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Excerpt from today's Wash Post piece by Fared Zaharia:

President Donald Trump loves playing by China Rules. He seems to admire Xi Jinping’s power — personal, discretionary, centralized. In his second term he has threatened blanket tariffs, personally intervened in the semiconductor supply chain, demanded a government stake in Intel, carved out special permissions for selling Nvidia chips in China (while taking a 15 percent cut for the U.S.) and acted as the banker on TikTok’s sale.

To some, this looks like strong dealmaking. In truth, it is dangerously naive. China’s system is built for state intervention. A recent analysis in The Washington Quarterly shows how Beijing has developed a “hybrid coercion model”: a mix of formal export controls and blacklists with old-fashioned opaque pressure — customs slow-rolls, safety bans, whispered orders to firms. Its sanctions are deliberately vague with no clear off-ramps and can be dialed up or down without explanation. Beijing weaponizes ambiguity. It has built a system calibrated for state leverage and political durability, not rule-of-law predictability. If the contest becomes one of arbitrary and centralized control — subsidies, threats and discretion — China holds natural advantages. It fears neither constitutions nor markets nor elections.

If America makes this a test of centralized control, it is not likely to prevail. China can absorb pain; it can mobilize industry by fiat; it can impose costs without legal constraint. The United States cannot — and should not — govern that way. No democracy wins by imitating autocracy. America’s strength lies in rules, predictability and openness. When the U.S. confronted Japan’s technological challenge four decades ago, it did not win by building a national industrial ministry or picking corporate champions. It backed competition, welcomed talent, deepened alliances, protected antitrust and unleashed venture capital. America did not beat Japan by becoming Japan. It out-innovated Tokyo.

Yet today, remarkably, the U.S. is drifting toward the opposite conclusion. Trump’s tariffs now cover all Chinese goods and increasingly sweep in products from friendly nations as well. The goal seems less to shape a rules-based trading system than to assert presidential control — to show that markets move when Washington snaps its fingers. That may delight a leader who enjoys dealmaking and dominance. But it corrodes the very norms that once made America the world’s magnet for talent and investment.

The results are already visible in the region most central to the long-term balance with China: Southeast Asia. These nations want U.S. investment and presence to balance Beijing — and instead see tariffs, reduced aid, and episodic diplomacy. Trump’s time in Malaysia illustrated the pattern: he was focused on staging a ceasefire photo op between Cambodia and Thailand (achieved through tariff threats) and left before a major security summit took place. Meanwhile China arrived offering trade upgrades and infrastructure investments and stayed through the final day. It is no surprise, according to one study, 9 of 10 Southeast Asian nations have grown more aligned with China in recent years.

America wins when it builds, not bludgeons. It should deepen ties with Europe and Asia, integrate the economy more closely with democratic partners, invest broadly in semiconductor capacity and not specific companies, and maintain an open system that attracts the world’s brightest minds. America should reshape, not restrict, the global trading system.

Strategic decoupling of the U.S. and China in critical technologies is necessary; national security demands it. But there is a world of difference between prudent guardrails and a presidency that treats the U.S. economy like the president’s personal portfolio.

We have spent a century proving that innovation thrives in free societies more than in managed ones. If we make this rivalry a test of who can be more punitive, more closed, more centralized and more state-directed, China will feel right at home. If we make it a test of dynamism, open competition and free alliances, the outcome need not be in doubt.

The way to win is not to become China but to remain America, in fact to double down on what has always made America great.

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There's a reason he worked so hard to get Donald elected.