Chapter 29: The Longer Telegram—Launching a New U.S. China Strategy (Part I)

In 2019, The Economist published an article titled “The U.S.-China Trade War Escalates Toward Total Conflict,” arguing that the United States needs to develop a comprehensive strategy to enhance its global standing. Unlike Trump, who appeared on the international stage with a cynical, antagonistic posture—making enemies on all sides, mistaking adversaries for allies—merely calculating economic gains while ignoring political realities and the gravest threats, America lost its moral and political leadership in guiding global civilization, weakening its moral authority.

The Economist insightfully pointed out that a full strategy requires more than tariffs. Trade and tariffs are only the starting point. A comprehensive strategy must encompass politics, military, economy, technology, culture, and ideology—among which ideology is most critical to confronting communism. The catastrophes of the 20th century caused by communism stemmed from propaganda, agitation, and violent uprisings, which led to countless deaths in the Soviet Union and China. Ambitious leaders like Stalin and Mao rose to power atop heaps of corpses and continued to oppress their people once in power. Today, the CCP inherits Mao’s anti-American agenda, confronting the United States for global dominance, intending for communist authoritarianism to continue wreaking havoc on the world.

This threat has become extremely urgent. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that China is one of the major challenges facing the United States. However, he emphasized that “the most important national security challenge currently is how to put our own house in order, how to rebuild strength.” “Domestic policy is foreign policy, foreign policy is domestic policy.” The Biden administration’s current priority is to “clean our house” and strengthen national capabilities. Only with such power can the United States address major power competition with China and other transnational challenges affecting Americans’ way of life. To confront China and other challenges, the U.S. must “first sweep its own house,” build capacity, and ensure the American democratic model continues to shine.

Communism is a malignant tumor in human society—a global threat. U.S. opposition to communism is not merely about excising the tumor; it must eradicate the communist virus at its ideological root. China is the “host” of this virus. Removing the tumor and eradicating the virus cannot be done overnight. The United States needs a long-term, multidimensional anti-communist strategy—a consensus increasingly shared across U.S. political circles.

On January 28, 2021, the Washington think tank Atlantic Council published a 26,000-word report titled The Longer Telegram—Toward a New American China Strategy. The Council described it as “an outstanding new strategic document,” offering “some of the deepest insights and most rigorous analyses to date on China’s geopolitical strategy, as well as an insightful U.S. strategy to meet China’s strategic ambitions.” Founded in 1961, the Atlantic Council is one of the most influential bipartisan think tanks in U.S. global affairs.

The title The Longer Telegram is symbolic. In 1946, U.S. chargé d’affaires to the Soviet Union George Kennan, troubled by America’s lack of understanding of Soviet motives and intentions, sent a “long telegram” to the State Department with policy recommendations on dealing with the USSR. The following year, the telegram was anonymously published in Foreign Affairs. Kennan argued that the USSR would eventually collapse under internal contradictions, providing one of the most influential foundations for U.S. Cold War containment policy.

The Longer Telegram—Toward a New American China Strategy argues that China has long maintained a comprehensive internal strategy against the United States, which has been largely effective so far. By contrast, the United States, which once clearly articulated and implemented a coherent strategy to confront the Soviet Union in the form of Kennan’s containment policy, has yet to establish a unified strategy for China. The urgent task now is for the U.S. to formulate a comprehensive, bipartisan China strategy to guide policy over the next thirty years.

The report reflects a growing consensus in the U.S. regarding China policy. “By mid-century, the United States and its major allies will continue to dominate regional and global power balances across all key indices; China will be prevented from using force to take Taiwan… Xi Jinping will be replaced by a more moderate party leader; the Chinese people will begin to question and challenge the CCP’s century-long claim that China’s ancient civilization is destined for authoritarianism.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a key step by separating the CCP from China. The next step is to distinguish Xi Jinping from the CCP itself. With its 90 million members, the CCP is internally complex, including democrats and reformists who oppose Xi. This view is clearly influenced by Cai Xia, a retired professor from the Party School in Beijing. In May 2020, Cai described the CCP as a “political zombie” and repeatedly criticized Xi as a “gang boss,” arguing that the urgent task to rescue China is a “change of leadership.” While leadership change alone cannot immediately reform the authoritarian system, without it, the CCP risks dragging the nation into famine and chaos, as it did under Mao for the first seventeen years of the PRC.

The core consensus is that U.S. strategy should focus on Xi Jinping when confronting China’s rise. The report urges targeting Xi, asserting that the most urgent issue today is resolving the Xi problem. The Longer Telegram emphasizes that U.S. policy must aim for leadership change to revert U.S.-China relations to the trajectory before Xi assumed power in 2013. Xi now represents a severe challenge to the entire democratic world. China’s greatest threat stems from Xi’s totalitarian rule, including internal tightening of control, electronic surveillance, citizen subjugation, and external expansion of communist influence through financial leverage. Xi centralizes all power and policies in himself, making governance extremely authoritarian. The report separates China from the CCP, CCP elites from Xi, and targets specific individuals rather than the large collective. This approach is practical: change the key individual, and the collective changes—a strategy frequently seen in history.