The Key to China's Future by James A. Dorn James A. Dorn is a China specialist at the Cato Institute and editor of China in the New Millennium . C ommercial diplomacy, not gunboat diplomacy, is the key to China's future as a constructive partner rather than an emerging threat. Trade is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for global stability and peace. Human rights in China are best secured by openness to the West. Isolating China could turn it into another North Korea or Cuba.
Trade is a constructive way to change China.
But trade is a two-way street, and the West must remove its restrictions as well. The sufficient condition for peace is that China change its political regime to one based on the rule of law and limited government, so that liberty prevails rather than a system that spawns corruption. Whether that change occurs will ultimately depend on the Chinese people, but the probability that it will occur can be increased by strengthening commercial ties, spreading the use of information technology, and allowing China to enter the World Trade Organization on mutually beneficial terms. Peace and prosperity follow naturally when the government safeguards property rights, rules justly, and lets markets operate freely. The idea of spontaneous order is central to Lao Tzu's way of thinking.