Robert Kagan is an American historian and foreign policy, commentator. He recently wrote an article in the "Wall Street Journal" warning China that "challenging the United States would be a historical mistake." Using the history of World War I and World War II as a lesson, Kagan pointed out that both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany challenged the United States, but failed in the end. He said China would run the same risk if it decided to challenge the United States by attacking Taiwan.

Kagan is also a representative figure of American neoconservatism. Neoconservatives advocate interventionism in international affairs to preserve the liberal world order led by the United States.

His most recent book is The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941. This is the second book in his trilogy on American foreign policy, covering American foreign policy from 1900 to 1941. The Chinese version of this book is currently under negotiation.

In an exclusive interview with Voice of America, Kagan said that he hopes to send a message through this book, that is, there is what he calls the "American trap" in American foreign policy, which often makes opponents underestimate the United States and may encourage some would-be aggressors Take action. However, once the United States takes action, these aggressors will fail without exception. "I wonder if Xi understands that if he does choose to engage in a confrontation of this level, he is endangering his own position," he said.

Kagan served at the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 1988. In an interview, he also talked about the liberal hegemony of the United States. He believes that China has been one of the main beneficiaries of the liberal world order since World War II. China's current opposition to this order "is largely a product of Chinese ambitions rather than Chinese interests."

Due to space limitations and for smooth expression, the following are excerpts from the interview,

Reporter: Let's start with your article in the Wall Street Journal. You say that like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, China is now a rising power that wants to dominate its region and believes that American power is in decline. You said China would suffer the same fate if it decided to attack Taiwan. What does present-day China have in common with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan?

Kagan: I'm not comparing them in terms of regimes, I'm comparing them in terms of strategic situations. There are indeed some interesting parallels. What I was trying to convey in the Wall Street Journal article is that the Chinese government needs to consider whether it really wants to have a major confrontation with the United States.

Against an attack on Taiwan, China may succeed in the early stages. The US may not have everything it needs to get there, (although) I hope it (the US) is ready. I hope the Chinese don't make such a mistake, but it's a possibility. My suggestion to the Chinese is that they need to think a little bit further and think in the long run, are they really capable of standing up to the US and all its allies for a long time?

Interestingly, historically, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Germany in World War I, all made the same mistake. They all believed that the United States would either not respond to their aggression or be incapable of doing so. So they thought they could go on their way, only to find that once America was fully mobilized, they couldn't take it anymore.

Reporter: Speaking of Taiwan, do you think Xi Jinping will take action against Taiwan in the next five years as many people predicted?

KAGAN: I'm not Xi Jinping, I don't know what his intentions are. But I do think that every indication points to the same reckless resolve that past aggressive dictatorships have demonstrated. I do worry. If this is true, and if my (fears) are correct, eventually the US and its allies will win over China at some point. But he (Xi Jinping) doesn't care about that and is willing to take the risk again.

Partly because he convinced himself, and he talked about it openly, that in general, the United States and the West are declining, while China and the East are rising, and that’s the reality of global affairs right now. I think this is also a very bad miscalculation of Xi Jinping. He saw an America that was not yet fully aware of the threats to the world, and I don't think he had a clear idea of ​​what it would be like once Americans were fully mobilized, fully focused, and fully engaged.

Reporter: You said America's enemies generally underestimate America and pay the price. However, some American scholars, including Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, believe that even if the United States has the will to defend Taiwan, it may not be able to. Ferguson recently wrote for Bloomberg News that if there is a major conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, you will find that the US military industry is not a "sleeping giant, but an elderly comatose patient". He specifically mentioned your article, thinking that under the current circumstances, challenging the United States is not only a "historical mistake", but may also be a "historical opportunity". What do you think?

KAGAN: There will always be some Americans or some people who write about America who are inherently pessimistic about America's capabilities, and that's fine. But unfortunately, I think that when they write about how America is incapable of dealing with these crises, they only encourage dictators to assume that the United States cannot cope. I think this is a wrong assessment.

If you look at the United States in 1939 or 1940, you see a country that was not at all prepared for war, unprepared for conflict. Productivity shrank, as we are seeing now, with America's military-industrial capacity weakened by years of disuse. This was the situation in 1939 and 1940, with almost 20 years of cuts in U.S. productivity. Then the US had to act quickly. It took them three years to get America ready. But once it did get going, it produced military equipment and materials at an unprecedented pace.

Ferguson and others might argue that China's manufacturing capacity now exceeds that of the United States. I think what they see is a peacetime America that has only now begun to take seriously the need to increase productivity for Ukraine and Asia.

The United States used to have a strategy of being able to win two wars at the same time or at least be able to fight one war and deter another aggressor on the other side of the world. But since the end of the Cold War, we've allowed that ability to decline, thinking we'll never have to deal with this situation again. But the United States now needs to start taking seriously the prospect of a two-theater crisis. To say the US is incapable of coping is, I think, just typical defeatism for a reason. They have been saying that America is in recession for almost 50 years.

There are always people who say that America is in decline, and maybe one day they will be right. But, it's not right now. Russia's difficulties in Ukraine show us that the United States and its allies are not in decline. Russia and Putin find that the United States and its liberal allies, which represent the vast majority of the world's wealth, can get them into a lot of trouble. Given the vast disparity in the size of countries and armies, Putin should be fighting an enemy he can easily defeat. Defeatism is an inappropriate analysis of a situation. I think it's time to wake up and analyze the situation calmly.

Yes, the United States will indeed be heavily burdened. Yes, the U.S. needs to be more serious and needs to ramp up production so it can supply both Ukraine and Taiwan with the weapons they need to deal with a potential crisis in Asia while dealing with a war in Europe. The United States has proven time and time again that it is perfectly capable of doing just that. I say this not because of that, America is great, we love America, and I'm not waving the American flag (patriotism), but based on historical analysis and judgment. If the U.S. beat Germany and Japan, beat Germany twice, beat the Soviet Union, and is now incapable of dealing with China, they could say that, but I think history will show once again that's not the case.

Reporter: So you don't think the war in Ukraine is a distraction for the United States?

KAGAN: The war in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated that, as we said earlier, the military-industrial capacity of the United States has shrunk too much, and we need to reverse this situation. I think America will reverse that.

Moreover, China is also helping us deepen this understanding. The (spy) balloon incident apparently made Americans feel a great deal of unease. If the Chinese want to see America and what the American public looks like mobilized, this little balloon invasion is enough to show. …The American reaction to this incident should show the Chinese that they should not expect the United States to go back to sleep after the Chinese take action. You know if they take action against Taiwan, I think they need to be ready to fully deal with the United States. This is something they didn't expect. They are looking at the United States today and making judgments about those capabilities and current public opinion, but they are wrong. Once they take action against Taiwan, everything will be very different.

Reporter: The Chinese also have the impression that Americans are very afraid of casualties. Once the number of casualties increases, there will be different voices in the United States, and they will oppose the war.

Kagan: You know what? In the 1940s, the Japanese thought exactly so. They hope that if they hit the US hard enough and take out the US Asian fleet at Pearl Harbor as they did, it will demoralize the US and make the US fall back to isolationism and maybe take a step back from challenging Japan in East Asia. It turned out that this was a very serious misjudgment of theirs.

I think the Chinese, as long as they can think historically. They have a chance to read history and I think they should read some history and realize that this is exactly the mistake Japan made and they shouldn't make the same mistake. As far as its standing in the world is concerned, China has been incredibly successful domestically, both economically and politically. It risks losing all of that if they are too pushy and aggressive.

I think Deng Xiaoping's diplomacy was smarter diplomacy because although the Chinese felt constrained by the liberal world order, they also benefited from it. They try to overthrow this order and they will fail. That's what I'm trying to convey, I expect them to understand that they could have avoided a lot of tragedy for all of us.

Reporter: Let's talk about the war in Ukraine. There are reports that China is trying to supply Russia with arms and ammunition. If that's the case, do you see a risk of World War III breaking out?

KAGAN: China's decision is very important, is it going to start supplying Russia with shells and other ammunition? So far it hasn't done that, they help Russia in other ways, but it's a big step. I don't know what they're going to do next.

Interesting that they proposed a peace plan, although I don't think either side would be attracted to it. But obviously, from China's point of view, peace is the best outcome, because the whole war obviously put them in a very awkward position. They know that the US and China are now in a relatively confrontational mode, but the Chinese also have to consider what the Europeans are doing. How would the Europeans react if the Chinese started arming Russia? I think the Europeans have made it very clear that they will see this as a red line in dealing with China. If it provides arms to Russia, China will not only have to confront the United States but may also be isolated in Europe.

I hope we're still at the point where the leaders in Beijing, especially Xi Jinping, don't want China to be isolated from the rest of the world. That's not what it's all about. China wants to gain influence around the world, but this problem could seriously damage China's influence.

They didn't help (Russia) that hard, and they could if they wanted to, because the US and others are supplying weapons to Ukraine. The fact that China has not done so shows that they know the price to pay. We just hope that if the price is clear, they won't take the risk.

If they take the risk, it will be very clear that there will be war. Two autocratic nations form a strategic alliance against the entire free world. I would bet on the victory of the free world, not authoritarian states. No matter in terms of economy, population, or China's strategic environment, this is not a favorable situation for China. China is surrounded by major countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, and India. If China makes the wrong decision on Russia, its strategic environment will be very bad.

Reporter: China still maintains a close relationship with Russia. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit Russia this spring, do you think it is a wise choice? You also mentioned China's peace plan just now. You said that no one would like it, but why would China do this?

KAGAN: Yeah, although I don't think Russia would necessarily agree with China's peace plan because Putin doesn't really want peace right now. But anyway, it puts China in a position where it looks like they're trying to figure it out, which I think is their goal. I mean China wants to have both. Obviously, it's in China's interest for Russia to do well in the war, because at least it would distract the US, cost the US a lot of money, and cause Europe a lot of money and inflation difficulties or something. So from China's point of view, the war is helpful for them.

But on the other hand, they have to be careful not to pay the price for the war. I think what we're seeing now is that Xi Jinping on the one hand is trying to strike the right balance, encouraging Putin, saying China is out there, but so far, not taking any possible action to turn the whole world against China, or at least the whole The free world is even more against China. If I were China, I would be very cautious now, because the United States and the American public are very emotional. From China's perspective, they would want Americans to go back to sleep, not really wake up and start taking this threat seriously.

But Xi Jinping has his own motives. He acted very confidently, at least he was very confident in China's position. As we said at the beginning of our conversation, I'm not sure he won't make the same mistakes that every other aggressive dictator has made over the century.

Reporter: China's "Reference News" compiled an article you published in the May-June "Foreign Affairs" magazine last year, entitled "The Price of Hegemony: Can the United States Learn to Use Its Power?" They said you're The article is actually saying, "American hegemony has led to Russia's expansion." Of course, this is the consistent position of Russia and China. Can you be more specific about your point of view?

Kagan: My point is that the United States is not seeking NATO expansion, and that is not U.S. policy. The United States is responding to urgent requests from Eastern European countries. As far as Ukraine is concerned, they don't want to be ruled by Russian hegemony, they want a link with the EU to Europe, the west, and the free world, which Putin and Russia are against.

What I want to tell Americans is not to think that the United States has nothing to do with Putin's decision. The decision of the United States to Putin is very critical. But that's only because he didn't like the way the world changed after the end of the Cold War. I mean that's the consequence of losing a war. When Germany lost World War I, the Germans also suffered and wanted to restore Germany's strength. You know it's a normal reaction.

One thing I agree with China is that I believe US policy supports liberal world hegemony. I do believe that China sees liberal hegemony as hostile to their dictatorship, so they naturally want to dismantle it. …but in this international system, the reality is that liberal states dominate, and China can either overthrow it or learn to live with it.

I don't think (China) has the power to overthrow (the liberal world order). No matter how unjust China feels the current world order is from their perspective, they have no power to change it, so they should stop this fundamentally suicidal task and learn how to deal with the current world order. In my opinion, China has benefited a lot from this order. China has been one of the main beneficiaries of the liberal world order since World War II.

If you think about Chinese history before this period, China was invaded by European powers and then conquered by Japan. In the hundred years before that, things were not going well in China. Under American liberal rule, China prospered and was safe. So it seems to me that all the current tensions are largely a product of Chinese ambitions rather than Chinese interests.