COVID-19 may have created a “short tactical window” for China, but that window “is not big enough to solve the strategic dilemma it will face in the future.”79 Yuan Nansheng, a former diplomat and CCP stalwart, likewise argued—by way of the historical analogies that offer a safer means of criticism—that “having enemies on all sides” is a recipe for disaster.80 America’s “multilateral club strategy,” agreed Yan Xuetong in July 2021, was “isolating China” and causing severe difficulties for its economic development and diplomatic relations.
