It is worth remembering the founding fathers of the United States gave birth to a republic. The US was not a “democracy”; the word was never mentioned in the founding documents. The nascent republic was essentially nurtured by Hamilton’s vision. He was the primary architect of the American governing mechanism and the visionary of its capitalistic economic system; thus, creating a cosmopolitan, commercial and industrial nation, as opposed to a Jeffersonian “Empire of Liberty”, with yeoman farmers in hamlets untouched by the so-called corrupting influence of bankers and financiers in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.

During the earlier years of the republic until the opium wars in China and the civil war in America, the US became a prosperous and wealthy nation through trade with China. The Hamiltonian framework has long been the driving force in American prosperity to achieve Jeffersonian ends of greater freedom and liberty to all Americans – including women, African Americans, native Americans and immigrants. This tradition has changed with Trump, whose White House is now dominated by wealthy white men.

After Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) death, Deng also invoked Hamiltonian-like policies to spur economic growth. The question is: will China ever follow the American experience of Hamiltonian means to Jeffersonian ends?

‘China doesn’t want to be the new America’: why Trump needn’t clash with Beijing

Meanwhile, in America, as part of Trump’s efforts to “make America great again”, the White House has seemingly resorted to a Hamiltonian view of a manufacturing nation with a strong military, while it has criticised the Jeffersonian character of a robust and independent press, along with religious tolerance and the acceptance of immigrants.

Observing the changing dynamics in the US and elsewhere in the world, the question is: will the US follow the experience of centralised Confucian power – and by default the Chinese Communist Party – to create a Hamiltonian world for wealthy and powerful Hamiltonians?

‘America first’ thinking won’t survive in a hyperconnected world

Surely, China as a thriving civilisation-state is an artefact of evolution in history. For its part, the US has always aspired to be the “Empire of Liberty” envisioned by Jefferson and the other founding fathers. The colossal Statue of Liberty in New York City is the sacred symbol that has long separated the US from China and the rest of the world.

For human progress, the evolution of the American republic equally needs its Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian principles. With his “America first” policy, Trump has embarked on creating a Hamiltonian America without acknowledging the Jeffersonian pulse of the nation.

By design, the American system created by the founding fathers works in chaos but with the harmonious vitality of Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian elements. Even while the Hamiltonian evangelical fervour appears to project occasional political power, the inertia embedded in the Jeffersonian spirit of “deep state” – a decentralised army of patriotic public servants, diplomats and mainstream media – keeps the nation on the move in unison. These Jeffersonians, as well as the elected Democratic Party (and some Republican) representatives in Congress, are today like a school of fish – without a single leader – marching towards justice to realise America’s Empire of Liberty.

Patrick Mendis, PhD, a Harvard Kennedy School’s former Rajawali senior fellow, is an associate-in-research at the Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies at Harvard University and a senior fellow of the Pangoal Institution in Beijing. He is the author of Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and American Destiny Create a Pacific New World Order. See www.patrickmendis.com