Western Ideological Exhaustion and China's Trump Opportunity by Zheng Yongnian

"French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly criticised NATO for being 'brain-dead', but it is not only NATO that suffers from this condition—the entire West is in this state." – Zheng Yongnian

Within China, Zheng Yongnian is sometimes viewed as a ‘Western’ academic. Trained in the US, he has long advocated greater opening-up of China’s economy and has expressed scepticism towards claims portraying China’s model as an ideologically superior alternative. His polemical assertion—that the West has not produced any meaningful political ideas since Daniel Bell’s The End of Ideology in 1960—is therefore not made from a position of ideological antipathy.

His main target is the liberalism he associates with the Democratic Party, which he views as a self-corrupting effort to cling to American global dominance. By contrast, he expresses approval of the Trump administration's disregard for ideology and the opportunities this creates for the US-China relationship, a notable shift in tone from his cautious attitude back in February. Zheng argues that by rejecting elite liberal ideology, Trump is sacrificing global hegemony to address the domestic problems caused by liberalism—a perspectiv…