CHINA IS THE LITMUS TEST for American foreign policy, indeed for the will and wisdom of the West. For China is the last of the great dictatorships of this century of wicked dictators, and if we fail in this final challenge it will call into question our previous triumphs.
We should have learned — from the war against fascism and then the long cold war against Soviet communism — that our struggle against tyranny is inescapable, because our very existence threatens its legitimacy. Other nations may design their policies solely on the basis of realpolitik and the balance of power, but America is not a traditional nation. We stand for an idea — the advance of freedom — that drives the tyrants to attack us, however fervently we may wish it were otherwise.
