Recommended: "Why Mearsheimer Is Wrong on China"

Arnaud Bertrand Offers an Insightful and Respectful Critique of one of the Founders of the Realist School of Foreign Policy

Let me start by noting that I’ve never been a fan of debate as an efficient way to get to the truth. It’s typically two opponents (either singly or in teams), each motivated by the desire to win and make the other side lose. A format built on motivations like that is as likely to produce truth as a machine built to produce heat is likely to produce light. Some, maybe, but if illumination is really the point, all that heat is at best inefficient. Personally, I’d rather watch an MMA match. It’s less pretentious.

Much better than debate is discussion. That is, a conversation between two people who see a topic differently and are interested in exploring the foundation of their differences. This format is rare—almost unheard of on the Internet!—and it typically requires maximum erudition, minimal ego, and mutual respect.

With all that as prologue, I highly recommend this thoughtful, respectful Substack article by Arnaud Bertrand, “Why Mearsheimer is Wrong on China.”

John Mearsheimer is a rightly lauded professor of political science at the University of Chicago (who also has a Substack page) and one of the foremost proponents of the Realist school of foreign policy. His prescience on topics like NATO expansion and the destruction of Ukraine is in my experience unparalleled.

(Here I must pause, Montie Cranston style, to salute whoever decided to call the Realist school the Realist school. I myself have learned a lot from Realist scholars like Professor Mearsheimer and Harvard professor Stephen Walt (here’s my review of Professor Walt’s excellent book The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy). But however realistic it might or might not be, it’s a great product name. Who doesn’t want to claim the mantel of realism? It’s like the New York Times saying about itself “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”)

And Arnaud Bertrand, the author of the article I’m recommending, is an entrepreneur who in addition to his native French speaks idiomatic English and Chinese (and probably other languages I don’t know about). He lived for eight years in China, and his ability to explain the country’s history and culture to outsiders is Tiresias-level insightful. Also he obviously has outstanding taste in fiction, because he had some exceptionally kind things to say about my latest novel, The System. :)

I got so excited by Arnaud’s article and its implications about the role of human nature and culture in great power politics that in addition to writing this post, I left a long comment. For anyone who’s curious, the comment is here.

Oh, and for another example of a discussion about China with an exceptional light-to-heat ratio, here’s a video of Professor Mearsheimer and Columbia University Economics professor Jeffrey Sachs, who’s nonstop advocating for global sanity makes him in my eyes almost a modern-day bodhisattva.

Well, that’s a long enough intro. I’ll only add that for anyone interested in China specifically, great power politics generally, and the role of human nature and culture in all things, Arnaud is someone to read and savor. And his terrific article on Professor Mearsheimer is a great place to start. Enjoy.