The US strategy paper for China, Longer Telegram, has sparked little debate in Beijing

BEIJING – A recent US strategy paper on China, widely read in Washington, DC, drew only a passing response in Beijing, where limited public talks focused on one point: The author was wrong about China.

The “longer telegram” launched in late January proposed how the new US administration should deal with a growing China, presenting a detailed critique of the Communist Party government under President Xi Jinping.

An effective US approach to China requires “the same disciplined approach to the defeat of the Soviet Union,” the newspaper said. “The US strategy must remain laser-focused on Xi, his inner circle and the Chinese political context in which he governs.”

The anonymous author is a “former senior US government official,” according to the Atlantic Council think tank in DC, which published the lengthy paper.

The play seeks to echo a historical document that shaped Washington’s policy toward the Soviet Union – called the “Long Telegram” – it was sent from Moscow in February 1946 at the dawn of the Cold War.

So far, in Beijing, the major state media have not talked much about the newspaper, except for the state-backed tabloid tabloid Global Times and even then, almost entirely in English. “The longer telegram is a late hegemonic farce,” read the title of an op.

On the official news site of the People’s Liberation Army of China, a Chinese-language article described the strategy piece as outdated and contrasted its view of the country with a recent state press report on a Chinese woman’s ability to get out of poverty.

China’s foreign ministry – in response to a question from a Global Times reporter – criticized “The Longer Telegram” for its call to contain China.

The ministry said in an official translation that such comments against the ruling Communist Party were “a collection of rumors and conspiracy theories” and that attempts to lead US-China relations into conflict would lead to “total failure”.

Rare comments at the state level come as tensions arise between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies and run by very different government systems.

The “longer telegram” has caused a great deal of controversy in the world of US foreign policy, with critics saying the paper misrepresents China and places too much emphasis on Xi’s role. But many agree with the newspaper’s call for a more thoughtful US policy on China.

The growing cohesion around a tougher US position on China is a source of concern in Beijing.

The “longer telegram” is not the reality of China and is not a good starting point for dialogue, said Shen Yamei, deputy director and associate researcher at the US department of the China Institute of International Studies.

According to Shen, the paper’s mistake is that it does not apply in this situation, because China has not said it wants to replace the United States. She added that the US cares if it loses its central position in the world.

Critics say China’s state-dominated system was allowed to join the World Trade Organization in 2001, without quickly incorporating the type of free market and the rule-based system that countries such as the United States have supported.

To counter these developments, “The Longer Telegram” says that the US should establish clear red lines and national security points for Beijing which, if crossed, would induce a strong US response.

Some of those red lines include a Chinese military attack or an economic blockade on Taiwan, according to the report, which also said the US should push harder on any Chinese threats to US global communications systems.

The author of the original “Long Telegram” from 1946 was American diplomat George Kennan, who answered a question from Moscow from the US State Department about Soviet foreign policy. Kennan published a similar article in Foreign Affairs magazine last year under the pseudonym “X” and in 1952 began a brief tenure as US ambassador to Moscow.

In his paper, Kennan argued that the Russians were determined to expand the Soviet system worldwide and against coexistence with the West. He believed that, rather than calm down, the US should use pressure to cooperate with the Soviet government or possibly even its internal collapse.

For more than 70 years – including the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 – the United States has led the so-called liberal world order in which international institutions set rules for a global system.

This has begun to change in the last decade, with China’s growing economic and technological influence, along with the foreign policy approach of former US President Donald Trump.

It is not yet clear what action President Joe Biden will take, but he remains in a tough position on China, albeit in a calmer tone than the previous administration.

“The challenges with Russia may be different from those with China, but they are just as real,” Biden told European allies in a speech last week.

Biden made his first phone call as president with Xi earlier this month. The US President and First Lady also issued a video greeting for the Lunar New Year, which was widely distributed on Chinese social media.

The scattered online comments about “The Longer Telegram” remained repulsive.

In a February 30-minute video of more than 900,000 views, Professor Shen Yi of Fudan University dismissed the newspaper’s attempt to replicate Kennan’s efforts as a joke.

A Feb. 7 online article by Zhia Hong University professor of economics and law Qiao Xinsheng said in an online article that the strategy paper failed to accurately analyze the Soviet Union’s own difficulties and that the United States should not expects China to “disintegrate.”