Employing some tact with our allies, even if we were a little frustrated with them, would have proved useful now that China is an even bigger threat

Matthew Continetti has a must-read piece at National Review today on the pressing need for the US to rally its allies in standing up to China. It's not going to be a walk in the park, given the feathers that Donald Trump has ruffled.

Part of the reason we find ourselves at this juncture was the overly sunny view previous administrations had of the Middle Kingdom in its modern Maoist iteration:

America’s attempt to integrate China into the global economy as a “responsible stakeholder” failed. China’s economy has become more statist, its political system more repressive, its foreign policy more bullying, its ambitions more outsized than they were 20 years ago. China did not challenge American leadership directly. It altered the character of international institutions from within.

And the US in those days still had the naive view that various international bodies it had helped create were living up to their charters. The reality was that the world's bad guys were using them to further their aims:

 The multilateral institutions that comprise the American-led liberal international order have been decaying for some time. Coronavirus has accelerated the deterioration. NATO, the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization — they are unresponsive, unaccountable, divided, demoralized, defunct. The world is a more dangerous place.

We are used to autocratic domination of the U.N. General Assembly and the secretariat’s various commissions. No one bats an eye when Russia or China vetoes a Security Council measure. Less publicized were the concessions made to China as part of the Paris Climate Accord. Or the fact that the World Trade Organization treats the world’s second-largest economy as a “developing” nation. But the way Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the WHO, caviled and covered for Beijing as the coronavirus spread throughout the world is impossible to ignore. Drift, confusion, and chaos result.

And then along came the Very Stable Genius with his bull-in-a-china-shop (excuse the pun) modus operandi:

Where others might try a kind word or some quiet diplomacy to inspire reform and collaboration, he turns against the very institutions America created to force them to live up to their commitments. He browbeats NATO members into spending more on defense. He cheers for Brexit and supports the EU’s internal critics. He cripples the WTO’s arbitration mechanism and threatens to withdraw entirely. He suspends funding for the WHO.

There may be some short-term wins to point to, but there are implications to those:

Allies may accede to your demands, but resentment builds. The foundations of the alliance weaken. Unpredictability inspires fear and caution. If sustained for too long, though, it conveys irresoluteness and fecklessness. Adversaries begin to probe. They buzz flights and collapse the oil price, resume shelling U.S. troops and harassing U.S. naval vessels, begin tailing container ships in the South China Sea.

There's also cyber-espionage, intellectual property theft, the use of American film studios and communications companies with considerable Chinese ownership stake to spread propaganda and sow a general feeling of chaos.

So what is to be done?

By all means, punish the World Health Organization for collaborating with China. But also be prepared to stand up another mechanism to do the good work its founders intended. Go ahead, demand allies live up to their commitments. But also recognize that partnerships of like-minded nations were critical to success in the First Cold War. This is the time to build new institutions that reflect the realities of a 21st century that pits liberal democracies against an authoritarian surveillance state. For every moment that passes without American leadership brings us closer to a world where the sun never sets on the five golden stars.

Building these new institutions is going to require vision, a commodity that appears to be at a premium at present.