‘It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again’?

There are surely some lessons that can be learned from the choices made by the United States and its allies in the mid and late 1990s.

A Chinese couple on a tricycle pass a billboard welcoming the country's membership to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), along a street in Beijing on Dec. 23, 2001. AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

At the end of the Cold War while the “Eastern Bloc” was dissolving rapidly, most Western economies entered into a recession. So the “winners” of the Cold War were not in a position to extract vengeance from the “losers.” This was also the time when Donald Trump’s businesses were reporting close to a billion-dollar loss; almost everyone was losing money back then.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a lot weaker then, was still recuperating from the damage caused to its international image after the Tiananmen Square massacre. But it was recuperating—with American help. And the United States was getting itself embroiled in a conflict in the Middle East—the Gulf War. So a certain “balance of weakness” kept relative stability, as the world was changing.

Looking at the situation today, Russia’s resources, manpower, and global standing are being drained by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Western resources are similarly drained there, with no apparent decisive victory. The United States’ standing and power are being drained and eroded by internal strife, external wars, and policies that seem to result in, regardless of their intended purposes, the weakening of the economy, the military, and the social fabric.

The CCP, despite all its bluster and threats, has for some years now been destroying its own economy; the real estate bubble is shrinking, and decoupling by Western companies is happening—not just because of U.S. policy, but because of the more restrictive CCP policy that has changed the risk profile for many Western companies that are not completely ensnared in the CCP’s hold. It’s an empty shell that could crumble very quickly. And, of course, there is trouble brewing in the Middle East.

There are striking similarities between these two periods of time. Does this mean that the CCP will fall soon and that, since the rest of the world is drained, it will die in a whimper? Some actors, when feeling weak and cornered, tend to lash out. Even if unsuccessful in achieving their goals, the cost is sometimes substantial, so I make no pretense of prognostication. But it is interesting to note, as Mark Twain is often attributed as saying, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

The result of the former period was the 1990s, at the end of which the world changed again. In Russia, Vladimir Putin was first elected in 2000. The dot-com bubble burst in 1997–1998 bringing the United States and Western economies down again, soon to recover with the printing of debt (until 2008, and “it’s déjà vu all over again”). The CCP was accepted into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, just a year and a half after it began its brutal persecution against Falun Gong, a peaceful meditation practice based on traditional Chinese culture and the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. 9/11 happened in 2001 and embroiled the United States in the Middle East, taking its focus and resources away from the CCP, which then began to rapidly grow, for too many years. The vectors that began in that period ruled the development of world affairs until the late 2010s. Change is brewing again.

However strong the countries not under communist rule today may be, there are surely some lessons that can be learned from the choices made by the United States and its allies in the mid and late 1990s, so that the vectors that impact our societies in the future will bring better results than those of the past 20-plus years.

Some of the dilemmas facing America and its allies back then were:

1. In China—do we uphold universal principles of morality and support Falun Gong’s plight, or go with “real politik” and mouth-watering projected profits in China and let the “beast” into the WTO and allow it to eat and grow?
2. In the Middle East—do we only fight terrorists, or do we think we can and should enact “regime change” and enforce democracy?
3. In Russia—how do we build a relationship of respect and deterrence with a semi-democratic country that has developed in ways that have disappointed our expectations?
4. Internally—what kind of policies provide for stability and growth at home and peace abroad (spending, social programs, deterrence, etcetera)?

I think on all of these questions, the answers given then were very inadequate. We can do better this time.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.