![6 | The Risks & the Dangers](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5a3e922cf6b9a40001bc2d6b/62fd67a4d960fd7c6a5f7e72_CHINADebate-0.png)
BIG IDEA | ‘The real danger is that once toxin has spread through the system, there is no knowing where it will end.’
‘For China, the risks of its current drift are immense.’
- ‘It’s not just that the bombast has managed to generate resentment.’
- ‘It’s not even that alienating much of the rest of the world would turn China into a giant version of North Korea.’’
‘The real danger is that once toxin has spread through the system, there is no knowing where it will end.’
- ‘In China’s own past, similar blindness led to the bloodletting of the Cultural Revolution.’
- ‘If Zhao or Hua can tweet nonsense about outsiders today, it is but a hop, skip, and jump to smearing any measured policymaker tomorrow.’
- ‘Ultimately, that spells death for sound policymaking.’
‘For the rest of the world, China’s abandonment of grand strategy poses a problem.’
- ‘It is one thing to deal with a power that has a clear goal; one might be at cross-purposes, but at least one knows where matters stand.’
- ‘A power lashing out like a belligerent drunk, however, is more difficult to address.’