for survival, for evolution. And it would best be done cooperatively with the nation

for survival, for evolution. And it would best be done cooperatively with the nation that will, in a short time, have the largest economy in the world. China is not really a threat to the US now. The country can’t assemble the ability to demolish or attack America in any significant way, and itis years from being able to sustain a military effort. It is not in China’s interest to provoke a match. They would lose. And honestly they have endless, troubling problems to handle, many new in human history. How do you care for 800 million aging people? Though China will pass the US in total national income in coming years, the country may never pass America in per-capita income. With an aging, 1.4 billion person population the challenges of distribution nearly guarantee this. Time acts against both the United States and China today. Each depends on global arrangements that are themselves cracking. Each nation needs to adjust her structures for a network world. But these pressures operate severely against China. She can disrupt and challenge and slow the transition to a gated order if she wishes, but only at the cost of fatal distraction. An American Hard Gatekept system will thrive with or without China. China is not so fortunate. Her system, without America or other elements of global connection, cannot continue on the path of reform. Great network construction — this is the nature of our age. There is no fighting the nature of the age, as Huang Hua would remind us. We should of course expect China to build her own systems. We can also expect that she will try to avoid some of the costs that joining an American system might impose. That’s all fine. Our aim should remain constant, calm and direct: Build a gatekept system for our own use; enforce the rules we believe secure that system. And remain clear in our thinking: The threat to the US is the evolution of the network. The threat to China? The evolution of the network. If an arrangement based on these undeniable facts seems unlikely, it is worth remembering that in the twenty years before the restablishment of simple relations between Beijing and Washington in 1971, the two sides had fought a war in Korea, built a politics based on condemning one another, and drifted so far apart as to share nearly no econoic connection. Bringing the countries together demanded heroic diplomacy on both sides, to be sure. To read the transcript of Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai’s first, secret meeting on July 9, 1971 is to regard a masterclass in careful chessboard moves?®5. But the game itself demanded a clear view of the board, of shared interest in the face of a changing world. On his very first day in office, Nixon compiled a list of his diplomatic aims: “Chinese Communists: Short range — no change. Long range - we do not want 800,000,000 living in angry isolation. We want contact.”25¢ The Seventh Sense returns us to this fundamental question of balance, but in a new frame. It alters how we look at the range of options for US-China relations - and American security itself. There are certain problems both sides face, perhaps the most essential, that are simply not addressable using 255 To read the transcript: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XVII, doc 139 256 Nixon complied a list: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XVII, doc 3, footnote 3 184 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018416