Flag was lowered from that former diplomatic post as part of americas full court press secretary of state mike pompei of gave a speech asking the world to embark with it on a new cold war with china which the 2 countries already have a trade war theyve got new travel restrictions on each other and theyve been banning each others journalists among other escalation so what do we go from here from a Strategic Perspective what are the right smart moves that america should be making joining me now is the president of the council on Foreign RelationsRichard Haass who has served many u. S. President s in the past and is a prolific writer on global issues and u. S. Foreign policy hes just finished a new book designed to help bolster the literacy of americans about the world beyond their shores appropriately titled the world good to be with you Richard Richard you recently wrote a critique of secretary might pump a. O. s speech at the Nixon Library and in it you said he misunderstood history he misunderstood what nixon and kissinger were trying to do with china at that time tell us more. Good to be with you steve the secretary of state suggested that the engagement policy with china had because it did bring about a china that was more open and liberal politically or economically and when i argued is that was never the intention that was never the goal though the policy aim to change Chinese Foreign policy to work with china against the common enemy of the soviet union and in fact it succeeded we won the cold war on terms that even an optimist would have would have had difficulty coming up but isnt it partially true that in later steps like bringing china into the World Trade Organization bringing it into various International Institutions the thought would was that those institutions would liberalize it but if there was some who had when i thought it was overly optimistic view of what to expect once we brought china into those institutions i also think that we made certain mistakes that after china was brought into the w t o i dont think we adjusted the terms of their membership as chinas economy began to grow as china became more integrated and in the world we kept treating them as a developing country when we ought to have been we ought to have been more demanding but again i still thought that the basic thrust of the policy which is more traditional was to influence Chinese Foreign policy and the whole idea was to embed them in arrangements in the region so that among other things they wouldnt be tempted to use military force to change the status of taiwan or to change in the situation in the South China Sea and my argument is now for decades that policy largely worked. Well right now it seems that donald trump is very fixated on china now we are a few months a months just before an election in the United States and i remember when barack obama and mitt romney were running against each other they talked every other day about china being a currency manipulator and that caught in the complications and problems china was creating in the world is this a lot of election posturing or do you think theres something deeper and more real in President Trumps posturing on china and the short answer to your question is yes its both i do think to some extent its a lecture and posturing there has been an attempt to in some ways blame china. For recent problems including the and and china ought to be criticized harshly very speedy havior early on though i think once depend them icky reached our shores the responsibility is our own through what weve done or more or for what we what we havent done the taking a step back i think would be wrong to dismiss the many of the problems in u. S. Chinese relations simply as a byproduct of the american political calendar and then after november theyre going away i dont think so i think the problems are real and theyre going to be challenging either for president or for president help indeed this might seem counterintuitive to some people watching this might be slightly more difficult for President Biden in the sense that hes unlikely to be as preoccupied as president with these narrow trade deals about expanding american exports to china so i dont think the United States and there are President Biden and im to speak from obviously but if it were to happen i dont think china simply agreeing to high or low in agricultural or manufacture training would make a difference. Well i want to get to hong kong as you just mentioned for a moment but you said something that really stands out to me you dont see even if theres a change in leadership in the United States any easy snapback going back to a different kind of u. S. China relationship no i think this is now and its some way its imbedded structurally in the bilateral relationship but also if you read the sorts of things that people advise him by spreads and by have been writing and saying magazines like ours and in Foreign Affairs its not as though this represents a soft on china perspective to the to the contrary a lot of the people who seem to have Vice President s and vice President Bidens ear have been consistently tough on china over Human Rights Concerns the readers the more repression in the country as i tell people in china you you shouldnt just attribute this to the President Trump or to or to the American Election this is out there its real theres a degree of bipartisanship here where i think though there could be a big difference is though in a President Bidens if it comes to that his willingness to forge a common relationship with the American Allies in europe and in asia and actually i think that has a bit of an upside promise to put more pressure on china and you mentioned hong kong a minute ago let me play you a clip of something President Trump said on hong kong. But thats between hong kong and thats between china because im going this is a part of the deal with that themselves they dont need advice now lets listen to secretary pompei oh on hong kong indeed we have a nato ally of ours that hasnt stood up the way that it needs to with respect to hong kong because they fear beijing will restrict access to chinas markets. This is the kind of timidity. That will lead to historic failure and we cant repeat it we cannot repeat the mistakes of these past years so we have 2 leading members of this Administration One the president the other secretary of state saying diametrically opposed views on hong kong so i want to get back to your point about what are we to make of these mixed signals when it comes to china when it comes to allies you know are they with us are they against us those kinds of issues or. Well separated to 2 areas one is the very mixed signals about u. S. Indifference to what china did either in hock on her against the weavers john boltons book as you know basically has the president giving the chinese a free ride to do pretty much what they want to their own citizens even gross violations of human rights its one of the reasons that some of this criticism now by the secretary of state seems like too little too late and the fact that its just aimed at china i dont see equivalent criticism of russia or church or other countries which shall we say a criticism on these grounds again makes it look quite opportunistic rather than principle and again in the secretary of state speech this the way you discuss germany this kind of. Back of the hand to show them thats not my experience the way to bring about Alliance Cooperation be it against china or anybody else and this is ministration and what was its 1st big Foreign Policy decision when i came into office was not to join the Transpacific Partnership that would have put us together with countries representing at least another 2025 percent of global g. D. P. We then together could have gone to china and say hey you want to access to our markets heres the economic standard youre going to have to meet in terms of trade in terms of respecting intellectual property what have you so its very hard for the ministration now to be saying were robust on china when in all sorts of ways it chipped away opportunities over the years to do and be just. You know one of the other points that you raise in your critique is that america seems to be putting up barriers complaining but not necessarily moving in to fixing problems as youve just said not necessarily finding allies to fight common purpose with you know whether its Climate Change or wa way you worked with everyone in Foreign Policy and do they not see this. Look i mean when i met with then candidate trump during the campaign and we talked about the world and about american Foreign Policy and one of the things i came away with is he really has a a negative view towards ours rather than seeing them as our owners rather than seeing them as a force multipliers rather than seeing them as a structural advantage so the United States he tends to see them as free riders who tends to see them as economic competitors and what i really think this is ministration needs is to a different view i dont mind the put a fundamental change in their take on what partners and allies are and that we have to be willing to do things with them rather than to them and we just cant insist they work with us against china or anybody else rather weve got to consult with them come up with a comment that maybe an uncertain face as we put aside some of our economic differences because we have this greater priority im going up with a common front on china thats what strategy is all about was part of our usual act in a disciplined way and i should please dont see us doing that or you know youre not only someone focused on guns and militaries and you know the classic you also spent particularly your new book which id love to get into you talk about you know economics and the Global Financial order and to certain degree most of the people that i know that have focused on u. S. China Relations Just like we used to talk about japan say their economic interdependencies that are really profound between these 2 countries and that you just cant on table them without staggering costs and so what is your take on the economic dimensions and you see things like the reserve currency status of the dollar threatened in a collision like i think someone in this town in washington with china today. Here is a couple of big issues i think the idea that the United States and china could quote unquote. Totally divorce i think is is simply not chinas to present to many places the u. S. Chinese economic relationship is too elaborate and too extensive the real question is could and should we ensure in selected areas distance ourselves particularly areas say of High Technology and i think the area and the answer there is maybe but again not to use a famous strategic saying you cant beat something with nothing so if you want to encourage others not to opt into a chinese led 5 g. System you need to have and then have an american or American European or American European japanese south korean alternative or right now at least there isnt one but of what seems to be the goal is not a total horse on the other hand its not a total marriage which china what i think is we need something a little bit more in the in the gray area and i think thats possible you raise a 2nd issue though which is the role of the dollar and that depends on lots of things but it depends on american competence and perceptions of it depends of the fact in america want to approach the channeling of the dollar just not now really what will think about its implications for the rest of the world and i think combination of our incompetent response to that at times or weaponize ing the dollar through various sanctions running off this enormous debt i think all this and more has raised questions about the dollar so i dont think this is the sort of thing that ends in a day but i do think gradually youll get to see probably on an accelerated timeframe the emergence of various not so much alternatives but. They would coexist with the 1. 01 question is whether china makes its currency much more convertible is the question of the euro question of the yen question crypto currency is but i think the era where the dollar was pretty much the only game in town i think where were just were probably at the beginning of the end of that era and with that United States could lose a lot of influence and could find its own. Itself more economic revolt horrible on the implications or consequences of its own Economic Policy and some. I mean as a planner who has helped guide us Foreign Policy through so many hinge points after the you know the fall of the berlin wall after you know many other times this must be a time thats frustrating for you when you see a kind of diminishment of American Power in the world. Well i do and i worry about it i dont think its warranted and i dont see a substitute coming about you know be one thing if the United States was dialing down and there was Something Better we and others were putting in its place but i dont see that i think the alternative to a world that is led by the United States working with will be a world thats much less organized i think it would be to the detriment of the United States and everybody else and whats so frustrating to me steve is i expect that might be to you because i dont think theres cost savings in this whole mindset that American Leadership costs us more than it benefits us is just simply wrong its not borne out by the facts or or by history and as we learned on 911. 00 as were learning now with over 19 we cant insulate ourselves from the world so even if we we show this and we should be doing more here at home i get it were going to have to deal with the 10s of millions of unemployed in our Health Problems and our race problems but the worlds not going to say ok you americans go sort out your domestic problems and come back when youre ready well just you know well park and well wait you history doesnt work that theres no cause weve got to Pay Attention to the world at the same time we Pay Attention to our domestic problems or the world will deteriorate and that will actually make it even tougher for us to deal with our domestic challenges so i worry about the dynamics some of this began under the Previous Administration which recluse or signs of it in the middle east but were seeing it really accelerate now with the world i constantly uses abdication weve really pulled back in a in a dramatic way and i worry because when i look at the sweep of history and i look at the last 7075 years the post world war 2 era i think this is been an extraordinary wrong not just for the United States before the world no great power conflict incredible increases in wealth and standards of living billions of people brought out of the average lifespan of around the world is in. Produced by in some cases its democracy is forced in many places around the world so for me to bring to do anything in the hastens the end of this order which the United States had so much to do with bringing about and sustaining i really think short sided with the understand the book youve just written the world is is very interesting and im one of the many thousands of people who read all of your books i really appreciate your willingness to share with us your insights about Global Affairs and the tectonics of the system that were in but i guess when i watched donald trump beat Hillary Clinton when i would go to oklahoma and kansas texas talk to my relatives they have this sense it was a joke in new york and d. C. But they have this sense that america had fought the cold war and china had won that the benefits to them of being internationally gauge were more problems in cost than they were benefits and you began to see people particularly military families who had generations of military Service Begin to kind of reject Global Affairs youve now written this book called the world. To try to bolster the literacy of those folks and to tell them but tell us about the book and why why you did it. Well the reason i did it is i thought that too Many Americans didnt understand why the world matters didnt understand the costs and benefits of American Bombing in the world you can graduate from virtually any of our great universities and not learn any of the subjects theyre offered but theyre not required for students to take before they graduate and we really dont cover the