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As Kaplan&I noted in our @ForeignAffairs piece: "ideology does not lie at the root of the matter between the United States and China—even if elements in China’s Marxist-Leninist elite think it does." What does USA want? Open access to Asia for its prosperity, freedom, security.1/ https://twitter.com/DCTwining/status/1304461864802361347
Whether China is run by CCP or not or whether countries in SE Asia are democratic or authoritarian may factor in to how competition goes, but they aren't fundamental from Americans' perspective. Critical to distinguish this. 2/
To give an analogy (h/t @MichaelSinghDC), the fact that elements of Iran's leadership may see dynamic w US in religious terms doesn't mean we should. More provocatively, the same hold would hold true of AQ or ISIS. We don't want terrorist attacks. We need to understand how AQ 3/
and ISIS think (which means paying attention to their religion & ideology), but it's not about religion for us. 4/
