The strong tides of anti-establishment anger have shaken politics to its core in a number of Western democracies, as symbolized by the British vote to leave the European Union and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States. Authoritarian capitalism, on the other hand, usually pretends to be meritocracy offering competent governance and economic opportunity for all. In reality, it entrenches corrupt oligarchies that are answerable to no one and that employ ultra-nationalism as the legitimating credo of their monopoly on power.

The gravest threat to American global leadership is neither Russia nor China but continued interest group-driven Congressional abandonment of the kind of balanced strategy that won the Cold War.

Policymakers in the United States, China, and other Asian powers must choose whether to deal forthrightly and sensibly with the changing regional power distribution or avoid the hard decisions that China’s rise poses until the situation grows ever more polarized and dangerous.

The January 19, 2011 White House summit between Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao was of considerable international significance. There is no more high-stakes rela