(CNN) - Members of a new generation of "cold warriors" in the U.S. have just received powerful validation for their positions.
When Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about China in an interview with The New York Times in Paris, he offered one of the most revealing insights into the foreign policy of the Joe Biden Administration. Blinken said France and the United States were "on the same page" regarding the need to defend the free world order as China grows in influence. The alternative, he warned, would be no world order or a China-led world order that would be "profoundly illiberal in nature."
Blinken, who delivered a tough U.S. message to China during contentious talks in Alaska in March, was expanding on President Joe Biden's recent warnings that democracy is under threat, and not just from illiberal tendencies in the West.
The concept of a new "cold war" between the United States and China is gaining acceptance in Washington. However, some criticize that in its original version it was an ideological confrontation between the capitalists of the West and the communists of the Soviet bloc. Whereas, now, the United States and China are engaged in a more classic duel between a rising power and a declining one, although Blinken certainly seems to see an ideological component.
China's expansion
China's President Xi Jinping, who will soon lead the Communist Party of China's centennial celebrations, has taken a much more strident stance for the country on the world stage. Beijing is flexing its muscle in the Pacific and beyond, and events in Hong Kong show the crackdown underway within its territory.
But whether Beijing is interested in (or capable of) waging a global battle against democracy is another question. Is Xi's populist nationalism designed primarily to maintain support for an autocratic ruling party, or is it the genuine expression of a Chinese foreign policy with global ambitions?