Steve Rattner: Not in Our ‘Long Term Strategic Interest’ to Create a Vacuum China Can Step Into

EXCERPT:

RATTNER: "I was at age during Vietnam. I know what the country went through during those years. So I do think we have 240 years of history on our side and we’ll get through this. What I worry about in the short run internationally, though, while I agree with you that other countries need to step up and do more, we had a unique leadership role in the world. And we are piece by piece ceding that leadership role not necessarily to France or Italy to kind of do more, but more importantly to China and potentially to Russia. We just don’t want to be creating this vacuum to have China step into it. That’s just not in our long-term strategic interest."