Let me start with that most heinous moral equivalency of China being our “civilizational equal.” These men indeed have an exceptionally low estimation of our nation’s current state if they believe that we have an “equal” in the People’s Republic of China—a nation currently imprisoning more than 1 million members of just one religious minority, a government who still implements a systemic program of forced sterilization and abortion, a country where political dissidents, journalists, and anyone who dares criticizes the government is jailed, tortured, or killed. This assertion is so ill-considered and demonstrably false as to call into question the entirety of anything uttered by the mouth that would dare vomit it out.

But let us assume this was a momentary lapse of judgment and engage the rest of their prescription for American policy toward China.

Regarding their call for “cooperation, exchange and shared interests,” what do they think the United States has been doing for the last 40 years? Our challenges with Beijing are not rooted in a lack of engagement or cooperation. They are the result of an uncritical assumption that by enriching that nation it will inescapably become more democratic. This was dead wrong, and we now have a totalitarian government that is a near peer militarily and which is increasingly belligerent toward American interests. Even noted restraint advocates John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt admit that China “is likely to seek hegemony in Asia” and that the United States will need to “throw its considerable weight behind” a regional balancing effort.