(CNN)A new generation of US cold warriors just got some powerful validation.

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about China in a New York Times interview in Paris, he offered one of the most revealing insights yet into the Biden administration's foreign policy. Blinken said that France and the US were "on the same page" on the need to defend the free world order as China gains influence. The alternative, he warned, would be no global order or a Chinese-led world order that would be "profoundly illiberal in nature."