Non-Ideological China

"The Middle Kingdom acts according to its national interest, not some universal ideology," and "[p]erhaps the Americans should try to borrow that part of the Chinese model," argues The American Conservative's Leon Hadar — Don’t Fear China. An excerpt that offers insight into Western error:

The belief that values like democracy and liberalism, rather than geo-strategic and economic factors, affect the competition between global powers tends to reflect a post-Enlightenment western bias that supposes the existence of an ultimate universal truth and assumes that history is a continuous ascent towards progress. That march towards progress manifests itself through conflicts between ideals–enlightenment and freedom vs. their opponents–and the people, groups, and nation-states that represent them. That has certainly been a crucial theme in the narrative about foreign policy advanced by neoconservative and liberal ideologues.