned about the developing alliance between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, particularly a China-Russia “coalition” with China as the leading partner over Russia, Bolton indicated.

Despite its assertions, China has supported Russia in the conflict in Ukraine by increasing its purchase of Russian oil, assisting in laundering sanctioned Russian financial assets, and supplying weapon components that can subsequently be reassembled, Bolton pointed out.

By the conclusion of this century, he foresaw, Eastern Russia is likely to become part of China.

Regrettably, the primary focus for the U.S. during Trump’s first term was to negotiate a significant trade agreement with China and others, like Japan, rather than broader issues such as national security or human rights.

“The larger strategic picture was overlooked,” Bolton remarked.

Bolton expressed deep skepticism that a Palestinian state will ever materialize, and dryly ridiculed Trump’s announcement during a White House press event earlier in the day regarding a Gaza peace initiative aimed at resolving the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas and his appointment of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to supervise post-war Gaza.

“I don’t believe what was proclaimed today is going to transpire,” because Hamas and Iran are improbable to agree to the stipulations set forth by the White House, commented Bolton, who criticized the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for having “mistreated” Palestinian refugees for decades and called for the elimination of the agency.

Although still a critic of the U.N. and other “soft power” initiatives like USAID, Bolton condemned recent cuts to Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other U.S. government-supported news outlets. Many across the globe depended on them for coverage about the U.S., “and now they’re no longer available. That creates a significant void that we’ve allowed our adversaries to fill,” he stated. “It was a colossal blunder.”

Bolton countered detractors who assert that regime change is his inherent foreign policy approach, claiming there are only two practical strategies to handle adversaries or rogue states.

“You either seek to modify their conduct, or if you cannot modify their conduct, you change the regime,” he stated.

Just as the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was the “correct action” following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Bolton contends that ousting President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela is the appropriate measure for U.S. interests and the Venezuelan populace.

With China’s growing influence in Venezuela and throughout Latin America, where U.S. tariffs have led China to halt its purchases of U.S. soybeans in favor of Argentina’s and Brazil’s, it’s an action the U.S. should undertake instead of sending American troops to destroy speedboats suspected of drug trafficking off the Venezuelan coast.

This demonstrates how a group of obedient advisers now surrounding the president have resulted in a series of poorly guided, undisciplined decisions during Trump’s second term, Bolton asserted.

“The most significant issue with Trump is that he lacks any coherent philosophy whatsoever. It’s all centered around Donald Trump.”