Joe Biden attempts to defang the Chinese tiger
His policies stop short of full containment, but are intolerable to China anyway
To buddhist pilgrims, the Tiger Pagoda of Tanzhe Temple is a monument to a miracle. They believe that this stupa, in Beijing’s pine-clad western hills, marks the tomb of a tiger so touched by a monk’s piety that it abjured killing, moved into the temple grounds and lived on meatless gruel. When Chaguan saw the tomb on a recent hike, it struck him as a sadly useful metaphor. That vegetarian tiger could serve as a symbol for the strong-but-unthreatening China that America once sought as a partner, but which now seems to many in Washington like a naive dream.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Defanging the Chinese tiger”
From the April 1st 2023 edition
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