The Long WhatsApp

In framing the challenge that the Soviets posed to the Western world, as well as providing ways to combat that threat, the celebrated diplomat drew a road map that proved accurate in many ways. It took decades, but the economic dynamism of the West eventually caused the USSR to implode under the weight of its own systemic failures. Plastic suits and nuclear disasters proved unappealing alongside blue jeans and personal computers.

In the interesting times we live in, Kennan’s Long Telegram is back in vogue. With relations between America and China now officially sub-zero after Biden attacked Beijing’s human rights record, the Atlantic Council, a think tank, penned a “Longer Telegram,” meant to lay out a strategy to defeat the China threat. Praising the Trump administration for “sounding the alarm on China,” the think-tankers criticized the follow-through, labeling its “episodic efforts” at implementation “chaotic.”

Among other things, the “former senior government official” (a pompous reference to the 1940s telegram) who authored the report recommended containing China by bringing an (illiberal) Russia onside, among other measures. That is a no-no in Bidenworld, where human-rights promotion is high on the agenda. Another problem with containing China, noted the paper’s critics, is Beijing’s massive economic power. As China quickly climbs the innovation ladder, it’s a far cry from the chronically poor Soviet Union.

Just how do you isolate a country that owns so much American government debt? How do you contain a state whose vast infrastructure projects are welcomed with open arms across much of the world?