Mass protests are highly uncommon in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) keeps a tight lid on society, using mass surveillance, incarceration and economic pressure on recalcitrant individuals. Hence, people are too cowed down to protest.

The current protests reveal the scale of disaffection in China. Xi’s zero-COVID policy has clearly failed. It has imposed economic setbacks and social suffering on millions of Chinese families. The CCP’s reputation for competence has taken a beating and so has Xi’s prestige.

Xi’s failed zero-COVID policy has implications for the rest of the world. It shows that supply chains reliant on China face major risks and vulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, countries are now decreasing investment in China, sourcing imports from other countries and making their supply chains more resilient.

Atul Singh and Glenn Carle make sense of protests in China and what this means for Xi, the CCP and the country.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Ten individuals were killed in an in Urumqi, Xinjiang, as their doors were locked from the outside due to lockdown restrictions, which sparked the initial protests. While lifting those limits was the protest’s main objective, it ultimately resulted in calls for Chinese President Xi Jinping to . Using white paper or plain white fabric as an , protesters condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and called for democracy and the right to free speech.

What led to the events?

There are a few things that can be noted from this mass protest. It’s hard to imagine such a large-scale event occurring in China, as the last major protest in China that attracted a military presence took place more than . But these demonstrations are not unique to Beijing. In 2019, a pro-democracy demonstration took place in Hong Kong.

But last month’s protests came after nationwide tension was built when Xi addressed the 20th CCP Congress in October, : “In responding to the sudden outbreak of Covid-19, we put people and their lives above all else, working to prevent the re-emergence of cases arising from within or brought from abroad, and by persistent pursuit of a dynamic zero-Covid policy”.

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This statement illustrates China’s effort to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, including implementing a strict lockdown. However, such efforts led to the frustrations heard during recent protests. Indicating that despite the President’s party reappointment, certain groups still dare to delegitimize the power of Xi and the CCP.

When Xi was by Congress as the CCP’s general secretary. Following was this statement by party delegates, “We must resolutely uphold Comrade Xi’s core position on the Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

It will be interesting to see how this protest develops and what the Chinese government does next. Just days of protests at Tiananmen Square led to the CCP’s decision to use military force to disperse the crowds, which killed civilians and led to widespread arrests. As a result of these actions, China international sanctions, especially from the US and other western countries.

Unlike the crackdown on Tiananmen Square, the CCP’s handling of the Hong Kong protests did not involve using live ammo or the military. Instead, Hong Kong security forces dispersed the protest using water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. With current events, Beijing is mindful that deploying force, as it did in the past, could damage Hong Kong’s reputation as a free zone under China’s “One Country, Two Systems” principle. As a result, with Hong Kong as an economic hub, sanctions will impact China.

Another step to quell demonstrations in Hong Kong is to withdraw the Extradition Bill, which is the direct demand of protestors. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong carried out this action; however, there is speculation that Beijing was behind the decision.

What’s next and impact on Indonesia

Of course, it is too early to tell how these current protests will end. However, even if they escalate, Beijing will likely handle it how they did with the 2019 protest. On the other hand, if the CCP’s actions lose lives and damage the economy, it will lose more respect from Chinese citizens.

Even though these protests may last for some time, Beijing is likely to avoid using military force or violence and may slowly ease lockdown rules to prevent the spread of public sentiment. By doing this, the Chinese government and CCP could both maintain the people’s legitimacy and accelerate economic recovery.

A wave of protests have also emerged in and and may continue to spread to Indonesia, mainly due to the growing negative sentiment towards China.

Based on the Indonesian National Survey Project in July 2022 by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute which interviewed a group of 1,600 diverse respondents directly regarding economic, domestic, and international politics, that almost 25.4% of the Indonesian public believes the rise of China would negatively affect Indonesia. In contrast, only 30% of people believe establishing relations with China will benefit Indonesia.

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The survey also showed positive feelings towards China among Indonesia only reached 66%, compared to 76.7% five years ago. Not only that, many people are also about Indonesia’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project; as many as 41.5% of respondents think BRI can create a debt trap for other countries, including Indonesia. A belief, most likely based on events in other countries, such as the construction of the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, which resulted in economic losses.

Negative perceptions of China also extend to Chinese descendants in Indonesia. As demonstrated by 41% of survey respondents who Chinese descendants are still loyal to China. 

A recent study by LAB45 that the re-election of Xi is a breath of fresh air for countries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. However, the recent protests in China may create obstacles to its continued presence in Indonesia, the closest of China’s ASEAN allies.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Chinese newspaper claims that rising Indian nationalism and closer US-India cooperation are responsible for border tensions. A joint US-India military exercise in the border state of Uttarakhand has ruffled Chinese feathers. So has the building of roads and strengthening of Indian positions in border areas. Furthermore, Beijing sees New Delhi increasingly aligning with Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. It views the , comprising India, Japan, Australia and the US, as an anti-China alliance.

Retired CIA officer , one of 51�Թ�’s regular authors and commentators, takes the view that Chinese transgressions are a part of a long term policy. Beijing pushes on all international issues where they have differences until they meet opposition. On , an Indian professor opined that Chinese transgression aims to keep India distracted and gain leverage in negotiations. Like many, he thinks that Beijing is signaling to New Delhi that Washington is far away. India should make peace with its more powerful northern neighbor, which is the top dog in Asia.

All these explanations are true but there is something more going on.

Chinese Communism v Tibetan Buddhism

It is important to note that the Chinese carried out this operation in the wee hours of a chilly winter morning at high altitude. This required detailed planning and effective execution, and was clearly not an accidental cross-border patrol, as some analysts have speculated. The aim was to occupy strategic heights near , one of the most sacred places in Tibetan Buddhism in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Nestled between China-occupied Tibet and Bhutan, Tawang is a district of about 2000 square kilometers (800 square miles) that is also home to the oldest and second biggest monastery in Asia. Tawang is one of the very few areas where there are thousands of Tibetan families in their traditional homeland outside China. The Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was born in this area in March 1683. 

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The current Dalai Lama is now 87 and the question of succession looms. Already, the Tibetans and the CCP are over this question. Note though that no Dalai Lama has emerged outside the traditional Tibetan homeland. Tawang is the only important center of this homeland outside Chinese control. For many Tibetans, it is desirable that this tradition continues. As many lamas have mentioned to the authors, the next Dalai Lama could well emerge from the Tawang area. Beijing wants to avoid such a possibility. Control over Tawang would help. Hence, China claims this area along with other bits of Arunachal Pradesh as a part of South Tibet.

In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) finally triumphed in its civil war and took over Mainland China. Within a year, the CCP sent the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. This imperial army of occupation posed as an army of liberation and has still not left.

In the early days, Beijing sought to avoid Tibetan unrest. Therefore, China signed a with Tibet. It promised not to “alter the existing political system in Tibet” and “the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama.” China did not make these promises in good faith. Under Chairman Mao Zedong, the CCP began shaping a deeply spiritual and Buddhist Tibet into its vision of an atheistic communist utopia. For most Tibetans, this utopia was a nightmare. In 1959, they rose up in revolt. The PLA brutally crushed the revolt and the Dalai Lama fled to India.

Just as the Pope is the spiritual leader of the Catholics, the Dalai Lama is a similar figure for the Tibetans. His presence in India angers China and, as long as the Dalai Lama lives, he remains a focal point of Tibetan resistance to Chinese colonization. Once the Dalai Lama dies, Beijing aims to pick his successor. Control over the historic Tawang monastery would snuff out a key center of future resistance.

China has been following this playbook for a while. In 1995, Beijing the Panchen Lama chosen by the Dalai Lama. Instead, the CCP appointed a Manchurian candidate in his place. Today, a puppet Panchen Lama signs from Beijing’s hymn sheet, Tibetans to stay away from separatist forces. This Beijing-appointed leader argues that Tibetan Buddhism must adapt to “socialism and Chinese conditions.” No wonder, the CCP’s wet dream is to install a puppet Dalai Lama who pledges fealty to Beijing.

Why Tawang Matters

Many Chinese nationalists regret the loss of Tawang. This area could very well have been a part of China. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister  was wedded to the idea of India-China unity. He wanted the two Asian giants to stand up to Western imperialism. Against the wishes of his statesmanly home minister , Nehru acquiesced to the 1950 Chinese takeover of Tibet.

As explained in a magnum opus on 51�Թ� about India-China tensions, Nehru later realized that he had been duped by Mao. He kicked off the so-called “forward policy” as per which Indian troops took positions in territory that both India and China claimed as their own. In 1962, the PLA dealt India a devastating . Chinese troops took over Tawang and advanced as far south as Bomdila. Although they later withdrew, India lost valuable territory and invaluable prestige.

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The fact that Tawang was in Indian hands is a historical accident. Nehru was a socialist and so were his top officials. They valued an anti-Western alliance with China. did not have such Nehruvian delusions. He took matters in his own hands and marched to Tawang with merely two platoons. In , this area, formerly under the control of the independent Tibetan government, was now in Indian hands. Except for a brief interlude in 1962, it has remained Indian territory since. The Chinese still lay claim to Tawang though.

The recent Chinese operation would have captured heights from where both the town and monastery in Tawang are clearly visible. They would have secured area domination and made a future move to capture Tawang easier. Artillery from the captured heights could have pummeled the monastery and the town. Also, once snow would have set in and weather turned inclement, Chinese troops would have dug into their new positions. Indian generals would have found it hard to move large numbers of troops to recapture these positions.

Note that the Chinese have tried to capture these heights before. They attempted in 2016 and, more recently, in October 2021. The Chinese have settled veterans in (well-off) border defense villages. One such village is in the vicinity of the point of the latest clash. Intelligence officials tell officials that 600-700 such xiaokang encampments now exist along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto India-China border. They form part of the aggressive defense policy that President Xi Jinping has unleashed on nearly all of China’s neighbors.

If the PLA got hold of Tawang, the CCP would control a historic Tibetan monastery. Its choice of the Dalai Lama would be rubber stamped by this venerable institution.

Buddhist Dalai Lama v Communist Emperor Xi

Tibet is run per : “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Neighboring Arunachal Pradesh, which the CCP claims as South Tibet, is a rambunctious multiparty democracy. The state’s chief minister won 41 out of 60 seats in the 2019 elections. On December 16, he blamed Nehru for appeasing China and thanked Patel for taking over Tawang. Such a statement about recent history is impossible across the border. Unsurprisingly, Arunachal Pradesh has emerged as an imperfect but viable democratic model for China-occupied Tibet. This makes the CCP nervous.

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This nervousness has worsened because of recent protests. Only in October, the 20th Central Committee of the CCP Xi as de facto emperor. Despite his disastrous zero-COVID policy, Xi’s vice-like grip on power looked more secure than ever. The last few weeks have turned out to be a rather long time in Chinese politics. Xi’s zero-COVID policy has and he has quietly made a U-turn. As per , scientists worry Xi’s abrupt reversal could lead to a rise in infections and overwhelm hospitals. 

Winter is peak influenza season. Also, many people will be traveling across China for the Lunar New Year and spring festival, further increasing viral spread. Now that Xi is omnipotent, all blame would fall on him. The CCP is anxious that protests could even spread to Tibet, making the party and Xi lose face.

The CCP is also worried about recent developments in India. Earlier this year, the Indian prime minister called the Dalai Lama to wish him a happy birthday. Chinese irritation further increased when New Delhi photos of the Dalai Lama visiting “a remote Himalayan village in the disputed border region of eastern Ladakh.” The fact that he had been flown there by a military helicopter particularly aggravated Beijing.

The Chinese have not forgotten that the previous Dalai Lama fled to Darjeeling when Qing troops marched into Lhasa. The 1911 revolution gave the 13th Dalai Lama the opportunity to return from exile, and expel Chinese troops and officials from Lhasa in 1912. He declared complete self-rule and Tibet achieved de facto independence that lasted nearly four decades. The CCP is terrified of Tibetans achieving independence again. As long as the Dalai Lama lives in India, they fear that what happened in 1912 could recur.

For the CCP, Tibet is a tributary of China and the Dalai Lama should kowtow to Emperor Xi. For Indians, Tibet is home to Kailash and Mansarovar, the abode of Lord Shiva. They respect Tibetans for preserving Buddhism and many of India’s most revered tantric traditions. For Tibetans themselves, India is the land of the Buddha and now home to the Dalai Lama. They prefer democracy to autocracy, Buddhism to communism and the Dalai Lama to Emperor Xi.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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These talks have been an on-again, off-again proposition since President Barack Obama initiated them before the Paris climate summit of December 2015, at which delegates were to vote on a landmark measure to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (the maximum amount scientists believe this planet can absorb without catastrophic consequences). The US-Chinese consultations continued after the adoption of the Paris climate accord, but were suspended in 2017 by that climate-change-denying president Donald Trump. They were relaunched by President Biden in 2021, only to be again by an angry Chinese leadership in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2nd visit to Taiwan, viewed in Beijing as a show of support for pro-independence forces on that island. But thanks to Biden’s intense lobbying in Bali, President Xi agreed to turn the interactive switch .

Behind that modest gesture there lies a far more momentous question: What if the two countries moved beyond simply talking and started working together to champion the radical lowering of global carbon emissions? What miracles might then be envisioned? To help find answers to that momentous question means revisiting the recent history of the US-Chinese climate collaboration.

The Promise of Collaboration

In November 2014, based on extensive diplomatic groundwork, Presidents Obama and Xi met in Beijing and signed a statement pledging joint action to ensure the success of the forthcoming Paris summit. “The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China have a critical role to play in combating global climate change,” they . “The seriousness of the challenge calls upon the two sides to work constructively together for the common good.”

Obama then ordered Secretary of State John Kerry to collaborate with Chinese officials in persuading other attendees at that summit — officially, the 21st Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP21 — to agree on a firm commitment to honor the 1.5-degree limit. That joint effort, many observers believe, was instrumental in persuading reluctant participants like India and Russia to sign the Paris climate agreement.

“With our historic joint announcement with China last year,” Obama at that summit’s concluding session, “we showed it was possible to bridge the old divides… that had stymied global progress for so long. That accomplishment encouraged dozens and dozens of other nations to set their own ambitious climate targets.”

Obama also pointed out that any significant global progress along that path was dependent on continued cooperation between the two countries. “No nation, not even one as powerful as ours, can solve this challenge alone.”

Trump and the Perils of Non-Cooperation

That era of cooperation didn’t last long. Donald Trump, an ardent fan of fossil fuels, made no secret of his aversion to the Paris climate accord. He signaled his intent to exit from the agreement soon after taking office. “It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Pittsburgh, PA, along with many, many other locations within our great country, before Paris, France,” he ominously in 2017 when announcing his decision.

With the US absent from the scene, progress in implementing the Paris Agreement slowed to a crawl. Many countries that had been pressed by the US and China to agree to ambitious emissions-reduction schedules began to opt out of those commitments in sync with Trump’s America. China, too, the greatest greenhouse gas emitter of this moment and the leading user of that dirtiest of fossil fuels, coal, felt far less to honor its commitment, even on a rapidly heating planet.

No one knows what would have happened had Trump not been elected and those US-China talks not been suspended, but in the absence of such collaboration, there was a steady rise in carbon emissions and temperatures across the planet. According to CO.2.Earth, emissions from 35.5 billion metric tons in 2016 to 36.4 billion tons in 2021, a 2.5% increase. Since such emissions are the leading contributor to the greenhouse-gas effect responsible for global warming, it should be no surprise that the past seven years have also proven the on record, with much of the world experiencing record-breaking heat waves, forest fires, droughts, and crop failures. We can be fairly certain, moreover, that in the absence of renewed US-China climate cooperation, such disasters will become ever more frequent and severe.

On Again, Off Again

Overcoming this fearsome trend was one of Joe Biden’s principal campaign promises and, against strong Republican opposition, he has indeed endeavored to undo at least some of the damage wrought by Trump. It was symbolic indeed that he the Paris climate accord on his first day in office and ordered his cabinet to accelerate the government’s transition to clean energy. In August, he achieved a significant breakthrough when Congress approved the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which $369 billion in loans, grants, and tax credits for green-energy initiatives.

Biden also sought to reinvigorate Washington’s global-warming diplomacy and the stalled talks with China, John Kerry as his special envoy for climate action. Kerry, in turn, reestablished ties with his Chinese colleagues from his time as secretary of state. At last year’s COP26 gathering in Glasgow, Scotland, he persuaded them to join the US in approving the “,” a commitment to step up efforts to mitigate climate change.

However, in so many ways, Joe Biden and his foreign policy team are still caught up in the Cold War era and his administration has generally taken a far more antagonistic approach to China than Obama. Not surprisingly, then, the progress Kerry achieved with his Chinese counterparts at Glasgow largely evaporated as tensions over Taiwan only grew more heated. Biden was, for instance, the first president in memory to claim — — that US military forces would defend that island in a crisis, were it to be attacked by China, essentially tossing aside Washington’s longstanding position of “strategic ambiguity” on the Taiwan question. In response, China’s leaders became ever more strident in claiming that the island belonged to them.

When Nancy Pelosi made that Taiwan visit in early August, the Chinese responded by ballistic missiles into the waters around the island and, in a fit of anger, those bilateral climate-change talks. Now, thanks to Biden’s entreaties in Bali, the door seems again open for the two countries to collaborate on limiting global greenhouse gas emissions.  At a moment of ever more devastating evidence of planetary heating, from a in the US to “” in China, the question is: What might any meaningful new collaborative effort involve?

Reasserting the Climate’s Centrality

In 2015, few of those in power doubted the overarching threat posed by climate change or the need to bring international diplomacy to bear to help overcome it. In Paris, Obama that “the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other.” What should give us hope, he continued, “is the fact that our nations share a sense of urgency about this challenge and a growing realization that it is within our power to do something about it.”

Since then, all too sadly, other challenges, including the growth of Cold War-style tensions with China, the Covid-19 pandemic, and ��ܲ�������’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, have come to “define the contours” of this century. In 2022, even as the results of the overheating of the planet become ever more obvious, few world leaders would contend that “it is within our power” to overcome the climate peril. So, the first (and perhaps most valuable) outcome of any renewed US-China climate cooperation might simply be to place climate change at the top of the world’s agenda again and provide evidence that the major powers, working together, can successfully tackle the issue.

Such an effort might, for instance, start with a Washington-Beijing “climate summit,” presided over by presidents Biden and Xi and attended by high-level delegations from around the world. American and Chinese scientists could offer the latest bad news on the likely future trajectory of global warming, while identifying real-world goals to significantly reduce fossil-fuel use. This might, in turn, lead to the formation of multilateral working groups, hosted by US and Chinese agencies and institutions, to meet regularly and implement the most promising strategies for halting the onrushing disaster.

Following the example set by Obama and Xi at COP21 in Paris, Biden and Xi would agree to play a pivotal role in the next Conference of the Parties, COP28, scheduled for December 2023 in the United Arab Emirates. Following the inconclusive outcome of COP27, recently convened at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, strong leadership will be required to ensure something significantly better at COP28. Among the goals those two leaders would need to pursue, the top priority should be the full implementation of the 2015 Paris accord with its commitment to a 1.5-degree maximum temperature increase, followed by a far greater effort by the wealthy nations to assist developing countries suffering from its effects.

There’s no way, however, that China and the US will be able to exert a significant international influence on climate efforts if — the former the leading emitter of greenhouse gasses at this moment and the latter the historic leader — don’t take far greater initiatives to lower their carbon emissions and shift to renewable sources of energy. The Inflation Reduction Act will indeed allow the White House to advance many new initiatives in this direction, while China is moving more than any other country to install added supplies of wind and solar energy. Nevertheless, both countries continue to rely on fossil fuels for a substantial share of their energy — China, for instance, remains the greatest user of coal, more of it than the rest of the world combined — and so both will need to agree on even more aggressive moves to reduce their carbon emissions if they hope to persuade other nations to do the same.

The Sino-American Fund for Clean Energy Transitions

In a better world, next on my list of possible outcomes from a reinvigorated US-Chinese relationship would be joint efforts to help finance the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Although the cost of deploying renewables, especially wind and solar energy, has fallen dramatically in recent years, it remains substantial even for wealthy countries. For many developing nations, it remains an unaffordable option. This emerged as a major issue at COP27 in Egypt, where representatives from the Global South that the wealthy countries largely responsible for the overheating of the planet weren’t doing faintly enough (or, in many cases, anything), despite prior promises, to help them shoulder the costs of the increasingly devastating effects of climate change and the future greening of their countries.

Many of these complaints revolved around the Green Climate Fund, established at COP16 in Cancún. The developed countries agreed to provide $100 billion annually to that fund by 2020 to help developing nations bear the costs of transitioning to renewable energy. Although that amount is now widely viewed as wildly insufficient for such a transition — “all of the evidence suggests that we need trillions, not billions,” Baysa Naran, a manager at the research center Climate Policy Initiative — the Fund has never even come to hitting that $100 billion target, leaving many in the Global South bitter as, with unprecedented and staggering , climate change strikes home ever more horrifically there.

When the US and China were working on the climate together at COP26 in Glasgow, filling the Green Climate Fund appeared genuinely imaginable. In their Glasgow Declaration of November 2021, John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, that “both countries recognize the importance of the commitment made by developed countries to the goal of mobilizing jointly $100b per year by 2020 and annually through 2025 to address the needs of developing countries [and] stress the importance of meeting that goal as soon as possible.”

Sadly enough, all too little came of that affirmation in the months that followed, as US-China relations turned ever more antagonistic. Now, in the wake of Biden’s meeting with Xi and the resumption of their talks on climate change, it’s at least possible to imagine intensified bilateral efforts to advance that $100 billion objective — and even go far beyond it (though we can expect fierce from the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives).

As my contribution to such thinking, let me suggest the formation of a Sino-American Fund for Green Energy Transitions — a grant- and loan-making institution jointly underwritten by the two countries with the primary purpose of financing renewable energy projects in the developing world. Decisions on such funding would be made by a board of directors, half from each country, with staff work performed by professionals drawn from around the world. The aim: to supplement the Green Climate Fund with additional hundreds of billions of dollars annually and so speed the global energy transition.

The Pathway to Peace and Survival

The leaders of the US and China both recognize that global warming poses an extraordinary threat to the survival of their nations and that colossal efforts will be needed in the coming years to minimize the climate peril, while preparing for its most severe effects. “The climate crisis is the existential challenge of our time,” the Biden administration’s October 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) . “Without immediate global action to reduce emissions, scientists tell us we will soon exceed 1.5 degrees of warming, locking in further extreme heat and weather, rising sea levels, and catastrophic biodiversity loss.”

Despite that all-too-on-target assessment, the NSS portrays competition from China as an even greater threat to US security — without citing any of the same sort of perilous outcomes — and proposes a massive mobilization of the nation’s economic, technological, and military resources to ensure American dominance of the Asia-Pacific region for decades to come. That strategy will, of course, require trillions of dollars in military expenditures, ensuring insufficient funding to tackle the climate crisis and exposing this country to an ever-increasing risk of war — possibly even a nuclear one — with China.

Given such dangers, perhaps the best outcome of renewed US-China climate cooperation, or green diplomacy, might be increasing trust between the leaders of those two countries, allowing for a reduction in tensions and military expenditures. Indeed, such an approach constitutes the only practical strategy for saving us from the catastrophic consequences of both a US-China conflict and unconstrained climate change.

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Even amid the prevailing polarization, American foreign policy is largely driven by bipartisan consensus. Living in the United States, it is easy to buy into American exceptionalism and its do-gooder approach globally. The popular story is that Pearl Harbor dragged a reluctant America into World War II, but democracy prevailed over fascism. Yet few Americans realize that we propped up dictators around the world during the Cold War, even as we rescued humanity from communism. 

An Indian perspective, though, can offer more nuance, especially regarding �������������’s recent conflicts.

The Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine Wars

The Afghanistan War was the closest to being a just war. The US Afghani jihadists to defeat the USSR and then abandoned them in the 1990s. The 9/11 attackers were primarily Saudi but trained by al-Qaeda. Afghanistan’s offer to turn in Osama Bin Laden would not have dismantled its terrorist infrastructure, which posed a direct threat to America. The US went in to bring democracy to a country seemingly stuck in the 19^th century. The Taliban’s dogged resistance, Pakistan’s double-dealing and a lack of yearning for democracy among Afghans precipitated in a chaotic American retreat. Two decades and billions of dollars later, the direct threat to America is diminished, but the Taliban is ruling Afghanistan again.

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Based on adeceitful , the Iraq War was an exercise in American hegemony. The weapons of mass destruction were never found and more than twice as many US soldiers died in Iraq as in Afghanistan during this period. Ironically, the war led to some sort of democracy in Iraq. It is still early to judge whether this democracy or even Iraq is . However, in the heart of the Middle East, this invasion has been more successful than all the subsequent Arab Spring uprisings. It certainly led to the rise of ISIS but it also created a democratic foothold in the Middle East. The relative success of Iraqi democracy could be attributed to Americans finding local partners willing to build institutions perhaps because Iraq was a more developed and educated country than Afghanistan. If Iraqi democracy succeeds, it would be George W. Bush’s enduring legacy.

The Ukraine War is a safer conflict for America. Instead of overthrowing a dictatorship, it is helping preserve democracy. NATO’s eastward expansion might have threatened Russia, but invading a democratic European country posed a threat to the West. US President Joe Biden has been clear-eyed about any American boots on the ground against a nuclear Russia. So, in the name of realpolitik, he is arming Ukrainians with advanced weaponry to decimate Russia. In the Cold War, America befriended China to fight the USSR. Today, neutralizing Russia through Ukraine at minimal cost would allow the US to focus on China. Even the worst-case scenario of Ukraine losing eastern territory in exchange for NATO’s expansion to the Russian border and Ukraine entering the EU will be a victory for the United States.

This American record indicates several possibilities vis-à-vis Taiwan. America has been one of the most benevolent imperialists in recent history. However, it evokes mixed feelings in India. Even if we discount Cold-War-era mutual suspicion, the United States Pakistan-sponsored terrorism against India as long as Islamabad was supporting Washington, albeit half-heartedly, in post-9/11 Afghanistan. When the United States negotiated the withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban, India was despite its significant rebuilding efforts. The ongoing India-China border, more than two years old, has evoked little pushback from Washington, DC. The West was a mute spectator to China’s Hong Kong takeover. Would the US come to Taiwan’s rescue if attacked by China? If it does, would India’s interests be factored in?

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India cannot decouple from the United States because there is no alternative to American military might. However, India has been left to fend for itself in the past by American foreign policy. Leaving Pelosi’s pro-democracy rhetoric aside, two major factors are driving American saber-rattling: Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor industry and Taiwan Strait trade. With its $280 billion to bring chip manufacturing back home, America could secure one of its national security priorities in the next decade. By then, if Xi Jinping is replaced by someone less autocratic, willing to negotiate Taiwan Strait trade in �������������’s favor, the West might not wage a full-fledged war with a nuclear China to save Taiwanese democracy.

Repercussions of Taiwan going the Hong Kong way could be severe for India. While advanced economies like Australia and Japan have more leverage in navigating an emboldened China, India’s still developing economy will make it more vulnerable. After the recent border standoff, India economic sanctions, but going by the latest, India cannot compete with China economically. On the other hand, India has done well to withstand Chinese military pressure. If China unifies with Taiwan, India could be next on China’s list to make it accept China as the dominant Asian power.

Until now, by carving out waivers for India in global sanctions, the United States has softened its blows to India. More recently, continued post-Cold-War strengthening of Indo-US military ties saw, for the first time, an American naval ship in India and an Indian naval ship in San Diego. However, reunification with Taiwan could expand China’s influence and limit �������������’s ability to help India. While Bush Jr.’s unjustified war might eventually reestablish democracy in the Middle East, Pelosi’s justified Taiwan visit could prove more dangerous to democracies in the Indo-Pacific. No wonder befriending America while sharing a border with China is a complicated beast!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Could Pelosi really have failed to understand that her friendly gesture would unsettle the situation of the very people she believed she was helping? As one Taiwanese professor writing for Newsweek, “Taiwan has been relegated to serving as the proving ground for Great Power insecurities.” Is that the role she imagines the Taiwanese would like to be playing in geopolitics?

Her president, Joe Biden, warned her of possible unintended consequences. Ironically, that warning produced unintended consequences for Biden himself, who was left looking like a president unable to get his own party’s Congressional leader to make and enforce foreign policy, his job and not hers. What does it mean to be “leader of the free world”? In Ukraine the US is fully engaged in a war it refuses to fight but believes it will win. The vaunted “strategic ambiguity” that defines its Taiwan policy has become 100% ambiguity and 0% strategy. Apart from poking nuclear bears and hoping their excessive reaction will make the US look like an innocent victim to the outside world, does the US have any kind of consistent geopolitical strategy?

In such a context, how should Washington’s allies react? Europe has shown solidarity on Ukraine, but that may already be fraying. At least the US can count on the UK to always be at its side. The automatic alignment shown by the then prime minister Tony Blair two decades ago, and still prime minister Boris Johnson this year, has cast Britain as the poodle of its former 13 colonies who have since expanded across the continent. It’s slightly more surprising that the UK’s “serious” (non-tabloid) media, with a reputation for independence, now follows suit, dutifully echoing its US counterparts. Just as the CIA has long been dictating the content of its reporting to The New York Times and The Washington Post, MI6 may be fulfilling the same function for the BBC, The Guardian and others in London.

Not only is there a noticeable “’close alignment’ between foreign policy in London and Washington” as the BBC last year, but the BBC itself appears to embrace that alignment. Reporting from Beijing on the consequences of Pelosi’s visit, BBC’s Stephen McDonell offers a take on Pelosi’s visit that paints China as the unique provocateur.

“Those with more militaristic tendencies in the upper echelons of power here,” McDonell speculates, “must have secretly welcomed the visit by Ms Pelosi. It has provided an ideal excuse to ramp up the war games around Taiwan in preparation for what they see as the inevitable day when it will be seized by force.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Militaristic tendencies:

A pathology shared not only by a majority of politicians in increasingly militarized nations but also by establishment and corporate news media as evidenced in its reporting

Contextual note

Readers should notice that the title of McDonell’s piece twists the logic of the entire episode by metaphorically describing it as a sporting event: “Pelosi visit: Taiwan puts the ball firmly in Xi Jinping’s court.” This framing curiously casts Taiwan in an active role. It hides the reality that neither China nor Taiwan sought to play an active role in this chain of events. Even Biden appeared to be passive. Pelosi is the one throwing unplayable balls in other people’s courts.

To skirt any reference to the idea that Pelosi’s visit was an unnecessary and risky provocation, McDonell redefines the drama as evidence of China’s deep belligerence, implicitly contrasting it with the peaceful pursuit of democratic ideals by the US. In this showdown, China is the aggressive military power to be feared. Certainly not the US.

Less than a week later, McDonell is at it again. In a new, “China-Taiwan: What we learned from Beijing’s drills around the island,” McDonell returns to his mindreading of the Chinese elite. “The hardliners in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party,” he writes, “would probably be quite happy with where Nancy Pelosi’s visit has left them.” In the original article, he claimed that the Chinese “must have secretly welcomed the visit by Ms Pelosi.” A claim based on “must have” and supported by “would probably be” is not journalism. It is the language of polemic and more specifically propaganda. The supposed probability of attributed emotions is not something honest reporters on the beat should be expected to cover.

Despite the lack of discernible consistency in Washington’s foreign policy, McDonell proves consistent in his journalistic practices. Once again, he frames the drama in terms of sport. He claims that the Chinese militarized response to the provocation “is seen as a win for those who want it to happen.” Pelosi’s unneeded and unwanted diplomatic meddling is no longer a factor. It’s all about Chinese belligerence.

McDonell thus proves his commitment to prolonging the style of propaganda that has accompanied the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It is all about denying that the US could ever provoke a drama elsewhere. If and when military hostilities do break out around Taiwan, thanks to reporters like McDonell we can understand and endlessly repeat that it boils down to an “unprovoked” aggression by an autocratic government controlled by evil-minded “hardliners,” Putin being the archetype of an autocratic hardliner.

This usefully simplifies the public’s understanding of the Taiwan drama. On the “democratic” side, there was a “visit,” a perfectly friendly gesture. Who doesn’t like to be visited? On the autocratic side, there is –  or will soon be – an unprovoked aggression. The template already exists, at least since February 24 of this year. But it has other precedents: the in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 or Saddam Hussein’s terrifying (but non-existent) weapons of mass destruction. Autocracies – and never democracies – are addicted to starting unprovoked wars.

McDonell employs another trick that has become common thanks to the Ukraine conflict. It consists of the journalist leaping inside the brain of designated enemies to reveal their secret thoughts. We have seen endless examples in recent months of professional and citizen journalists alike telling us what Vladimir Putin (aka Peter the Great reborn) is really thinking. McDonell doesn’t dare imagine what the obviously ”inscrutable” Xi Jinping is thinking, but he does suppose that Xi was one of the clique in the “upper echelons of power” who “must have secretly welcomed the visit by Ms Pelosi.”

Journalism about US foreign policy has become formulaic on both sides of the Atlantic. At least since George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, The New York Times has been the consistent leader, probably creating the template McDonell could follow. This week, David Sanger and Amy Qin at The New York Times also invoke a sports metaphor in the title of their written in the aftermath of the Pelosi visit: “A�� China Plans Drills Circling Taiwan, U.S. Officials Fear a Squeeze Play.” The authors claim that US officials “worry that the events of the next few days could trigger an unintended confrontation between China’s forces and Taiwan’s.” By “unintended” they mean accidental, as they cite imaginary scenarios of “a missile over the island” or “an incursion into disputed airspace” leading “to a midair conflict.” In other words, if it happens, don’t blame Pelosi. She had nothing to do with it. It’s those inscrutable Chinese hardliners.

Historical note

Most serious commentators acknowledge that, intentional or not, Pelosi’s move was not just a friendly “visit” but a game-changer that marks a historical turning-point. The consensus, supported by currently in the US Congress towards recognizing Taiwan’s independence, is that the “strategic ambiguity” initiated four decades ago has already morphed into an increasingly ambiguous non-strategy that is likely at some point to turn into conflict. The question will not be if, but on what scale?

This year, the media has done a superb job evacuating history from its reporting of the Ukraine conflict. Despite his status as a celebrity, Henry Kissinger’s warnings that there are historical factors complicating the narrative left the media indifferent. That same media has totally excluded authoritative and active voices such as John Mearsheimer  – people who know the history  – from any mention on its airwaves or in its columns.

As the tacit acceptance of “strategic ambiguity” fades, we can begin watching the construction of a new pseudo-historical narrative. If the Ukraine coverage is anything to go by, more speculation about the nature and depth of the Chinese enemy’s private thoughts will replace any reference to actual historical reality. That is already borne out by McDonell’s reporting at the BBC.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Even the BBC Now Offers US-friendly Propaganda on Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan Melodrama appeared first on 51�Թ�.

We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.

March 7: Unity

Like many voices in the West, The Economist appears delighted by one of the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The title of a current article contains the self-congratulatory : “Russian aggression is prompting rare unity and severe reprisals.” The New York Times made the same point with its own more melodramatic . “In a few frantic days,” a trio of Times reporters wrote, “the West threw out the standard playbook that it had used for decades and instead marshaled a stunning show of unity against ��ܲ�������’s brutal aggression in the heart of Europe.”&�Բ�����;

Unity is stunning, and The Economist’s “severe reprisals” are the icing on the cake that demonstrate the West’s vaunted ability, according to The Times, to respond “on a global scale and with dizzying speed.” So why is beleaguered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now  about not getting the support he expected?

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The suffering of the Ukrainian people and their president’s complaints apparently haven’t dampened the West’s penchant for self-congratulation. Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, writing for The Washington Post, goes further in summing up US : “It’s too early to think in these terms, but a NATO that perhaps also has Sweden and Finland as members should be ready to invite both Ukraine and Russia to join.”&�Բ�����;

It’s the dream of every politician inside the Beltway and nearly everyone in Arlington and Langley: the evocation of a new Europe enthusiastically and harmoniously united under the US military leadership. Bildt nevertheless concludes on a note of appropriate humility and even a dose of realism: “But before we get there, much will happen, little of which we can foresee today.”

Harvard University also  the phenomenon, which it describes as “a much-needed wake-up call for Europe.” In the interest of offering some much-needed perspective, Harvard mobilized two serious thinkers for a panel discussion. The noted theorist and professor of international affairs, Stephen Walt, argued that “the war in Ukraine has in some respects dispelled a whole series of liberal illusions that misled many people during the post-Cold War period.”

This remark is particularly apt at a time when the entire US establishment, led by a Democratic administration that has been obsessed by the Russian threat since losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump, is currently using the power of the media to recreate a dangerously bellicose Cold War atmosphere.

Walt’s analysis dares to call into question the major assumptions inculcated by US media in its presentation of the stakes of the current crisis. He unveils some of the “liberal illusions” that other less charitable analysts might more appropriately call a case of systemic, voluntary blindness. Among the illusions he cites “the idea that a major war could never happen again in Europe, and that the spread of economic interdependence and the expansion of NATO would mean that ‘eventually all of Europe would be a vast zone of peace.’”

These were essentially acts of faith shared by every administration and promoted by the massive security state and military-industrial for the last 30 years. They stemmed from the neoliberal conviction that a stable American economy required a system based on subsidizing an industrial core focused on military technology that was also indirectly coupled with the consumer market. The military side, through the global presence of US armed forces, guaranteed unencumbered access to the resources required to produce the technology. The military also served as the initial outlet for the technology’s use.

This rational system supposedly respectful of free markets that was launched in the aftermath of World War II rapidly turned into a “liberal” version of a new version of state socialism with global reach. It imperceptibly acquired the attributes needed to build a modern hypertechnologized hegemon. 

Alas, its very scope and several of the mistakes it produced along the way made the formerly invisible model of state socialism visible to critics. It became increasingly clear that the institutions of a democratic nation had become dominated by a financial and political elite. They even had a name, “the 1%.” They banded together to fuel, manage and monitor the system they had put in place. Politics was redesigned to meet their needs rather than those of the people.

Liberal Orthodoxy at the Service of State Socialism

The world has seen three contrasting models of state socialism in the past century, as well as a fourth and highly aggressive one — fascism. That one was thankfully eliminated at the end of the Second World War, discredited for providing a model that was too in your face. Fascism’s focus on military technology and the media’s role in disseminating nationalistic propaganda nevertheless provided models that influenced the other versions of state socialism. The three other more solidly built models are those of the Soviet Union, the US and China.

The Soviet model ultimately failed because it was frozen into an ideology crafted in the 19^th century that took no account of an evolving world. The American model gradually took form, initially as a reaction to the particularly aggressive version of laissez-faire capitalism that emerged in the late 19^th century. Its taming began in the 20^th century with the anti-trust movement. 

Eschewing any form of collectivist ideology, the US model subtly and nearly invisibly imposed its collectivist nature through its understanding of the power of media and the birth of the “science” of public relations,  in the early decades of the 20^thcentury by Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays. These consultants worked in the darker shadows of the corridors of political and economic power. Unlike Marx and Lenin, they were cleverly prevented by their handlers from being seen on center stage as they honed the powerful ideology that undergirded the new American version of state socialism. They and their ideology remained too invisible to criticize.

The new ideology nevertheless didn’t go unnoticed. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky engaged a valiant effort to articulate criticism of it in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” And they did so with great precision. But their thesis focusing on the oppressive power of the media at the service of a corporate and governmental oligarchy became known only to a marginal segment of the population. 

The new ideology nevertheless didn’t go unnoticed. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky engaged a valiant effort to articulate criticism of it in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” And they did so with great precision. But their thesis focusing on the oppressive power of the media at the service of a corporate and governmental oligarchy became known only to a marginal segment of the population. The media it criticized predictably ignored it, ensuring the invisibility of the true structure of a system of state socialism. 

In traditional centralized power systems — and this is true in many nations even today — the lack of cultural influence of their media forces them to resort to direct censorship. In an evolved system in which the media has attained a superficial image of autonomy, government censorship serves no purpose because it can count on the media to self-censor. Indeed, any attempt to censor calls attention to what the government prefers people simply to ignore.

China has turned out to be a special case. With the Communist Party running the government, it is archetypically a socialist state. But it has learned some of the lessons provided by the US example, including the admiration of personal wealth stemming from the traditional Chinese celebration of prosperity.

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Because many Westerners have traditionally labeled Chinese culture “inscrutable,” American establishment strategists, attracted by the dynamics of the Chinese economy but repelled by its political culture, appear to be floundering about in their quest to categorize the evil they desperately want to see as the essence of a perceived powerful rival. It was easy for Americans to dismiss the Soviet Union as a relic of a 19^th-century worldview. In contrast, China’s state socialism is oriented toward the future, notably with its emphasis on technology and proactive concern with infrastructure. 

Moreover, in too many ways, China’s state socialism resembles the US version, which means criticizing China might invite self-criticism. Worse, instead of placing all its faith in the ruling class as the US does with its trickle-down economics, China factors into many of its policies the needs of the entire population. That, as Edward Bernays might remark, gives it a certain PR advantage.  

At the Harvard event, the Atlantic Council’s Benjamin Haddad represented a point of view more consistent with the optics of the US security state. But, in contrast with The Post’s editorialist, he noted that “something much deeper is happening in Europe that will have really long-term consequences.” He has dared to express the heterodox view that, instead of perceiving an increased need for NATO, Europe may now be calling into question its traditional acceptance of US leadership.

As such debates continue in the US, the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy appear to be losing patience with NATO and the US, who have expressed their undying love for the country while refusing to save it from a situation they created. They may be well placed to appreciate Stephen Walt’s observation that “powerful countries often do pretty horrible things when they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their security is being endangered.” The US and NATO are more worried about their own security than Ukraine’s. On that, they are in total agreement with Vladimir Putin.

Why Monitoring Language Is Important

Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.

In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.

Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.

Remember, 51�Թ�’s&�Բ�����;Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In a new for Foreign Affairs bearing the title, “Enemies of My Enemy: How Fear of China Is Forging a New World Order,” Beckley makes the case that having and sharing an easily identified enemy is the key to effective world government. The Cold War taught him that “the liberal order” has nothing to do with good intentions and being a force for good. Instead, it thrives on a strong dose of irrational fear that can be spread among friends.

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As the Republican presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush produced these immortal : “When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.” Probably unwittingly, Beckley echoes Bush’s wisdom. “Today, the liberal order is fraying for many reasons,” Beckley writes, “but the underlying cause is that the threat it was originally designed to defeat—Soviet communism—disappeared three decades ago.”&�Բ�����; Unlike the clueless Bush, Beckley now knows who the “they” is. It’s China.

History has moved on. China can now replace the Soviet Union as the star performer. Bush proposed Islamist terrorism as his coveted “them,” but that ultimately failed. The terrorists are still lurking in numerous shadows, but when President Biden withdrew the last American troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, he definitively delegitimized it as a threat worthy of spawning a new Cold War. And now, even while Russia is being touted as the best supporting actor, the stage is finally clear to push China into the limelight.

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Shared enemy:

A powerful nation whose negative image can be modeled by another powerful nation in such a way that its name alone inspires fear, to the point that it may be generously offered to governments of weaker nations on the pretext of forming a profitable alliance

Contextual Note

For Beckley, US hegemony needs China’s help. Now that the Middle Kingdom has now achieved the status of a high-profile enemy to be generously shared with obedient allies, the liberal order may thrive again, as it did during the Cold War. For Beckley, it is China, not Donald Trump, that will “make America great again.”

Some may find Beckley’s historical logic slightly skewed. He explains that the modern liberal order was “designed to defeat … Soviet communism.” If it was “designed,” what does he have to say about the designer? Who indeed could that have been, and what were their real motives? Could it have been the Dulles brothers, whose combined clout in the Dwight Eisenhower years allowed them to dictate US foreign policy? More alarmingly, Beckley seems to be suggesting that without a pretext for paranoia, the liberal order would not or could not exist.  

Beckley is probably right but for reasons he might not appreciate. The idea of needing an identifiable enemy stands as a purely negative justification of the liberal order. But Beckley has already dismissed the idea that it is all about bettering the world. He seems to underestimate the need ordinary Americans have to think of their country as a shining city on a hill, endowed with the most powerful military in the history of the world whose mission is not to maraud, destroy, displace populations and kill, but to intervene as a “force for good.”

It’s not as if social harmony was the norm in the United States. The one thing that prevents the country from descending into a chaos of consumer individualism, or from becoming a nation populated by angry Hobbesian egos intolerant of the behavior of other egos, is the ideology that Beckley denigrates but which politicians continue to celebrate: the “enlightened call to make the world a better place.” Americans would fall into a state of despair if they no longer believed that their exceptional and indispensable nation exists as an ideal for humanity.

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But recent events have begun to shake their faith in what now appears to be a manifestly not very egalitarian democracy. Increasingly oligarchic, if not plutocratic, American society remains “liberal” (i.e., free) for those who control the growing mountains of cash that visibly circulate among the elite but rarely trickle down to meet any real human needs.

As the defender of an idealized liberal order, Beckley is right to assume that, with so many factors undermining the American consensus, the cultivation of a shared enemy may be the necessary key to maintaining that order. Fear has always had the unique virtue of diverting attention from serious and worsening problems. Between income inequality, climate change and an enduring pandemic punctuated by contestable government mandates, people’s attention definitely needs to be diverted.

Historical Note

Michael Beckley is certainly very knowledgeable about China. He admires Chinese civilization and many of its accomplishments. He also believes a war between the United States and China is far from inevitable. Moreover, he is a realist. He admits that, as many people across the globe affirm, the US represents the biggest threat to world peace. At the same time, he “that the United States has the most potential to be the biggest contributor to peace.” He lucidly notes that “when the United States puts its weight behind something the world gets remade, for better or for worse.” But, having said this, he eludes the implicit moral question. If both the better and worse are possible, the rest of the world should be the ones to decide every time its reality is “remade” whether that remaking was for the better or the worse.

As Pew show, most people outside the US appear to believe that American initiatives across the globe over at least the past half-century have been predominantly for the worse. Beckley himself cites Iraq and Vietnam as egregious examples. But, ever the optimist, he sees in what he calls the ability of the “system of US alliances” to create “zones of peace” the proof that the worse isn’t as bad as some might think.

Beckley recognizes that alliances are not created out of generosity and goodwill alone. In his influential book, “Super-Imperialism,” the economist Michael Hudson describes the workings of what is known as the “Washington Consensus,” a system of economic and military control that, in the decades after World War II, managed, somewhat perversely, to miraculously transfer the immense burden of its own debt, generated by its military adventurism, to the rest of the world. The “Treasury-bill Standard,” an innovation President Richard Nixon called into being to replace the gold standard in 1971, played a major role. With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Hudson notes that “foreign governments were obliged to invest their surplus dollars in U.S. Treasury securities.” It was part of a complex financial, diplomatic and military system that forced US allies to finance American debt.

Beckley’s&�Բ�����; “zones of peace” are zones of dependence. Every country that participated in the system found itself forced to hold US Treasury bonds, including China. They thus had an interest in maintaining the stability of a system that dictated the flow of money across the globe. To a large extent, that is still the case. It explains why attempts to dethrone the dollar are systemically countered, sometimes violently through military action (as in Libya, to scotch Muammar Gaddafi’s for a pan-African currency).

None of that worries the eternal optimist Beckley, clearly a disciple of Voltaire’s Pangloss. He believes that — even while admitting the US has “wrecked the world in various ways” — its “potential” for peace trumps the reality of persistent war and that its “capability to make the world much more peaceful and prosperous” absolves it from the wreckage it has already produced. 

From a cultural point of view, Beckley is right. Americans always believe that what is “potential” trumps what is real and that “capability” effaces past examples of incapable behavior. That describes a central feature of American hyperreality.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post An Expert Explains Why We Need a New Cold War With China appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The  that Putin signed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping confirms their overlapping interests, their joint insistence on the right to do whatever they like within their own borders, and their disgust over the destabilizing nature of various US military actions.

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There’s much high-flown language in the statement about democracy, economic development and commitment to the Paris climate goals of 2015. But the timing of the statement suggests that it’s really about hard power. Putin didn’t travel all the way to Beijing and Xi didn’t meet with his first foreign leader in two years just to hammer out a general statement of principles. Putin wants China to have his back on Ukraine and is supporting Chinese claims over Taiwan and Hong Kong in return.

This isn’t an easy quid pro quo, given that the two countries have long had a wary relationship. In the past, Russia eyed China’s global economic ambitions with concern, and a  type of Russian conspiracy theorist worried about large numbers of Chinese moving into the underpopulated Russian Far East. Before Putin took over, China was uncomfortable with the political volatility of its northern neighbor. After Putin, Beijing was not happy with the Kremlin’s military escapades in its near abroad.

But that is changing. “For the first time in any of ��ܲ�������’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader,” Robin Wright  in The New Yorker. “China did not back ��ܲ�������’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized ��ܲ�������’s annexation of Crimea.”

The geopolitics of the new relationship between China and Russia is certainly important. But let’s take a look at what’s really fueling this new alliance. Quite literally.

Fossil Fuel Friendship

Inside the Arctic Circle, just across from the bleak military outpost of Novaya Zemlya, Russia has built the northernmost natural gas facility in the world: Yamal LNG. More than 200 wells have been drilled to tap into the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. Nuclear-powered icebreakers clear the port of Sabetta for liquefied natural gas tankers to transport the fuel to points south. Russia also plans to build a train line to ship what it expects to be 60 million tons of natural gas per year by 2030.

Russia can thank climate change for making it easier to access the deposits of natural gas. It can also thank China. Beijing owns about  of Yamal LNG. The Arctic is quite far away from China’s usual Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Yamal is also an increasingly perilous investment because  permafrost puts all that infrastructure of extraction at risk. But China needs huge amounts of energy to keep its economy growing at the rate the central government deems necessary.

That’s why so many of the BRI projects involving Russia are centered around fossil fuel. At the top of the list is the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which opened in 2019 to pump natural gas from the Russian Far East into China. A second such pipeline is under consideration, which  connect China to… Yamal LNG.

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At the moment, the natural gas from the Russian Arctic supplies consumers in Europe. With a second Power of Siberia pipeline, Russia could more easily weather a boycott from European importers. Yamal, by the way, is  under US sanctions, which has made Chinese financial backing even more essential. China is investing a total of $123.87 billion in the three phases of the Power of Siberia project, which is more than any other BRI oil and gas investment and four times what China on energy from Saudi Arabia.

But these are not the only Belt and Road connections between the two countries. Five of the top 10 BRI mining  are in Russia, including a $1.8 billion coal mining complex. China is also investing in an Arctic free trade zone and upgraded rail and road links between the two countries.

Let’s be clear: the bear and the dragon don’t see eye to eye on everything. As Gaye Christoffersen  in The Asan Forum: “China focused on infrastructural projects useful for importing Russian natural resources, while Russia focused on developing industries in resource processing. The two sides failed to reach a consensus. Later, China insisted, as a Near-Arctic state, on equal partnership in developing the Northern Sea Route, while Russia demanded respect for its sovereignty and rejected China’s Arctic claims. They are still in disagreement despite joint efforts.”

But the basic relationship remains: Russia has energy to sell and China is an eager buyer. In a side deal that coincided with their recent Olympic statement, for instance, China agreed to purchase $117.5 billion worth of oil and gas. “Rosneft, ��ܲ�������’s largest oil producer, announced a new agreement to supply 100 million tons of crude through Kazakhstan to the Chinese state company China National Petroleum Corporation over the next ten years—while the Russian energy giant Gazprom pledged to ship 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China through a new pipeline,”&�Բ�����; Frederick Kempe at the Atlantic Council. Talk about greasing the wheels of cooperation.

A Future Eastern Alliance?

Putin hasn’t given up on Europe. He still has friends in Victor Orban’s Hungary and Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbia. Europe remains the biggest market for Russian oil and gas. And both NATO and the European Union continue to attract the interest of countries on Russian borders, which means that the Kremlin has to pay close attention to its western flank.

But the Ukraine crisis, even if it doesn’t devolve into war, could represent a turning point in contemporary geopolitics.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a great deal in common. They are both nationalists who derive much of their public legitimacy not from an abstract political ideology, but from their appeals to homeland. They have a mutual disgust for the liberalism of human rights and checks on government power. Despite their involvement in various global institutions, they firmly believe in a sovereignist position that puts no constraints on what they do within the borders of their countries.

But perhaps the most operationally important aspect of their overlapping worldviews is their approach to energy and climate.

Both China and Russia are nominally committed to addressing climate change. They have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, though they both resort to some dodgy accounting to offset their actual emissions and meet their Paris commitments. China is more serious in terms of installing renewable energy infrastructure, with solar, wind and other sources responsible for  of power generation. ��ܲ�������’s commitment to renewable energy at this point is .

But both remain wedded to fossil fuels. It’s a matter of economic necessity for Russia as the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second-largest exporter of petroleum and the third-largest exporter of coal. Fossil fuels  for over 60% of the country’s exports in 2019; oil and gas alone provide well over a third of the federal budget. All of this is in jeopardy because a good number of ��ܲ�������’s customers are trying to wean themselves of fossil fuel imports to cut their carbon emissions and to decrease their dependency on the Kremlin.

But not China. Despite its considerable investments into renewable energy, Beijing is still a huge consumer of fossil fuels. Chinese  for natural gas has been rising for the last few years and won’t peak until 2035, which is bad news for the world but good news for the Russian gas industry. Oil consumption, which is more than twice that of natural gas and is rising more slowly, will  in 2030.

Coal is still China’s largest source of energy. “Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined,” according to . “A�� of 2020, coal made up 56.8 percent of China’s energy use.” In 2020, as Alec MacGillis points out in a New Yorker , China built three times more power-generating infrastructure from coal than the rest of the world combined, and it continues to mine staggering amounts of the stuff. Despite all the domestic production, however, China still relies on imports. Because of trade tensions with Australia — the world’s second-largest exporter of coal after Indonesia — China has increasingly  to Russia to meet demand.

In other words, Russia and China are positioning themselves to use as much fossil fuel and emit as much carbon as they can in the next two decades to strengthen their economies and their hegemonic power in their adjacent spheres—and before international institutions acquire the resolve and the power to hold countries to their carbon reduction promises.

Yes, other countries are slow to abandon fossil fuels. The United States, for instance, relies increasingly on  for electricity generation to compensate for a marked reduction in the use of coal. Japan remains heavily  on oil, natural gas and coal. So, Russia and China are not unique in their attachment to these energy sources.

But if the world’s largest  of fossil fuels teams up with one of the world’s largest producers, it doesn’t just discomfit NATO generals and the trans-Atlantic establishment. It should worry anyone who believes that we still have a chance to prevent runaway climate change by 2050.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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I’m boycotting these games in Beijing. Doing so does not come easy for me. As a life-long sports enthusiast, I have always looked forward to the Olympics. Watching the world’s preeminent athletes compete on the world stage and rooting for my own national team and others who seem to defy the oddsmakers never failed to excite me. As a kid, I even once dreamed of becoming an Olympic competitor myself. (Alas, my 1.7-meter frame was simply not up to the task of throwing the shot put or discus on the world, or any other, stage!)

Why Democratic Nations Must Boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics

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Here in the United States, NBC television is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, devoting at least six hours per day of coverage. Traditionally, its broadcasts dominate the ratings as Americans gather in front of their TV sets and computer and phone screens to watch and cheer on US athletes. I will be cheering on our athletes, too. But I won’t be watching.

The IOC’s Charter

I will not watch these games because they betray the very values enshrined in the IOC’s&�Բ�����; and its definition of “Olympism.” That is, it “seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” It further states its goal “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

Based on its charter, the IOC should have flatly denied China’s petition to host the 2022 Winter Games. How could the IOC have been so blind to its values in awarding the games to Beijing? How was it possible to allow China to host the Olympic Games when the government of the People’s Republic of China has systematically persecuted, incarcerated, shackled and tortured up to 2 million Uyghurs, sterilized their women and sought to snuff out their Muslim faith? Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority, Turkic-speaking people, have inhabited China’s western Xinjiang province for at least 1,000 years.

But the suffering of the Uyghurs at the hands of an overbearing, intolerant Beijing isn’t a one-off. The Chinese have been doing largely the same thing for decades to the people of Tibet, effectively carrying out a campaign of cultural genocide.

Several years ago, the world again witnessed China’s notion of “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Beijing-directed henchmen attacked the people and institutions of Hong Kong, decimating the last vestiges of democracy in the enclave. The government has been arresting and trying any and all opponents, dissidents, and human rights advocates unwilling to buckle under Beijing’s iron-fisted, authoritarian order.

More recently, the world has observed Beijing turn its aggression to the island of Taiwan, the lone democratic outpost today within China’s one-party, one-man “A��ian Reich.” Taiwan presents an unquestionably complex and difficult issue. But the inhabitants of Taiwan have embraced democracy and the freedoms that come with it. Resolving Beijing’s differences with the island and its people with menacing and aggressive behavior — dozens of mass warplane , repeated threats and belligerent bombast — cannot possibly lead to a solution. Rather, a threatened invasion of the island would not only likely crush its democracy, but also inject enormous instability in Asia and torpedo the global economy in a manner unseen since World War II.

To the IOC, however, none of this mattered. Its president, Thomas Bach, and even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres traveled to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the games with nary a word about China’s abysmal human rights policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Tibet. Instead, the IOC wants to see another “successful” games, which typically means an Olympics that makes money. Lots of it.

The IOC, NBC and Sponsors

Enter the American media giant, NBC. For exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2023, the network has paid the IOC $7.75 billion. That comes out to roughly $1.8 billion for the Beijing Games alone, or about 20% of the cost of the games. Tragically, revenues trump rights for China and for the IOC.

One would think that with that kind of leverage, NBC and the IOC’s numerous  and advertisers — globally recognized names like Allianz, Toyota, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Intel, Proctor & Gamble, Visa, Samsung and others — would have stood up to the IOC, explaining the harm to their brands of awarding the games to Beijing.

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And what about NBC itself? The Chinese government has imposed restrictions on journalists covering the games. The sort of 360-type coverage that is traditionally featured in its coverage of the Olympics — not just the events themselves but also the athletes, their lives and backgrounds, the host country and its people — is being severely . One Dutch journalist has already experienced China’s intolerance, having been  away while reporting live on camera.

Are the dollar earnings so great that NBC will sacrifice its journalistic ethics and responsibilities, all while other members of the profession  under Beijing’s crackdown on truth and free journalism?

China is not Nazi Germany. But Germany in 1936 was not yet the depraved hell of human suffering — the tens of millions of destroyed lives of Jews, Slavs, Roma and so many others — that it would become under Nazi rule. But we might have seen it, given the way the Nazis and Adolf Hitler engaged in over-the-top self-promotion and outward, sensational displays of Aryan superiority and Nazi rule.

The IOC, NBC and their many sponsors and advertisers have given China center stage to arrogantly parade and shamelessly hawk its own brand of unyielding, intolerant authoritarian rule. In China, the power of the state, its ruling Communist Party and great leader, XI Jinping, vitiate Olympism’s concepts of “social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “basic human dignity.”

If they won’t recognize this contemptible undertaking for what it is, I will. I will miss the world’s best athletes and the great ritual of the world coming together for 17 days to celebrate individual struggle and achievement. I won’t be watching these Winter Olympic Games.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War

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White, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, tends to a policy of national accommodation regarding China and its apparent inexorably growing influence in all aspects of world affairs. Therefore, he has not found a trip-wire that generates bolder positioning against Chinese activities and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), takes the position that Australia needs to have trip-wires with China and that Canberra should show early robustness to demonstrate it will take action to protect its current way of existence.

Two Schools

The accommodation and assertion schools of thought both have valid components.

When China’s policy shift over Australia became publicly apparent, the accommodation school urged the Australian government to exercise caution and demanded ministerial contact to remedy the financial damage done to export income by Beijing. Negligible attention was paid to other demonstrations of Chinese influence and control exerted through Australian institutions, notably via universities, despite the strength of evidence published by the ASPI and by researchers such as Clive Hamilton in his 2018 book, “.” Concern about the economic consequences declined, with exporters finding alternative markets following the May 2020 Chinese sanctions through their market . This leaves the main line of opinion focusing on various thresholds for tougher Australian policy toward China and analysis of the intent of the United States and its own ability to deal with Beijing.

For the assertion school, Australia’s policy needs to be clear and firm, with more elaborate military arrangements with like-minded countries to deter China and politically strengthen the international system. The favorable rules-based order continues to provide the for cooperation between the European Union, the US and countries in South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

With pushback against China, its approach is likely to shift from growing its appeal to pressing its influence. A 2021 by the European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC) about the standing of Beijing’s soft-power and influence in 17 European countries shows that European states are disinclined to listen to China and actively deny it leverage from its soft-power investments and economic importance.

Our response to China will have to both measure against those of other international friends and press ahead where it must. But it will also draw on nationally coalescing factors that create an acceptable and comprehensible foundation for national resistance.

Australia is not mono-cultural, nor has it the satisfaction of a core religious, ethnic or aspirational identity. Additionally, it has weak internal cohesion on common values that can mobilize national efforts to project influence sufficient to comfort the country about its security.

Looking at “Sacred Values”

“” are not only what drives people and groups into, for example, collective defense or violent extremism. They also drive people in negotiations to settle conflicts. Sacred values, those generally not tradeable against pecuniary or operational sustainment, will drive Australian policy on China. Such values include the conception of human rights, the role of the individual within society, liberty and the rule of law, and political participation in setting laws.

When asked to trade-off sacred values in a deal with a peace dividend, research shows that people typically react with a hostile “backfire effect,” plus an increased commitment to these sacred values, in addition to higher potential for protective violence or preparation for it. Researchers Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges evidence for this.

The role of sacred values is applicable to all regions and levels of discord and has been so demonstrated in experiments. Sacred values are also layered, in that limited trade-offs for assured security can take place — depending on the nature of the threat, of course. Dismissal of sacred values fails.

Sacred values relate to group emotion and identity and are used by political leaders to mobilize their constituents to shape acceptance of policy changes and action. This point is made clear in the 2019 by Barry Richards, “The Psychology of Politics,” which uses psychoanalytic ideas to show how fear and passion shape the political sphere in changing societies and cultures. The use of “sacred values” language also discredits adversaries during political debate. This may well later befall Australian business lobbies because sacred values arguably matter more than money.

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When our government uses sacred values rhetoric, it will incite what researcher calls a “valorisation effect,” whereby the political leader using sacred rhetoric is seen as principled and determined. There can be no other way to respond to the breadth of the challenges posed by the China issue.

Jennings says the China threat is not tolerable on a structural and national autonomy basis. White implies that the China threat is tolerable on the basis of trade, income and employment and that we should adapt to its new geopolitical environment.

This debate is not yet settled in the Australian political world. There are many other issues in play. For example, what do Australia’s Southeast Asian friends think? Are Australia’s European allies thinking along the same basic lines? But we will get to use sacred values sooner than we expect. This is because China has not indicated that it intends to cease or decrease its foreign policy activity, which is seen by many states as both malignant and dangerous.

Research on “sacred values” in political negotiations shows that a lack of outcome options, inappropriate negotiating procedures and poor recognition of emotions set in a context where sacred values are in play typically cause poor results. China’s diplomatic rhetoric and methods directed at Australia embody these factors.

How will a possible future shift in Australia’s foreign policy position, as a result of Chinese pressure, be seen by the public and presented by the political class, especially if there are sacred values involved? Nichole Argo and Jeremy Ginges about the management of this question in their essay titled, “Beyond Impasse.”

As the China debate continues, we can ask these questions: What are the current declared values we attach to foreign policy regarding China? Are the values “today’s values” or are they values linked to future goals, thereby allowing their adjustment by political leaders in the course of circumstance? Can we concede to China on one value alone, and would doing so be a tool to protect other values?

Clarification

The Australia/China question has further evolving factors to watch. We need to observe the rhetorical framing and content of any future dialogue with China and assess this not only against our values and interests, but also against the set we assess to be held by our allies in their dealings with Beijing. How are the indicators of Australia’s sense of self and identity being used or indeed being created by our political and public leaders? In view of the world economy, our region and our needs, what appears to being traded-off in caution toward China? Is our strategy on China nationally or sectorally driven? If sectorally, what is the level of reference to sacred values in the promotion of, for example, education exports over responses to China’s territorial and political acquisitiveness in the Pacific?

So far, Australia does not have a clear path and must choose between one of two directions: trade and money or values. The choice is clarifying. The big issue for the government is to create a wider and convincing range of responses to China. To do so means consolidating a national position around how hard to pin down Australian values. This matter deserves attention. It requires the absorption by Australia’s various identity communities of a robust set of values and principles that commonly define the country and its citizens’ rights, responsibilities and expectations.

So far, the policy over China has largely been reserved for expert strategists. For a nationally effective response to the threat of an unfavorable fundamental change in circumstances caused by China, sacred values need to be found, clarified and called on as required to bolster policy resolve.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The choice is straightforward. Boycotting the Games in Beijing offers a rare, peaceful and relatively painless opportunity to send an unmistakable signal of disapproval to the Chinese elite, the people and the world at large.

China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War

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In 1979, the city of Philadelphia entered a sister city relationship with Tianjin, China. Things have changed since those heady days for US-China relations, when every concession was offered to induce a weak, isolated and impoverished China to join the community of nations that abide by the rules of international law, trade and commerce. At the time, the hope was that China would introduce reforms and liberalize its economy and polity.

This turned out to be wishful thinking. Rulers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have shown time and again that their main interest is strengthening their rule, revising the international order in their favor, suppression at home and aggression abroad.

Sounding the Alarm

Finally paying heed to the mounting evidence of an aggressive China bent on global dominance, the US administrations led by Donald Trump and Joe Biden labeled China the number-one national security . 

China’s actions and ambitions alarm and unite an otherwise deeply polarized US Congress. Growing numbers of China’s neighbors and other countries around the world are joining hands to reduce Beijing’s malign influence on international institutions before it is too late. As Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,  in March, “The Chinese Communist Party presents an unprecedented threat to not only U.S. values and interests, but also to the free and open international system characterized by individual freedom and the rule of law — something the United States has carefully built over seven decades.”

So, it is interesting that on October 27, a hundred days before the start of the Winter Olympics in February, China’s consul general in New York, Huang Ping, took out a full-page ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer (“Together for a Shared Future”) and the deputy consul general, Qian Jin, wrote a letter to the editor (“Meet in Beijing for 2022 Winter Olympics”). It is a safe bet that other major American news outlets also received similar appeals to boost awareness and attendance at the upcoming Games.

From 1936 to 2022

China’s anxiety to host a successful Winter Olympics is understandable. Consider the 1936 Summer Olympics, which was awarded to Germany in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler rose to power. Predictably, Nazi Germany used the Games for propaganda purposes, promoting an image of a new, strong, united Germany while masking the regime’s policies of racial supremacy, anti-Semitism and growing militarism.

Eager to impress, Hitler built a new 100,000-seater, track-and-field stadium and six gymnasiums. In the tense, politically charged atmosphere of 1936, the International Olympic Committee, fearing a mass boycott, pressed the German government and received assurances that qualified Jewish athletes could participate and that the Games would not be used to promote Nazi ideology. (These assurances, of course, were largely ignored.) The boycott movement narrowly failed, handing Hitler his propaganda coup and legitimizing his regime domestically and internationally, with 49 nations participating.

China would like to enjoy similar success, hoping that the world will focus on the shiny object (12 new competition venues) and ignore the brutality of the CCP’s single-party rule. But objections are being raised.

On July 27, the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a  on corporate sponsorship of the Games, questioning representatives from Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Intel, Visa and Procter & Gamble. Senator Jeff Merkley, the commission’s chair, said, “Holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in China and allowing its authoritarian government to reap the rewards in its prestige and propaganda of hosting this globally-beloved event does not uphold the Olympic spirit.”&�Բ�����;Merkley is right.  

China Will Not Cooperate

Still, some argue that engagement with China is the best path forward and that we need Beijing’s cooperation on issues of mutual interest, such as pandemic control and climate change. The folly of this view is exposed by China’s stonewalling of an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19; Beijing refuses to provide samples, records, and personnel. Hopes of figuring out how to prevent future, potentially even more catastrophic pandemics remain just that: hopes.

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Likewise, do not expect help on climate change from China, the world’s biggest polluter. Voicing his opposition to the US strategy of competing with China in some areas but keeping an “oasis” for climate cooperation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi , “surrounding the oasis is a desert, and the oasis could be desertified very soon.” In other words, even on a matter as fundamental as the planet’s future, China intends to push forward with its Sinocentric worldview, no matter the consequences for humanity’s welfare.

The fact is that the CCP has used China’s immense economic, technological, military and diplomatic power not in ways that help its 1.4 billion citizens achieve political freedom or to work constructively with other countries. Beijing intends to perpetuate the CCP’s single-party rule, violate international agreements (the takeover of Hong Kong) and laws (militarization of the South China Sea), commit atrocities in Xinjiang, bully Taiwan and export to other countries its toxic surveillance-state model of controlling its own citizens.

We must not repeat the tragic mistake of 1936. We must deny the CCP the undeserved honor of hosting the Games. We must demand a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Taiwan Becomes a Point of Strategic Ambiguity

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While President Joe Biden said in an October town hall that the US was committed to defending Taiwan, his administration later walked back his statement as it clashed with Washington’s official policy of strategic ambiguity vis-à-vis Taipei. Strategic ambiguity, or not publicly declaring how the United States would react in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, has guided US-Taiwan relations for over 40 years.

The policy has recently come under scrutiny as relations between Tapei and Beijing continue to deteriorate and as the prospect of an invasion, according to some analysts, becomes more likely.

Chinese Ambitions

Admiral Philip Davidson, who led the US Indo-Pacific Command until April, in March to the Senate Armed Services Committee that annexing Taiwan is “clearly one of [China’s] ambitions” and that the threat will likely materialize within six years. Taiwan’s defense ministry last month that Beijing would be able to launch an attack against the island with minimal losses by 2025.

Despite sending nearly , alongside nuclear-capable bombers and anti-submarine aircraft, into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone in early October, coinciding with the anniversary of the declaration of the People’s Republic of China, President Xi Jinping said that Beijing was committed to pursuing peaceful unification with Taiwan. According to John Culver, a former CIA analyst, Xi has framed unification as a requisite to achieving the “China Dream” by 2049, that Xi may take risks that his predecessors would not in order to secure unification.

Taiwan is likely not prepared for a Chinese invasion. It spends just over $11.5 million on defense. This, as former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger , is an amount similar to that of Singapore, which has a population a quarter of the size of Taiwan’s and lacks the existential threat facing Taipei. Pottinger added that Taiwan neglected national defense for the first 15 years of the 21^st century, spending too much on equipment that would be quickly destroyed in an invasion.

The readiness of its military was also called into question by a Wall Street Journal published last month reporting low-quality basic training and a widespread unwillingness to defend the island. The article quoted US Marine Colonel Grant Newsham as stating that while Taiwan’s military has well-trained troops and “,” it lacks adequate funding and could benefit from more training with the US and its allies. The Wall Street Journal also reported that many Taiwanese expect the US to intervene in case of kinetic military action by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

While the US supports Taiwan through arms sales, it remains committed to strategic ambiguity. Instead, the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, a document declassified near the end of President Donald Trump’s tenure, recommends that the United States “e�Բ������� Taiwan to develop an effective asymmetric defense strategy and capabilities that will help ensure its security, freedom from coercion, resilience, and ability to engage China on its own terms.”

While the framework has not been formally implemented, the Biden administration has not replaced the document, and officials within the administration have acknowledged a degree of continuation of Trump-era policies vis-à-vis China and Taiwan.

Constant Reminder

As Washington readies itself for escalation with Beijing, others are less convinced that rising tensions between China and Taiwan will result in violence. Project 2049 research associate Eric Lee, for instance, that the threat is “nothing new,” and that the growing perception of China as a threat to the United States is what has led to greater alarm regarding Taiwanese-Chinese relations.

According to , former head of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China’s aim is to prevent Taiwanese independence, not to seek forceful unification. She adds that every leader since Mao Zedong has projected determination to unify Taiwan with the mainland, and that while some Chinese have come to believe that time is no longer on China’s side and that it should use force to compel unification, Xi has resisted such pressures. The latest five-year plan that came into effect in 2021 describes China’s policy vis-à-vis Taiwan as a “peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”

Those who believe that China is unlikely to use kinetic action against Taiwan think that it will instead pursue unification using economic and political means. Taiwan is heavily reliant on China’s economy: Beijing is Taipei’s , which gives the mainland leverage over the island. China has isolated Taiwan by pressuring countries not to sign free trade agreements with Taipei and has pushed for the island’s exclusion from the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, two major trade agreements in the Indo-Pacific Region.

China has also restricted tourism to Taiwan and has pressured international businesses to label the island as a Chinese province. Taiwan also faces a brain drain to China as hundreds of thousands of well-educated Taiwanese opt to work on the mainland instead of their home country, with Chinese firms offering the wages available on the island.

Glaser argues that China’s goal is to “constantly remind” the Taiwanese of its increasing power to instill a pessimism about Taiwan’s future and deepen cleavages within its political system. While pursuing unification through this gradual, nonviolent approach will likely take longer than kinetic action would, it will also be less costly and risky for the Chinese government.

As tensions between Taiwan and China grow, the possibility of a Chinese invasion is considered by some as more imminent than ever before. Taiwan’s military is not prepared for kinetic action against the PLA, and calls to assist Taiwan by increasing arms sales and conducting joint exercises with its military are consequently growing in the US.

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However, not everyone is convinced that the Chinese government will pursue unification through violent means. Some argue instead that Beijing is more likely to use economic and political coercion to achieve unification. Regardless of the means, the Chinese government will likely continue to pursue unification with Taiwan as it is a crucial step toward the Chinese government’s future dreams.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Liberalism was supposed to reign supreme. In the grand battle of ideas, Marx had lost out, Hegel had won — or so his American acolyte, Francis Fukuyama, claimed. Fukuyama proclaimed that the “end of history” was at hand, and the cognoscenti and would-be cognoscenti on both sides of the Atlantic enthusiastically applauded.

COVID-19 Is a Wake-Up Call on the Shortcomings of Globalization

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Three decades later, the world is in disarray. The attacks of September 11 were a drastic reminder that not everybody was sold on Fukuyama’s utopia. The financial crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers and, with it, the house of cards built on a derivatives market that had spun out of control exposed the irrationality of rational behavior — taking more and more risks simply because everybody else did so. Finally, COVID-19 has demonstrated how quickly the beautiful world of ever-expanding consumer choices, sustained by cheap labor in remote parts of the world, can grind to a screeching halt.

Benign Hegemon

It is too early to tell whether or not global turbulences have reached a point of no return. The prospects are not great, and that has a lot to do with the United States. There is a strong sense that �������������’s , which it assumed after World War II, is on the wane and, with it, the country’s “commitment to promoting a liberal international order.” Or, perhaps, the United States suffers from a severe case of “” and no longer wants to play the role of the “benign hegemon.”

The notion of the benign hegemon is derived from hegemonic stability theory, popular among some experts in international relations. The theory posits that order and stability in world affairs crucially depend on a Great Power capable of sustaining them and willing to do so. As , of the Wharton School, has recently put it, “A stable, open economy requires a hegemon, a dominant power who can provide some of the necessary public goods, absorb costs, and order the system.”

Although this pertains particularly to international economic relations, it can be applied to other areas, such as international security. Order and stability require, among other things, that the hegemonic power and underwrite the rules that define and govern the interactions between states in the international system. This was the case in the second half of the 19^th century when Great Britain assumed this role, providing and guaranteeing global public goods such as free trade, capital mobility and the British pound, backed up by the gold standard, as the global reserve currency.

The system came to an end with World War I. The conflict left Britain weakened and largely unable to reassume its prewar role. The interwar period was characterized by turmoil and crises, paving the way for the rise of autocratic regimes, committed to establishing a new order on the ruins of the old one. They accomplished the latter, but the new order was not theirs to create. The new hegemonic power that emerged from the war was not Hitler’s Germany but the United States, which filled the void left by an exhausted Great Britain.

This was anything but a natural transition. In fact, for most of the interwar period, the United States had refused to get entangled in international affairs. �������������’s retreat from internationalism after World War I was epitomized by Congress’s refusal to join the League of Nations — and that despite the fact that the league had been the brainchild of US President Woodrow Wilson.

Isolationism went hand in hand with protectionism. Throughout the 19^th century and way into the beginning of the 20^th, the United States boasted some of the highest tariffs in the world. The culmination was the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which had a devastating impact on international trade and contributed to the Great Depression. It was not until the United States entered the war against Nazi Germany that it assumed the role commensurate to its position as the economically and militarily by far strongest power in the world.

Alternative Options

The failure of the most recent G20 meeting in Rome to arrive at a meaningful common position on global warming and climate change ahead of the COP26 in Glasgow is further proof that the United States is no longer in a position to fill this role. Instead of leading, President Joe Biden China and Russia “for any disappointment over the level of commitment by G20 leaders to fight climate change.” This is not to deny that Biden has a point. But given the enormity of the impact climate change is bound to have on the natural environment and life on this planet, it is little more than an exercise in passing responsibility.

Biden’s remark, however, does address a serious issue, namely the role of China in a rapidly changing world. A few weeks ago, Chinese coal production reached new historic highs, amounting to an estimated 4 billion tons for this year. Accelerated coal production is supposed to alleviate energy shortages that have threatened to slow down the country’s growth. Unfortunately, emissions-wise, coal happens to be one of the worst sources of energy.

A on the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on coastal areas predicts catastrophic devastation as a result of rising sea levels for some of the world’s megacities, particularly in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China — all major coal consumers. Given the concentration of China’s population in a string of coastal cities, one might assume that it has a particular interest in combating climate change. In theory, this would entail an active involvement in global governance, a proposition that China has been more than reluctant to embrace, presumably because it would entail directly challenging the United States.  

At the same time, however, China has launched major initiatives, such as the foundation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and particularly the . Together with China’s massive engagement in Africa, these projects leave the impression that they are part of a comprehensive drive designed to establish China as an alternative to the United States.

This might herald the emergence of a new system, no longer dominated by one power but multipolar, and certainly very different from the one established after World War II. For, as Princeton’s John Ikenberry has a few years ago, “there is no liberal internationalism without American and western hegemony — and that age is ending.” With the decline of the United States and the parallel rise of China, countries to “seek alternative patrons rather than remain dependent on Western largess and support.”

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The end result might very well be a bifurcated world order, on the heels of a period of instability and turmoil, or what have called a “G-Zero” world, one without clear leadership and global cooperation. Bifurcation means the coexistence of competing systems that follow fundamentally different rules. This can already be observed in the realm of economic governance.

Olga Petricevic and David Teece have recently of a “noticeable defiance of the principles of classical economic liberalism and the rule-of-law” by Russia and China. The Chinese “alternative model of governance,” they note, “is deploying coordinated protectionist trade and investment policies and government intervention aimed at accessing and acquiring foreign intellectual property, thereby influencing the global economic and innovation system.” Its success is likely to inspire imitation and attempts to jump on the bandwagon, resulting not only in bifurcation but in polarization reminiscent of the Cold War period.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The West Struggles to Understand China’s Common Prosperity

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As Merchant reports, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center has launched a media campaign “to inform business executives, academics and local and state government officials about the risks of accepting Chinese investment or expertise in key industries.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Chinese investment:

A source of capital that intelligence experts believe may even surpass the capacity of US investment to produce evil effects in the world

Contextual Note

Thanks to the testimony of before Congress, even previously unsuspecting senators now appear aware of the formidable capacity of US companies like Facebook to use the immense power of their monopolistic position and their manipulation of the data they collect to disrupt society, distort politics in a democracy and poison people’s lives. Members of Congress have vowed to discipline, if not dismantle, Facebook. Whether they ever consider that Facebook’s case may be evidence of a broader problem that may extend to the government itself remains to be seen, but it seems highly unlikely that they will make that effort.

The intelligence community and the AP now want us to understand that, where data is concerned, there is a far bigger problem: China. In the past, Americans welcomed Chinese investment in the US. It boosted the economy, created jobs and promoted innovation. All that has changed. They now understand that Chinese investors in the US and Chinese tech workers hired by US companies have only one thing in mind: stealing American intellectual property. 

Thanks in part to the Facebook scandal, many Americans for the first time seem dimly aware of the danger to their well-being posed by giant organizations that control data. These tech giants wield the power to imperil the stability of society as a whole and the individuals who compose it. But because Americans distrust governments more than corporate greed, they logically fear any government that does what Facebook is doing. At the same time, they naively assume that if Facebook and Google are doing it, their government is not doing exactly the same thing, often in collusion with the private firms. 

On the other hand, everyone knows that the Chinese government is doing it, albeit not to make a profit for shareholders but to respond to the needs of its population and consolidate its own power. For Americans, it is far more patriotic to allow private companies to manipulate markets, silently deploy invisible algorithms and deviously extract from an unwitting population the wealth that will enable one of today’s struggling tech billionaires to become a centibillionaire tomorrow. In fact, the US does both.  

Facebook, Google and Amazon clearly have become data-rich powerhouses because, unlike governments, they have never been distracted by the potential social benefit of their products. They focus on financial profit. They may seek to limit the amount of visible harm they do to protect their brand. But the certainty of profit always trumps an incalculable risk of harm. Google admitted this when it finally let go of its , “Don’t be evil.”

The focus on profit allowed these companies to become the uncontested leaders in the domain of data production, manipulation and control. Americans tend to see the fact of endowing private enterprises with a monopoly on harmful activity as the definition of freedom. The firms are free to make a profit, and the general population is free to access their software, apparently free of charge. The consumers pay by invisibly and, therefore, painlessly providing the data that turn them into virtual but voluntary slaves of the tech giants’ sophisticated commercial system. Could anyone imagine a more efficient system? Slaves who don’t find reason to complain work harder.

Compare that with the Chinese model. There are some real similarities between the two. Those who hold power in both cases see the system as an effective means of supervising vast populations and influencing behavior. But the Chinese government is less interested in provoking specific behaviors designed purely for profit. Consistent with Chinese culture, even while consolidating control, the government is guided by the ideal of harmony. It may be authoritarian, but Westerners are wrong to call such a system totalitarian. Just as Americans believe profit is the key to economic development, the Chinese rally around the idea that what is done in the name of harmony is good.

The real difference between the two models lies in the basic motivation. One seeks stability, even at the price of constraint. The other, in the name of freedom, seeks to provoke a form of instability that stimulates consumption and, ideally, addiction. One begins by considering the collective needs of an entire society. The other focuses on the needs of individuals who can afford the price.

Historical Note

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center appears to be preaching for the decoupling not just of the Chinese economy from the US, but of Chinese culture altogether. It nevertheless offers this half-hearted disclaimer: “While the center does not intend to tell officials to reject Chinese investment, it will encourage efforts to control intellectual property and implement security measures.” But the message is clear: Get them damn foreigners out of here. It targets not just investors, but also workers and students.

This complaint is not new. The idea Americans have of Chinese history is that after offering the world silk, gunpowder and tea, China has contributed nothing to the global economy and only seeks to profit from the dynamism of Western economies. China cynically waited for innovative entrepreneurs in the US to produce wonders and then devised a plan to imitate or simply steal those wonders.

The foundational belief held by most Americans turns around the belief that private property is sacred and applies even to language (copyright) and abstract ideas (intellectual property). This is something of a historical innovation, but it contains some serious flaws.

The most obvious flaw in the reasoning has appeared in the saga concerning COVID-19 vaccines. In 2020, Bill Gates led the successful campaign to give priority to protecting the intellectual property generously attributed to pharmaceutical companies over any project seeking to protect the global population. It followed the principle of serving those who can afford it and rewarding those who monopolize intellectual property rights. This policy has led to a prolonged succession of new waves of the pandemic due to predictable mutations.

The AP article mentions “indictments alleging theft of sensitive U.S. information on behalf of China, including vaccine research and autonomous vehicle technology” as examples of the Chinese threat. Some of the millions of people who have died of COVID-19 and many more whose lives or livelihoods have been upset by the pandemic might have deemed the supposed theft of vaccine research a virtuous act — and not only because it was public money that paid for vaccine development.

The other example cited, concerning autonomous electric vehicles, is also illustrative, since the rapid phasing out of cars running on fossil fuel could possibly serve to attenuate an ongoing climate disaster that threatens everyone.

According to the standards of Western law and culture, China is clearly guilty of theft on all counts. But Western media has some serious work to do if we are to avoid a new Cold War. The hope that China will evolve into a Western-style social democracy is as misplaced as it was in Iraq or Afghanistan. The BBC demonstrates a than AP when it helps its readers to understand that “China celebrates ‘harmony’ (hexie) as a ‘socialist value.’” This echoes the permanence of Confucian culture that BBC glosses over as an “ethical system that combined hierarchy, where people would know their place in society, with benevolence, the expectation that those in superior positions would look after their inferiors.”

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Europe experimented with the idea of benevolent dictatorship in the 18^th century and failed, before evolving toward social democracy, more than two centuries and two world wars later. China hasn’t failed yet. Given time, it might evolve to become a social democracy. So might the US.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War appeared first on 51�Թ�.

This security complex is the reason for the increasingly authoritarian tactics employed by the CCP, including the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang intended to suppress Uighur separatism, and the creation of the in the world to function alongside an Orwellian to control citizens at microlevel.

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The idea is simple: If the CCP controls everything and everyone, then security can always be guaranteed. Within China, this is mostly true. To the best of our knowledge, there have not been any major terrorist attacks within China in recent years, the economy has slowed but not halted, and there are no major social movements or actors who can contest the CCP’s authority. Brutal and authoritarian, the Chinese system of social fascism seems to have achieved its goals.

Security Means Control, Control Means Security

However, problems arise when China attempts to apply this absolute control to foreign policy. When eight Chinese nationals were by Zambia’s police force in 2017 as part-time officers, the strategy of exporting China’s authoritarian domestic policy seemed apparent. Zambia is home to major Chinese investment and a sizeable diaspora, prompting Beijing to attempt to exert control over it to ensure security following the same logic used on the mainland.

Zambians reacted with outrage, drawing parallels to European colonization. Ultimately, the officers were forced to , prompting Beijing to get more creative about how it imposes power so as not to cause backlash again.

Without a physical police presence on the ground, artificial intelligence provided the answer to Beijing’s needs. By 2019, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, high-tech surveillance systems have been exported to over — more than half of which had signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)— deploying traffic cameras and facial-recognition technology. In Zambia, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Huawei technicians allegedly helped the government to on and track down opposition figures.

It was a win for the Zambian leadership, which hoped to its position further with Chinese support. But even if it did care to protest against China’s schemes to gain greater leverage over the nation, the authorities in Lusaka have little recourse as they are currently $6.6 billion in to China.

Of course, China promised Zambia it would be able to pay back this debt with unrealistically explosive growth through infrastructure expansion. But Zambia has struggled to come up with the money and finds itself stuck in what some have characterized as “debt-trap diplomacy,” a strategy of controlling a nation by first overpromising and straddling it with debt, then failing to deliver, refusing to participate in collective restructuring and finally .

Some that China is simply an exploratory investor testing and prodding the markets, but the strategy has played out across dozens of countries to date, and a study of Chinese landing contracts by AidData, a research lab at William and Mary, reveals that the debt trap is both . Chinese contracts include extensive non-disclosure agreements for the borrowing side and are “shrouded in secrecy.”

The authors state that “China is a muscular and commercially-savvy lender to developing countries” which doesn’t allow borrowers to participate in collective restructuring with Paris Club countries, concluding that “Default triggers of the sort we have identified in Chinese debt contracts potentially amplify China’s economic and political influence over a sovereign borrower.”

The strategy playing out in Zambia has resulted in toward China, increased , and more concessions to China in order to pay back that debt. Not only this, but China’s policy in Zambia has only created a hostile environment for Chinese nationals as well. The fixation with controlling foreign nations through surveillance or debt has not led to an increase in security but instead fostered new forms of insecurity in host nations.

Fueling Insecurity

Pakistan is another example of this security dilemma. Even though China has flagged Pakistan as its key partner in the BRI, it is still being crushed under the weight of its in debt. Again, Islamabad has downplayed this, stating that there will be eventually if Pakistan keeps following the CCP’s lead, even if it means allowing China to lease the nation’s southern port in Gwadar for the next 40 years to be able to make payments on its loans.

In a bus traveling to a construction site in northern Pakistan was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing nine Chinese nationals. In , Chinese engineers were targeted in a bombing that left two children dead in the port of Gwadar. Previously, in , gunmen attacked a stock exchange in Karachi, citing China’s exploitative investments in Baluchistan province as motivation for the attack.

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The violence stems again from the unfairness of the Chinese contracts, demanding concessions that don’t benefit the local population but China’s bottom line. In Baluchistan, this means that China is mining resources like copper and gold while the impoverished themselves see no dividends from the minerals they live atop of. They see themselves as being stripped of the bounty of their land and having to share their already meager .

All the while, regarding China’s investments in Pakistan have continued, with local communities facing food shortages because of China’s exploitation of resources like fishing.

More Chinese investment, more concessions, more discontent, more insecurity: The more Beijing attempts to straddle its international partners with debt and use this debt to exert control over their assets, making decisions regarding economic development and forcing them further into China’s orbit, the more insecurity is created for both the host nations and the Chinese nationals there.

Making the Same Mistakes

However, China has not learned its lesson and is now poised to double down on its mistakes again in Afghanistan. Just a few weeks before the Taliban seized control of the country in August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with the head of the Taliban’s political commission, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The meeting solidified China’s stance on the Taliban: They are the of the Afghan people, even if few of the people agree.

The truth is that the CCP is far from considering what the will of the people is, be it in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Zambia. What they care much more about is that the Taliban are the ones in charge and that the group desperately needs aid and international recognition, both of which China can provide. If China delivers on those important factors then, perhaps, Beijing can exert control, secure investments, combat terrorism and possibly extend its domestic crackdown to living in Afghanistan.

The process has already begun. A group of landed in Kabul in early September. While Afghanistan remains on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, China seems to be looking into the future, to a day when Afghanistan is ready for its first surveillance cameras and debt. So far, Beijing has been among the first to start delivering to Afghanistan.

It seems to be a match made in heaven, with Afghanistan’s geostrategic position serving as a great asset for the Belt and Road Initiative. Likewise, the nation has sizeable mineral wealth and could provide Chinese manufacturers with a steady source of much-needed materials for manufacturing. Deals have yet to be made between the Taliban and China, but the future looks bright from Beijing’s vantage point.

However, this scenario is only likely to materialize if the Taliban can be trusted and controlled. If history is any indicator at all, they cannot. Instead, the Taliban’s promises to the CCP will follow a long track record of saying what is most convenient to get what the Talibs want, then reneging on their promises as soon as it is safe to do so.

The Taliban did this in their negotiations with the former Afghan government, agreeing to talks, promising that they are looking for a diplomatic solution while waiting for an opportune moment to take Kabul by force. Again, they promised that when they come to power, they would respect women and minority rights but have already the rights of women and have begun the Hazara from their homes.

Likewise, the Taliban had promised amnesty for all who collaborated with foreign militaries or the former Afghan government but have stated the commitment to return to their pre-2001 use of while running door-to-door .

The problem is a lack of understanding — or a desire to understand — on the part of the CCP just who the Taliban are. Just as in Zambia, without considering the nation’s legacy of colonialization, China attempted to impose a police presence. In Pakistan, China’s indiscriminate exploitation of resources causes upheaval. Now in Afghanistan, Beijing makes deals with those who have committed countless barbaric acts of terrorism based on the belief that the Taliban will kowtow if given what they want: recognition, aid and money.

What the CCP fails to understand about its dealings in Afghanistan is that the Taliban are extremists. They believe that those who do not follow their interpretation of Islam are kufr — unbelievers. To them, unbelievers are fair game: They can be lied to, cheated, poisoned, killed; it doesn’t matter, for the unbelievers are going to hell regardless. This is why the Taliban will take what China has to offer, then turn around and open the door for al-Qaeda to train Uighur separatists in Afghanistan.

There are already signs that the Taliban are double-crossing the Chinese. The group’s new chief of army staff, , holds close ties to the Uighur separatist Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). The new minister of the interior and current leader of the Haqqani Network, , also maintains close ties to al-Qaeda, which continues to .

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Whether or not these fighters or other Islamists have or will become active in Xinjiang is unknown, especially given China’s extreme censorship around . But it is likely that they will pose a security risk to Chinese projects and nationals in Afghanistan just as insurgent groups do in Pakistan.

The reality of China’s alignment with the Taliban is that the Chinese Communist Party is purchasing a false sense of security. Beijing knows the Taliban are in control and believes it can hold them on a leash. What it doesn’t understand is that the Taliban are not pets, and that both China and the world at large are more insecure with terrorists in charge.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Nature hates a vacuum and, when it comes to war, so does US media that has always viewed peace as a vacuum. Publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post must keep the public focused on the global military mission of the United States. Middle East terrorism is still hanging around, but the idea of deploying a massive military effort to oppose it has been definitively discredited.

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are the kind of formless enemies that justify an infinitely prolonged hot war, keeping military activity going. But cold wars are all about an arms race, and terrorist groups simply can’t compete.

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With the disengagement from the Middle East, some may have the impression that we have entered a period of peace. But Washington’s strategists would panic if they believed there was a real possibility of peace. Like the media, they know that the American public needs to believe in an ongoing noble military mission whose purpose is to vanquish the next formidable enemy of the American way of life.

In the past, it has depended on having a clearly defined ideological rival: first communism, then terrorism. What comes next isn’t yet clear, but the media and the security state know it needs to be put in place, if only to justify the massive and continually bloated military budget.

For the past five years, politicians and media fearful of Donald Trump have spent their energy playing on the Cold War reflex of suspecting Russia. They remember how effective it was in the 1950s and ‘60s. The marketers of the security state understood that the idea of an evil Russia was so deeply implanted in the American mindset that it can still inspire a reflex of both hatred and fear. The Soviet Union disappeared three decades ago, but Russia itself is associated with the idea of something existentially evil. 

Through clever management of the news, the intelligence community, echoed by the media, successfully instilled the idea that Donald Trump was Vladimir Putin’s best friend forever. Now, with Trump out of the picture, at least temporarily, ��ܲ�������’s feeble and failing economy clearly poses no credible threat to the US. China has thus become the logical and far more credible adversary for anyone imagining an impending war scenario.

The New York Times is accordingly directing the public’s attention to the effort now being made in Washington with a focus on Taiwan: “At the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, officials are trying to figure out if the longtime American policy of “strategic ambiguity” — providing political and military support to Taiwan, while not explicitly promising to defend it from a Chinese attack — has run its course.”

This week, Daniel L. Davis, a retired lieutenant colonel in the US Army, in The Guardian that war over the defense of Taiwan should be avoided at all costs. “Publicly, Washington should continue to embrace strategic ambiguity,” he recommends, “but privately convey to Taiwanese leaders that we will not fight a war with China.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Strategic Ambiguity:

The normal content of all diplomatic discourse

Contextual Note

President Joe Biden appears to be respecting at least half of Davis’s recommendation. He that he has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Taiwan, and that the two agree they will “abide by the Taiwan agreement.” It consists of having relations with Taiwan but not recognizing it as an independent nation. Strategic ambiguity will remain intact. But is Biden ready to explain to Taiwan that the US has no intention of going to war with China?

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen is clearly aware of the ambiguity. She that the “Taiwanese people would ‘rise up’ should Taiwan‘s existence be threatened.” This is certainly true, but without US backup, rising up may not be an effective response to the world’s second most powerful army. At the same time, she “reiterated a call for talks with China” and admitted that Taiwan is “influenced by Chinese civilization and shaped by Asian traditions.”

Clearly, the US cannot go to war with China over Taiwan. At the same time, the US needs to maintain the idea that a war with China is possible. In the 1950s and 1960s, a militarized economy thrived thanks to the belief instilled in Americans that a nuclear war with Russia was possible, if not inevitable. It was just a question of what minor spark might set it off. This literally was the era of Dr. Strangelove.

In response to China’s Taiwan’s defense zone with 56 Chinese military aircraft, Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang last week accused China of being “more and more over the top.” Could this be an allusion to Washington’s vaunted policy of its “over the horizon” capacity to intervene in Afghanistan? Or does the expression simply mean “exaggerated” and “beyond the ordinary”? Dr. Strangelove was an over-the-top satire about military decisions that literally went over the brink.

As with everything concerning Taiwan’s situation in the coming months and years, the ambiguity will be more evident than the strategy.

Historical Note

The 1975, hearings in the US Senate forced American media to reveal the longstanding complicity between the CIA and the media concretized in . Congressional testimony a carefully structured propaganda campaign run through privately-owned commercial media. Its purpose was to instill the Cold War mentality required to justify an aggressive foreign policy and the unrelenting expansion of the all-powerful military-industrial complex.

It specifically sought to exaggerate the USSR’s destructive capacity while maintaining the public’s belief that the Soviet regime’s unique goal was to undermine, if not physically destroy, the American way of life. A cartoon Superman appeared on TV every day to convince children that the superhero was fighting for “truth, justice and the American �ɲ���.”

Fast forward to 2016. Following the rock-solid marketing logic of never calling into question a formula that has paid off in the past, much of the Democratic-leaning legacy media, more worried about Donald Trump than Russia itself, began promoting the multiple threads of what developed into the Russiagate narrative.

It appeared to be the easiest means of developing the propaganda required to protect and reinforce the military-industrial complex that some feared that Trump was threatening when he began challenging the “deep state.” Though Trump had no such intention, inciting Americans to think so could only work to the advantage of the Democrats.

This tactic nevertheless encountered a problem of credibility. Not enough people were convinced that Russia was still the evil Soviet Union. Once Trump was gone, the Russia threat definitively lost its sting. Post-Soviet Russia has only negligible influence on the world economy, unlike the Middle East with its historically established virtual monopoly on fossil fuel and its utility for the US as the vector of petrodollars. 

With Russia reduced to insignificance and the Middle East written off the agenda, China has become the only credible candidate to play the role of �������������’s fright-inducing enemy. China is conveniently run by the Communist Party, like the Soviet Union was. Its features and behavior identify it as an alien economy. It possesses a political system that is clearly autocratic and therefore the enemy of capitalist democracy.

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Everything is falling into place for a new Cold War that will take center stage following the shame-faced exit of the global war on terror. All eyes (including the ) are trained on China. In Act I, Taiwan will be the focus of attention, as it was 70 years ago when it was known as . But China is not the Soviet Union, and the US is no longer an empire sweeping up the spoils of European colonialism. What happens next will be difficult to forecast. We are truly entering an age of strategic ambiguity.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Taiwan Becomes a Point of Strategic Ambiguity appeared first on 51�Թ�.

During this time, I have also learned a fair amount about military matters and various weapons systems, because they cost enormous amounts of money that could be put to much better use than killing and maiming people. But also because it’s hard to resist the absurd: The high-performance US F-35 fighter jet — at , the most expensive weapons system in US history — that costs $36,000 an hour to , shoots  and can decapitate pilots who attempt to bail out. There are, as well, the $640 toilet seats, the $7,622 coffee maker and the fact that the US Department of Defense cannot account for $6.5 trillion in spending.

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I have also become fairly conversant with the major nuclear arms agreements, and I know what Article VI of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says (more on this later).

This is a farewell column, so I ask for your indulgence. Having (hopefully) beaten back cancer, I have decided to spend more time with my grandkids and maybe return to my  (I have at least one more in my head). But I would like a last hurrah about what I have learned about the world and politics over that last half-century, so bear with me.

Wars Are Bad and Empire Is Delusional

First, wars are really a bad idea, and not just for the obvious reason that they cause enormous misery and pain. They don’t work, at least in the sense that they accomplish some political end.

The United States has finally withdrawn from Afghanistan and is contemplating getting out of Iraq. Both wars were disasters of the catastrophic variety. If anyone in the Oval Office or the Pentagon had bothered to read Rudyard Kipling on Afghanistan (“” comes to mind) and D.H. Lawrence on Iraq (the “” is worthwhile), they would have known better.

But the illusions of empire are stubborn. The US still thinks it can control the world when every experience of the past 50 years or more — Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq — suggests it can’t. Indeed, the last war we “won” was Grenada, where the competition was not exactly world-class.

Americans are not alone in the delusion of confusing the present for the past. The  are sending the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and a destroyer to the South China Sea — to do what? The days when Charles “Chinese” Gordon could scatter the locals with a few gunboats are long gone. What the People’s Republic will make of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s nostalgia for Lord Nelson and Trafalgar is anyone’s guess, but Beijing is more likely to be amused than intimidated by a mid-size flat top and a tin can.

The Same Goes for Cold Wars

China is not conquer the world. It wants to be the planet’s biggest economy and to sell everyone lots of stuff. In short, exactly what Britain wanted in the 19^th century and the US wanted in the 20^th. The Chinese do insist on military control of their local seas, in much the same way that the US controls its east, west and southern coasts. Imagine how Washington would react to Chinese warships regularly exercising off Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Newport News or the Gulf of Mexico.

Are the Chinese heavy-handed about this? Yes, indeed, and they have unnecessarily alienated a number of nations in the region, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Japan. Demilitarizing the East and South China seas would reduce tensions and remove the rationale for Beijing’s illegal seizure of small islands, reefs and shoals in the area. China will have to realize that it can’t unilaterally violate international law through its claims over most of the South China Sea, and the US will have to accept that the Pacific Ocean is no longer an American lake.

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Meanwhile, the Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Actually, no they are not, and it is time to stop the silliness about Russian hordes  on the border ready to overrun Ukraine or the Baltic states. What those troops were doing late last spring was responding to a plan by NATO for a huge military exercise,  Russia is not trying to recreate the Soviet Union. Its economy is about the size of Italy’s, and the current problems stem from the profoundly stupid decision to move NATO eastward. The Russians are sensitive about their borders, with good reason.

We can thank Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for disinterring this particular aspect of the Cold War. Both presidents expanded NATO, and Bush unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and began deploying anti-missile systems in Poland and Romania. NATO claims the ABMs are aimed at Iran, but Iran doesn’t have missiles that can reach Europe and it doesn’t possess nuclear weapons. The Russians would be foolish to draw any other conclusion but that those ABMs are targeting Moscow’s missiles.

NATO has a zombie alliance, staggering from one disaster to another: first Afghanistan, then Libya and now the US is pressing NATO to confront China in Asia (which is unlikely — Europeans view China as an invaluable market, not a threat).

NATO should go the way of the Warsaw Pact, and the US should rejoin the anti-ballistic missile agreement. Removing the ABM missiles might, in turn, lead to reestablishing the, an extremely important treaty from which the US also unilaterally withdrew.

Apartheid Can’t Last Forever

Elsewhere, Israel needs to study some Irish history. In 1609, the native population of what became Northern Ireland was forcibly removed to Connaught in the island’s west and replaced by 20,000 Protestant tenants. Yet now, centuries later, the upcoming census is almost certain to show that Catholics once again constitute a majority in Northern Ireland.

The moral? Walls and fences and apartheid policies will not make the Palestinians go away or cause them to forget that much of their land was stolen.

In the short run, the right-wing Israeli settlers may get their way, just as the Protestant settlers did more than 400 years ago. But history is long, and the Palestinians are no more likely to disappear than the native Irish did. It would save a lot of bloodshed and communal hate if the Israelis removed the West Bank and Golan settlers, shared Jerusalem and let the Palestinians have their own viable state. The alternative? A one-state, one-person, one-vote democracy.

The US should also end Israel’s “special status.” Why are we not as outraged with apartheid in Israel as we were with apartheid in South Africa? Why do we ignore the fact that Israel has  When Americans lecture other countries about maintaining a “rules-based” world, can you blame them if they roll their eyes? Why is it “illegal” for Iran to acquire nukes when Tel Aviv gets a pass?

We Should Really Deal With Existential Threats More Often

The Biden administration is fond of using the term “existential” in reference to climate change, and the term is not an exaggeration. Our species is at a crossroads, and the time for action is distressingly short.

By 2050, some 600 million Indians will have inadequate access to water. Vanishing glaciers are systematically draining the water reserves of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, the Andes and the Rockies. While much of the world will face water shortages, some will experience the opposite, as Germans and Chinese recently discovered. Water is a worldwide crisis and there are few blueprints about how to deal with it, although the 1960 Indus Valley water treaty between India and Pakistan could serve as a template.

There is simply no way that the world can tackle climate change and continue to spend — according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — almost $2 trillion a year on . Nor can the US afford to support its empire of bases — some 800 worldwide, the same number as Britain had in 1885.

However, climate change is not the only “existential” threat to our species. Somehow nuclear weapons have dropped off the radar as a global threat, but currently, there are major nuclear underway involving China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia and NATO. The US is spending upward of $1 trillion  its nuclear triad of aircraft, ships and missiles.

Sanctions Don’t Work

Sanctions, as journalist Patrick Cockburn argues, are war crimes, and no country in the world applies them as widely and with such vigor as the United States. Our  have impoverished North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Syria and inflict unnecessary pain on Cuba. They raise tensions with Russia and China. And why do we apply them? Because countries do things we don’t like or insist on economic and political systems that we don’t agree with.

Washington can do it because we control the de facto world currency, the dollar, and countries that cross us can lose their ability to engage in international banking. The French bank BNP Paribas was forced to pay $9 billion in fines for bypassing sanctions on Iran. Yet sanctions have almost always failed to achieve their political objectives.

Self-Determination Is Good

Dear Spanish government: Let the Catalans vote in peace and accept the results if they decide they want to go their own way. Ditto for the Scots, the people of Kashmir and, sometime in the future, the Northern Irish. You can’t force people to be part of your country if they don’t want to be, and trying to make them is like teaching a pig to whistle: It can’t be done and annoys the pig.

If You Displace People, Offer Them Refuge (Then Stop Displacing People)

The US and NATO cannot destabilize countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Libya and then pull up the  when people flee the chaos those wars have generated.

Similarly, the colonial countries that exploited and held back the development of countries in Africa and Latin America cannot wash their hands of the problems of post-colonialism. And the industrial countries that destabilized the climate can’t avoid their responsibility for tens of millions of global warming refugees.

In any case, the US, Europe and Japan need those immigrants, because the depressed birth rates in developed countries mean they are heading for serious demographic trouble.

Hypocrisy Is Bad 

The world rightfully condemns the assassination of political opponents by Russia and Saudi Arabia, but it should be equally outraged when the Israelis systematically kill Iranian scientists, or when the US takes out Iranian leaders with a drone attack.

You don’t have the right to kill someone just because you don’t like what they stand for. How do you think Americans would react to Iran assassinating US General Mark Milley, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?

Less Exceptionalism. More Diplomacy.

The world desperately needs an international  to confront future pandemics and must guarantee that it includes the poorest countries on the globe. This is not mere altruism. If countries can’t provide health care for their residents, that should be the responsibility of the international community, because untreated populations give rise to mutations like the Delta variant of COVID-19. Ask not for whom the bells toll. It tolls for us all.

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American  is an albatross around our necks, blocking us from seeing that other countries and other systems may do things better than we do. No other country accepts that Americans are superior, especially after four years of Donald Trump, the pandemic debacle and the January 6 insurrection in Washington. Who would want the level of economic inequality in this country or our prison population, the highest in the world? Is being 44^th on the World Press Freedom Index or 18^th on the Social Progress Index something we should take  What we can take pride in is our diversity. Therein lies the country’s real potential.

Finally, to of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiation in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Amen.

Two and Two and 50 Make a Million

Pie in the sky? An old man’s wish list?

Well, the one thing I have learned in these past 50-plus years is that things happen if enough people decide they should. So, to quote that rather clunky line from Pete Seeger’s “One Man’s Hands,” sung widely during the ‘60s peace movement: “If two and two and 50 make a million, we’ll see that day come ‘round.”

And that’s all folks (for now).

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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French ire led to the withdrawal of its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. This was particularly surprising given France’s strong political and security ties — not to mention historical, as �������������’s oldest ally — to both nations. Inexplicably, President Emmanuel Macron did not recall his ambassador to London, prompting some to posit that after Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, it didn’t matter as much.

The Raucous Sound of AUKUS

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It’s also very likely that Macron, who has been Europe’s strongest advocate on behalf of a stand-alone European defense capability — i.e., less dependence on the US — did not want to alienate Britain in his efforts.

Prenez un Grip!

Leave it to Britain’s blunt-speaking prime minister, Boris Johnson, to succinctly lend some reality to the blow-up among allies. Speaking in Washington, DC, Johnson it was “time for some of our dearest friends around the world to prenez un grip about all this and donnez moi un break” — to get a grip and give him a break. A “stab in the back” was how the French publicly described the situation following the announcement of the agreement.

Johnson has it right. This was not a betrayal of the North Atlantic alliance, nor France’s especially close ties with Britain or America, or its strong relationship with Australia. While there are unquestionably important strategic elements of this deal, it is a commercial one. Australia wanted to boost its naval defense capabilities in the increasingly competitive and dynamic Western Pacific.

France’s conventionally-powered subs would not have been state of the art, requiring periodic surfacing for refueling, and wouldn’t be available until 2035. Moreover, Canberra and Australian politicians had already begun to express reservations over these deficiencies and the exorbitant cost.

Enter the Americans, who apparently invited the British to join. In the world of diplomacy and international affairs, all issues are understood to be open for discussion and negotiation. Business is something else, however. Allies and adversaries regularly compete for business and commercial deals. Governments back their businesses and even add sweeteners from time to time to clinch the deal. It’s understood; everyone does it. It’s business — not personal and not political.

The surprise here is that Paris seemed to be caught unaware of the American-British offer. The French should have suspected others might be talking to the Australians, especially as their own deal was beginning to sour. Their embassies in Washington, London and Canberra, doubtlessly staffed with some of their top diplomats and intelligence and military personnel, should have picked up on it. That is what embassies are for, among other things.

What Is It Good For?

Political sensibilities aside, is this the right undertaking for the three countries? A somewhat qualified answer would be yes. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly made clear America will compete with China in the Western Pacific and around the world. To date, America has shouldered the lion’s share of the security responsibilities in that region, though Japan, South Korea, Australia, Britain and even France also play roles.

Providing the Australians with nuclear-powered subs greatly enhances their own defense capabilities and augments what the US and others are doing to shore up security in the Western Pacific.

It is a genuine security enhancement for the West, giving pause to the Chinese, who themselves possess about a dozen nuclear-powered subs, most dedicated to their ballistic missile submarine fleet. (It is important to note that the AUKUS deal will not provide Australia with nuclear weapons of any kind.)

So, Australian nuclear-powered submarines provide an excellent complement to both American and British nuclear-powered subs as well as those French nuclear submarines deployed to the region. Moreover, while the others deploy their submarines around the world, Australia will likely be confined to the Western Pacific, giving the Western allies a greater presence.

Other Asia-Pacific nations either hailed the deal or remained silent, the latter owing to sensitive trade and other economic arrangements with China they do not wish to jeopardize. After all, they saw what may have provoked all of this, namely China’s unusually harsh response to Australia’s call for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, including the still unproven lab leak theory.

Canberra was blasted with a torrent of shockingly virulent verbal attacks from Beijing, which then accused Australia of “dumping” its wines on China and imposed daunting tariffs on future imports. The result was a precipitous decline in Australian wine exports to China, down as much as 96% in the final quarter of 2020.

The response shocked the Australians, who have maintained strong and important trade ties with Beijing and had sought to remain out of the US-China wrangling. But that all changed after Beijing’s tough-guy actions. Anti-China sentiment is now at a peak in Australia’s Parliament and among the population. More importantly, the overreaction drove Canberra right back into the waiting arms of its long-time ally, the US. Beijing’s so-called wolf-warrior actions against Australia were uncalled for and most definitely counterproductive.

A Win for Biden and the US

France’s ruffled feathers notwithstanding, the AUKUS deal leverages one of �������������’s strongest assets in the competition with China, namely its ability to forge alliances and partnerships with nations around the world, based not only on shared interests but very often on shared values. China has no such alliance network — Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and a handful of others hardly amount to what the US has managed in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

It is perfectly consistent with Biden’s repeated assertion that he will forge stronger ties with our allies and work to strengthen alliance networks. No one should be surprised with this natural evolution, a win-win for all involved.

One Asian nation whose response and views will be critical to US interests is India. India is a member of a new, American-initiated group known as the Quad, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US. New Delhi has distanced the AUKUS deal from the Quad but otherwise remained neutral in its response, though commentary ranges from strong endorsement to equally strong criticism and warnings of an Indo-Pacific arms race.

The latter may be a bit exaggerated. Australia already has submarines, and soon these will be nuclear-powered, allowing them to remain submerged much longer or even indefinitely, depending on whether their fuel is high or low-enriched uranium. The latter would require surfacing about every 10 years or so to refuel.

But that still leaves the question of France. One might have and, indeed, should have expected some heads up to the French in advance of the announcement. France is a core indispensable member of NATO and one of �������������’s most important allies.

The countries have already begun to patch up their tiff. Biden and Macron spoke last week and will meet next month when Biden attends the G-20 summit. The US president endorsed his French counterpart’s call for greater European defense autonomy, “consistent with NATO” objectives and obligations. Macron returned his ambassador to Washington.

Nevertheless, Washington would be wise to find some way to include Paris in this deal. If its underlying basis is security and strengthening alliances, then why not include this vital ally? France already possesses significant blue-water naval capabilities as well as genuine interests in the Pacific, with territories in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna.

Moreover, the French could be brought in to supply or develop the nuclear-power trains for the Australian submarines using low-enriched uranium, which fuel France’s nuclear subs. (Britain and the US use high-enriched uranium.) The use of would also help keep AUKUS from potentially running afoul of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is better to have France on board the AUKUS fleet than not. The most awkward bit: What to do with the added “F”?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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For Western thinkers, when an entity finds its place in a system, the system’s structured categories serve to situate and ultimately define the substance of the entity. Now that China is subjected to the rules of the global economy, analysts believe they understand it. Influenced by the analytical model inherited from Aristotle’s metaphysics that distinguishes between substance (or essence) and accidence (or variable features), today’s analysts dismiss anything that the system cannot account for as accidents. Accidents can always be corrected in the name of efficiency. 

Despite its manifest peculiarities, for Westerners China has become a member of the tribe. Analysts assess its behavior according to the rules and laws of the tribe. For the past two centuries, beginning with David Ricardo and Karl Marx, Western thinkers have tended to reduce their understanding of social reality to economic relationships. In so doing, they fail to build into their model two dimensions they relegate to the category of Aristotelian accidence: culture and politics.

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At best, the analysts attribute to culture and politics a supporting role in the great cause of economic organization. They fail to notice that cultures not only differ in the way they treat time, space and social relations but also in how they measure value. In particular, they neglect the value cultures attribute to the individual and collective patterns of behavior that form the basis of political systems. This leads to major errors of interpretation. We can see the result in failed military campaigns, from Vietnam to the Middle East. Similar failures occur in the domain of economics.

As if to illustrate the principle, the European Chamber of Commerce has just produced a report expressing its severe critique of what it sees as the erroneous path China’s President Xi Jinping appears to be taking. The august institution, focused on the logic of trade, believes that some of Xi’s salient measures violate a totally rational rulebook that members of the global economic community must always abide by.

���ܳٱ������ the chamber’s recommendation that “China should abandon a top-level strategy promoted by President Xi Jinping to increase self-reliance, or risk harming innovation and growth prospects,” which clearly implies its opposition to policies such as “common prosperity.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Self-reliance:

In Western thought, a virtue for individuals and a vice for nations

Contextual Note

Addressing the same topic, Stephen McDonell, the BBC’s correspondent in Beijing, offers a slightly , one that seeks to explore certain cultural factors. McDonell cites some of the salient features of  Xi’s “common prosperity” program. “Under this banner,” he writes, “targeting tax evasion by the wealthy makes more sense, as do moves to make education more equitable by banning private tutoring companies. The ongoing crackdown on the country’s tech giants can also be seen as part of the plan.”

Unlike the European Chamber of Commerce that worries about the violation of capitalist orthodoxy, McDonell acknowledges a certain coherence in the Chinese plan. He cites the historical reality of the “chasm of income disparity” that has provoked Xi’s initiative.

It’s a criterion that has meaning even in the West, where people have been grappling with the realization that modern capitalism, refashioned by the neoliberals since the 1980s, has produced an increasingly obscene and unmanageable wealth gap that appears built into the system’s logic.

Economists such as Thomas Piketty have focused on that question while going beyond mere economics to take on board the cultural and political (or ideological) underpinnings of the phenomenon.

The thought of most commentators on the economy typically stumbles over its own cultural logic. Like the European Chamber of Commerce, McDonell himself fails to make the cultural leap and relies on Western criteria to complete his analysis. He notes that Xi’s authoritarianism allows him to rewrite the rules at any given moment.

Then he asks the $64,000-question Western analysts always consider fundamental: “How can anybody reliably make investment decisions if they don’t know what the ground rules will be in a month’s time?”

Historical Note

McDonell’s question makes immediate sense for his Western readers since the notions of investment and risk are at the core of all thinking about the economy. But in his own potted summary of the history of communist China’s economic ideology, the BBC journalist offers a number of clues that would explain why this question troubles the Chinese far less than anyone in the West. 

McDonell points to the Chinese government’s management of the narrative around its “concept of socialism.” During its phase of integration into the global capitalist economy, the government “put its faith in trickle-down economics.” McDonell then raises a serious question. “So does Xi Jinping really believe in this idea of a communist project?”

In other words, China painfully shifted from Mao Zedong’s totalitarian version of Marxist doctrine to Milton Friedman’s trickle-down economics under Deng Xiaoping, inaugurating a period of prosperity. Does it make any sense to imagine it might shift again, this time to a new version of Marxist egalitarianism?

To answer this question, McDonell delves into the history of Xi himself and that of his father, who was jailed in 1978 for his commitment to economic liberalization. This allows him to puzzle over the question of whether Xi’s apparent conversion to communist ideals is sincere or merely opportunistic. 

In August, the Daily Devil’s Dictionary suggested that Xi’s motivation might simply be the desire to “remake his image as a populist hero at home” in an effort to consolidate his power and ward off the risk of a future winter of discontent. Most commentators now agree that the “common prosperity” reforms are the real thing and not just political rhetoric.

That explains why the European Chamber of Commerce appears worried. It also explains why the BBC is dedicating a three-part series to elucidate “how Beijing is rewriting the rules of doing business and the global implications of this.”

Earlier this month, The New York Times quoted former US government analyst Christopher Johnson, who pertinently observed that “Xi sees doing something on income inequality and the wealth gap in China as vital in this struggle of global narratives with the U.S. and the West in general.” This dimension of the question adds interest to the drama currently playing out in the US Congress concerning President Biden’s $3.5-trillion infrastructure bill.

Some Republicans see this as proof that . If adopted, the bill would contribute to limiting the huge and widening wealth gap, but it would not attempt to reign in the power of finance and Big Tech, as Xi’s plan intends to do. There is a strong likelihood that Congress will reject the Biden plan. Democracy seems to be having trouble competing with autocracy.

There is another irony in this story about China’s goal of self-reliance. In US culture, self-reliance is a core value. It has come to be identified with capitalism itself and has spawned the culture of individualism that dominates the Western world. The myth of the self-made man sums up the spirit of individualistic capitalism.

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Chinese culture has always rejected self-reliance. While it values prosperity as a goal, Chinese culture sees it as the result of a collective effort, not of individual initiative. One achieves prosperity through one’s family and guanxi, or network of relations, but never on one’s own.

The European Chamber of Commerce fears that a nation representing 20% of humanity might decide to go it alone, not because that would be a bad thing in itself, but because it would remove one-fifth of the world’s trade from the global marketplace. They claim it would stifle innovation. But its effect would more likely be to disrupt the thinking of those who see humanity as collections of individual consumers of standardized products. After all, for Western economists, every self defines itself by what it consumes and how it produces profit for others.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

*[An earlier version of this article mistakenly labeled the chamber’s recommendation a reaction to Xi’s policy. Updated: February 15, 2022, at 09:30 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The West Struggles to Understand China’s Common Prosperity appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The New American Art of Inconclusive Conclusions

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The radical right has, in the meantime, become with the lab leak idea. Those of us who have experienced — and survived — coordinated campaigns of abuse on social media recognize the signs: Suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, people you have never heard of begin to spam your email or social media accounts. Someone has pointed the trolls in your direction, and you start to wonder, who and why?

Someone’s Errands

In the final days of May, “Mikael” emailed me: “So the most likely truth about Corona is a conspiracy idea that is a threat against democracy? What kind of nut are you that is so wrong? Who’s errands do you run?”

The background to his kind email, followed up by another a few days later, was an published a week earlier in the right-leaning Swedish journal Kvartal. Here, journalist Ola Wong suggested that a — I happen to be its author — published by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) aims to serve the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In a gross simplification of what the report actually stated, Wong alleged that it “cautions against blaming China” and “goes so far as to claim that searching for an answer to the origin of the virus and the responsibility for its spread basically amounts to a desire to find a ‘scapegoat’. MSB says that this is the hallmark of conspiracy theories and a threat to democracy.”

What I did in my report was provide an overview of how conspiracy theories around COVID-19 are part of what the WHO has branded the “infodemic” — an infected infoscape in which different actors spread disinformation for various purposes, such as to denigrate their political opponents and attack expert knowledge. I distinguish between six areas of conspiratorial imagination in relation to the pandemic: origins, dissemination, morbidity and mortality, countermeasures in politics and public health, vaccination and metatheories.

Both separately or in various combinations, all these six categories have fueled conspiratorial meaning-making. In some cases, they have driven processes of radicalization toward violent extremism, such as attacks against 5G technology, mass demonstrations leading to political violence or disgusting displays of racist stereotypes.

Moreover, as a historian of ideas, I don’t study the root causes of or treatments for a contagious virus that has killed millions across the globe but rather the conceptions and discourses connected to it. In that sense, I am less interested in what really caused the pandemic and more invested in studying how different concepts — for instance about its origins — are used in (conspiratorial) rhetoric around the subject. It is also not my ambition or task to investigate the likeliness of a lab leak or the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine contains a microchip. So, first of all, Wong — and, as we will see, others alongside him — has failed to capture the basic premises of the report. Just to make my case, the passage Wong reacted to (the MSB report will soon be available in an English translation), reads:

“The question about the origin of the virus and the disease is infected because there is an underlying accusation of guilt. Could anyone who might have known about the existence of the virus also have stopped its dissemination? Was the outbreak of the virus covered up? Was the virus created in a lab or by transmission from animal to human? Questions like these are of course reasonable to ask, but already early on they were connected to what is an attribute of conspiracy theories: to place blame on someone and point out scapegoats. … By calling COVID-19 ‘the China–virus’ a narrative was established in which China was made responsible for the pathogen, disease and in extension its dissemination. In the trail of imposing guilt, racist Sino/Asiaphobic stereotypes were expressed against people with Asian appearance across the globe.”

I then made a parallel to the famous claim made by former President Donald Trump and his followers that climate change is a “Chinese hoax to bring down the American economy” and that, in continuation of this line of thought, COVID-19 now is inserted into the narrative with the twist that it would benefit the Democrats in the 2020 election. I concluded that “in both conspiratorial narratives, scientific expertise is rejected.” Furthermore, I quoted an expert from Yale Medical School (Wong wrongly frames it as my opinion) stating that it is both incorrect and xenophobic to “attach locations or ethnicity to the disease.” I also mentioned that the spread of the virus was blamed on a cabal between the CCP and the Democrats.

Nowhere in the entire report is it ever claimed or even hinted at that it somehow would be wrong or illegitimate to investigate the origins of the virus as a lab leak. It is true that conspiracy theories typically use scapegoating as one of many rhetoric strategies, and that they are, by extension, threatening democracy for multiple reasons. But it is utterly wrong to suggest, as Wong does, that the report somehow alleges that it would be a threat to democracy to investigate the origins of the pandemic as a lab leak or that the report dismissed such claims as a conspiracy theory.

Wong writes: “But if you mention China, you risk being labeled as a racist or accused of spreading conspiracy theories. Why has the origin of the virus become such a contentious issue?” But anyway, “MSB’s message benefits the CCP” and its narrative “that the pandemic is a global problem” (well, isn’t it?) and “not a problem originating from China to which the world has the right to demand answers.”

Chinese Propaganda Machine

Wong identifies such deflection as an outcome of a cunning Chinese propaganda machine, quoting an article that remembers how the US was blamed for the origin of AIDS/HIV in the 1980s in a similar conspiracy mode. Well, had Wong turned a page of the MSB report, he would have found a passage with the heading “The US-virus,” which exactly explains that another conspiratorial narrative about the origin of the virus also exists. Consequently, it would have similarly been completely absurd to state that the report “serves the interests of the US” since it treats the narrative about the “US virus” as a typical conspiracy theory.

But such inconsistencies are of no interest to Wong. Instead, he now delves into the by now well-established “new evidence” (it was always suggested as a possibility) that he claims to have “disappeared from the global agenda” (did it really?) about the lab leak theory. The reason why the theory was suppressed, he argues, was because “The media’s aversion to Trump created a fear of association,” and “Because of the general derision for Trump, the established media chose to trust virologists such as [Dr. Peter] Daszak rather than investigating the laboratory hypothesis.”

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Wong then extensively quotes from science journalist Nicholas Wade pushing for the explanation that “gain-of-function” experiments were carried out in Wuhan and that zoonotic transmission seems unlikely: “What Wade describes is not a conspiracy, but rather an accident for which no one has wanted to assume responsibility.” Wong is obsessed with responsibility and “the day of reckoning” that yet is to come, when China’s guilt finally will be revealed to the global audience. As much as he seems to long for this day when justice will prevail, he implores at the very end of his article to not “let sweeping allegations of conspiracy theories and racism undermine the work to trace the origins of the virus.”

Wong’s article left me puzzled in many ways, almost unimpressed. I did not state anything in my report that Wong purports I did, so it is difficult to understand why a journalist would find it worthwhile challenging the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency with an argument that has no basis whatsoever.

Lab Leak Whispers

Just two days later, Swedish public service radio P1 invited both myself a Wong to come on its to address the question of “What are you allowed to say about the origin of COVID-19?” — stipulating that there is some sort of censorship around the subject. Wong was unable to produce any credible evidence that the CCP ever has called the lab leak theory a conspiracy. There might be, and I am interested to read more about this attribution and its rhetorical function; the in Washington later used such terminology. During the summer of 2021, however, the topic has repeatedly been treated by the Chinese TV channel .

At the time when my conversation with Wong was aired on prime-time radio, the fringes of the Swedish radical right had already sniffed out the potential of the story, propelled by the tabloid Expressen, which in bold letters ran the , “MSB dismisses the lab-leak entirely: follows the line of China.” The article reiterates Wong’s one, but manipulates the content of the MSB report further, alleging that accusations of racism and conspiracy theories stifle the investigation of the origins of COVID-19.

Radical-right agitator Christian Palme posted Wong’s article on one of Sweden’s Facebook pages for academics, , which kicked off a wave of conspiratorial debate. Per Gudmundsson, of the right-wing online news outlet Bulletin, stated in an that the MSB report made him suspicious. Hailing Hunter S. Thompson’s paranoid style of reporting, Gudmundsson alleges that the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency wants to pacify the people with calming messages. He ridiculed attempts to discuss what is reasonable to do when planning interventions and designing counternarratives to toxic disinformation that can act as drivers of radicalization while at the same time execrating Islamist extremism, without any interest in countering it.

Finally, the gross simplifications of Wong’s article had reached the outer orbits of the alternative radical-right media in Sweden, and . Fria Tider referenced the controversial Swedish virologist Fredrik Elgh, stating that it is “senseless” that MSB had dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory (it did not). Samnytt, in turn, amplified the Chinese whispers started in Kvartal to a completely new level. In its own version of reality, the MSB report was allegedly released in order to prevent any investigation of China (not true). Under the heading “Prohibited to ask questions,” Samnytt states: “the message of the report is that it is not allowed to ask questions about the origin of the virus” (also not true).

Moreover, referring to and quoting Gudmundsson’s article on Bulletin, it goes on to state that “instead of questioning the established truths, the report recommends ‘to be in the present and to plant a tree’” — right quote but wrong context — “or to use other methods to calm your thoughts.” The author of the article is Egor Putilov, a pseudonym of a prolific character in the Swedish radical-right alternative media.

And now back to Mikael. Curious to drag out trolls from under their stones (they might explode in daylight), I answered the first email he sent to me; he replied. Mikael characterized himself as a disabled pensioner (Asperger’s) living in a Swedish suburb among “ISIS-fans, clans, psychopath-criminals and addicts etc. which you most likely have taken part in to create/import.” He asserted to have insights about what is happening behind the scenes related to COVID-19 and that the recent reemergence of the lab leak theory only demonstrated his superiority in analyzing world matters: “If I think something controversial, the rest of Sweden frequently thinks the same twenty years later.”

He recommended I look for knowledge outside the small circle of disinformed and obedient yes-people within the “system.” I must admit that Mikael’s email was one of the friendlier online abuses I have experienced. On the same day, I also received a message from “Sten” titled “C*ck” and containing a short yet threatening line, “beware of conspiracy theories and viruses… .”

What If the Scientists Were Wrong?

As historian and political analyst Thomas Frank eloquently has , we should expect a political earthquake if a lab leak is indeed confirmed. Frank claims that what is under attack is science itself. Science, we were told, held the answers on how to combat the pandemic. Experts in public health provided scientific evidence for political countermeasures, despised by those who routinely reject science or feel that their liberties have been infringed upon.

If it is proven that “science has failed the global population,” either by accident, by gain-of-function research getting out of control or, worse, by deliberately creating a bioweapon, both scientists and those who rely on their expertise will come under attack and their authority will be seriously undermined, with unpredictable consequences. Why would people have reasons to believe that climate change is real, that 5G technology is harmless or that cancer might be cured with rDNA treatment? Frank posits that what is at stake is a liberal “sort of cult” of science that was developed against the “fool Trump.” Should it turn out that scientists and experts were wrong, “we may very well see the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism go up in a fireball of public anger.”

Frank and others, such as Wade and his Swedish apologist Wong, allege that it somehow was the media’s fault to cement the lab leak origin as a crazy conspiracy theory just because it was peddled by a president who made more than while in office. When the “common people of the world” find out that they might “have been forced into a real-life lab experiment,” a moral earthquake will be on its way since they will come to the ultimate realization “that here is no such thing as absolute expertise.”

In the end, this will imply that populism was right all along about the existence of an existential dualism between “the people” and the well-to-do, well-educated ruling “elite” minority that creates and manages an eternal cycle of disasters affecting the majority. I tend to agree: This dualism is in fact a strong driver of populist mobilization and one that reoccurs in most conspiracy theories: we, the suffering people, the victims, against them, the plotting elite, the perpetrators.

But I would like to add to Frank’s conclusions, that the (social) media outlets as much as the radical-right propagandists were immediately able to smell out the potential of the lab leak as a typical frame by which “the people” like Mikael, Sten, Martin and Per (more and more of them — all male — have started contacting me directly) could be pitched against “fake science,” government agencies and politicians.

I would say that this, in fact, is the real purpose. In reality, the radical right does not care one bit about the origins of the virus but has discovered a perfect trope with which public distrust in authority can be deepened further. This is the reason why Wong needed to unleash an unsubstantiated attack against the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. He, as much as Gudmundsson, despises any attempt to provide citizens with tools to decode disinformation and conspiracy theories as to allow informed members of society to judge the accuracy of various claims beyond populist apocalypticism. If media literacy and the ability to detect conspiratorial messages increase, sensationalist media outlets will lose their power.

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One of the three key elements of populism as defined by is a permanent invocation of crisis, breakdown or threat. If this perpetuum mobile is disrupted, the source of populist power is dismantled, which is why Wong and others have to target the firefighters, and why Gudmundsson doesn’t want to hear about how to counter radicalization. The eternal flame of catastrophe is the campfire of populist socialization. Right now, the lab leak theory is a giant burning log providing heat for all these gratifying marshmallows to be grilled and fed to “the people.”

But there might also be other reasons. By pushing the lab leak hypothesis, the radical right makes the case that “Trump was right” about the “China virus” and, if so, he might also be right about the “stolen” election and all other 29,998 lies uttered during his presidency. Moreover, it was the liberal mainstream media’s fault that the lab leak was “buried” (which it never was) because they are all agents of Chinese disinformation (and communism, as we all know, is the great evil of the 20^th century), classical guilt by association. So, in the bigger picture, the lab leak is needed as proof of the infallibility of the great leader in his quest to “drain the swamp.” QAnon will celebrate on the ruins of Capitol Hill.

However, what worries me most is that the lab leak theory is used by the radical right as an attempt to minimize the danger of anti-Asian racism or any other racist attribution and abuse in case of earlier or later crises and catastrophes. Somehow, not only will science be proven wrong and the great leader right, but racism will be defended as a rational and normal reaction to pandemics. Wait, didn’t the Jews poison our wells at one point?

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of the .]

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But there was no nefarious scheme. In reality, Japan had made significant investments in its own education and infrastructure, allowing it to produce high-quality goods that American customers desired. In the case of China, American businesses and investors are covertly profiting by operating low-wage factories and selling technologies to their “partners” in China. American banks and venture capitalists are also active in China, funding agreements. Furthermore, with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s infrastructure investment extends far beyond its own borders.

The Unintended Economic Impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

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The BRI is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s hallmark foreign policy initiative and the world’s largest-ever global infrastructure project, funding and developing roads, power plants, ports, railroads, 5G networks and fiber-optic cables all over the world. The BRI was created with the goal of connecting China’s modern coastal cities with the country’s undeveloped heartland and to its Asian neighbors, firmly establishing China’s place at the center of an interlinked globe.

The program has already surpassed its initial regional corridors and spread across every continent. The expansion of the BRI is worrying because it may make countries more vulnerable to Chinese political coercion while also allowing China to extend its authority more widely. 

Infrastructure Wars

US President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders launched a worldwide infrastructure plan, Build Back Better World (B3W), to counterweight China’s BRI during the G7 summit in Cornwall in June. The plan, according to a White House statement, aims to narrow infrastructure need in low and middle-income countries around the world through investment by the private sector, the G7 and its financial partners. The Biden administration also aims to use the plan to complement its domestic infrastructure investment and create more jobs at home to demonstrate US competitiveness abroad.

The US government deserves credit for prioritizing a response to the BRI and collaborating with the G7 nations to provide an open, responsible and sustainable alternative. However, it seems unlikely that this new attempt would be sufficient to emulate the BRI and rebuild �������������’s own aging infrastructure, which, to the Council on Foreign Relations, “is both dangerously overstretched and lagging behind that of its economic competitors, particularly China.”

On the one hand, it’s unknown if B3W will be equipped with the necessary instruments to compete. The Biden administration has acknowledged that “status quo funding and financing approaches are inadequate,” hinting at a new financial structure but without providing specific details. It remains to be seen if B3W will assist development finance firms to stimulate adequate new private infrastructure investments as well as whether Congress will authorize much-needed extra funding.

Even with more funding, B3W may not be sufficiently ambitious. While the World Bank predicts that an $18-trillion global infrastructure deficit exists, the project will be unable to make real progress until extra resources are allocated to it.

Also, the United States still lacks an affirmative Asia-Pacific trade policy. To compete with the BRI, the US will need to reach new trade and investment agreements while also bolstering core competitiveness in vital technologies such as 5G. It will also need to devote greater resources to leading the worldwide standards-setting process, as well as training, recruiting and maintaining elite personnel.

On the other hand, China is often the only country willing to invest in vital infrastructure projects in underdeveloped and developing countries, and, in some cases, China is more competitive than the US as it can move quickly from design to construction. 

Desire to Invest

Furthermore, China’s desire to invest is unaffected by a country’s political system, as seen by the fact that it has signed memorandums of understanding with 140 nations, including 18 EU members and several other US allies such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Even the United Kingdom, as a member of the G7, had a 5G expansion deal with Huawei that was canceled owing to security and geopolitical concerns. Nonetheless, the termination procedure will take about two years, during which time the Chinese tech behemoth will continue to run and upgrade the UK’s telecoms infrastructure.

As a result, the BRI has fueled a rising belief in low and middle-income nations that China is on the rise and the US and its allies are on the decline. The policy consequence for these countries is that their future economic growth is dependent on strong political ties with China. 

Unlike the US and European governments, which only make up for part of the exporters’ losses, Beijing guarantees the initial capital and repays the profits to the investing companies and banks. In addition, since there is no transfer of power and government in China, there will be virtually no major policy changes, meaning that investors will feel more secure. So far, about 60% of the BRI projects have been by the Chinese government and 26% by the private sector. 

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For far too long, the US reaction to the BRI has been to emphasize its flaws and caution countries against accepting Chinese finance or technology without providing an alternative. Until now, this haphazard reaction has failed to protect American interests. The United States is now presenting a comprehensive, positive agenda for the first time. Transparency, economic, environmental and social sustainability, good governance and high standards are all emphasized in Build Back Better World.

While providing a credible US-led alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative is desirable, the US must commit adequate financial and leadership resources to the effort. This is a good first step, but Washington must be careful not to create a new paranoia by demonizing economic and geopolitical rivals such as China and Japan to the point where it distorts priorities and leads to increased military spending rather than public investments in education, infrastructure and basic research, all of which are critical to America’s future prosperity and security.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The DC foreign policy community, nevertheless, has come up with predictably uncreative rebuttals to accusations of failure. We the Afghans wrong, the story went, ignoring the fact that Afghan soldiers have their own for the entirety of the war. Leadership was , they said, ignoring the fact the US the power-sharing deal that kept those leaders in power. The Afghans couldn’t build an economy, we were told, ignoring the fact , the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, had been consistently putting out reports for over a pointing out that the US strategy needed dramatic reimagining. There was no local support and Afghans had no will to fight, they surmised, ignoring the fact that Afghan special forces continue to their homeland.

What the World Can Learn From the Events in Afghanistan

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These excuses and reflections come as little surprise to those the United States has already abandoned: the South Vietnamese to the northern Viet Cong, the Iraqis to Iran and the Islamic State, the Kurds to the Turks, and, most notably, the American who had fought and sacrificed their lives in these “forever wars” to history. All were left to perish at the hands of an evil so vile that the US had no other option but to first invade, only to later leave, suggesting that maybe the evil was not so bad after all.

Vietnam, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan: seven different administrations, Democrat and Republican. Kabul is simply the latest victim learning the valuable lesson President Joe Biden is teaching future allies by allowing Afghans to from the wings of departing American jets: The US will not defend you. 

All an adversary needs to do is be consistent and not give up. Time after time we have been shown that if the resistance is stubborn enough, the US will inevitably turn its back, exclaim, “What can we say, the locals just can’t be helped!” while waiting for a politically opportune time — just long enough before any election so that constituents forget — and then buck and run.

China’s state-run media has already begun to propagate this message to : The US will abandon you, maybe not in five years, maybe not in 10 or even 20, but it will abandon you eventually — and we will be here. For once, China’s propaganda departments are perhaps not wrong. The US can’t rely on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, given its non-interference principle. Japan’s self-defense forces aren’t equipped to assist. South Korea has its hands full with the north. The US Navy is not built for combat with China’s modern and flexible fleet, and there are no ideal places to base and supply consistent military engagement in Taiwan.

Likewise, politics will always play a role in US military engagements, but would its domestic population ever stomach a hot conflict with China over an island it shares no language, culture or customs with outside of it being a democracy?

China, on the other hand, holds the good cards. It has more than the US Navy. Taiwan is just 100 miles away, and the Chinese people are fanatical about reunification. And, just like the Taliban, Beijing isn’t going anywhere.

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US Vice President Kamala Harris has proclaimed that the US will not tolerate China’s unlawful actions in the South China Sea, recently reaffirming Washington’s commitment to its allies. But will the vice president 20 years into a “forever war” with China think the same?

It’s likely that future White House administrations will have new considerations, ones that might make a trillion-dollar war with China far less palatable to the US voter base than trillion-dollar climate change legislation to end �������������’s fossil fuel dependency. Then all the US foreign policy community has to do is look back and state that the failure was a result of “missteps,” “miscalculations” and “misunderstandings,” entirely forgetting that the last time these blunders were made, they vowed to learn from their mistakes, and they vowed to stand by their allies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The fall of the US-backed Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani will shelve if not kill Indian support for the Iranian port of Chabahar, which was intended to facilitate Indian trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia. Chabahar was also viewed by India as a counterweight to the Chinese-supported Pakistani port of Gwadar, a crown jewel of Beijing’s transportation, telecommunications and energy-driven Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The Hazaras of Afghanistan Face a Threat to Survival

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The United States facilitated Indian investment in Chabahar by  the port from harsh sanctions against Iran. The exemption was intended to “support the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.” However, due to stalled negotiations with Iran about a revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the US in July — together with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan — plans to create a platform that would foster regional trade, business ties and connectivity.

The connectivity end of the plan resembled an effort to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. It would have circumvented Iran and weakened Chabahar but potentially strengthened China’s Gwadar alongside the port of Karachi. That has become a moot point with the plans certain to be shelved as the Taliban take over Afghanistan and form a government that would be denied recognition by at least the democratic parts of the international community.

China

Like other Afghan neighbors, neither Pakistan, Uzbekistan nor China are likely to join a boycott of the Taliban. On the contrary, China last month made a point of giving a visiting Taliban delegation a welcome. Yet recognition by Iran, Central Asian states and China of a Taliban government is unlikely to be enough to salvage the Chabahar project. “Changed circumstances and alternative connectivity routes are being conjured up by other countries to make Chabahar irrelevant,” an Iranian source told , a Delhi-based publication.

The Taliban have sought to reassure China, Iran, Uzbekistan and other Afghan neighbors that they will not allow Afghanistan to become an operational base for jihadist groups. This includes al-Qaeda and Uighur of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP). The Taliban have positioned themselves as solely concerned with creating an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan and having no inclination to operate beyond the country’s borders. But they have been consistent in their to expel al-Qaeda, even if the group is a shadow of what it was when it launched the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The TIP has occasionally issued  documenting its presence in Afghanistan. But it has, by and large, kept a low profile and refrained from attacking Chinese targets in Afghanistan or across the border in Xinjiang, the northwestern Chinese province in which authorities have brutally cracked down on ethnic Turkic Uighurs. As a result, the Taliban reassurance was insufficient to stop China from  advising its citizens to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. “Currently, the security situation in Afghanistan has further deteriorated … If Chinese citizens insist on staying in Afghanistan, they will face extremely high-security risks, and all the consequences will be borne by themselves,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Pakistan

The fallout of the Taliban’s sweep across Afghanistan is likely to affect China beyond Afghan borders, perhaps no more so than in Pakistan, a major focus of Beijing’s single largest BRI-related investment. This has made China a target for attacks by militants, primarily Baloch nationalists. In July, nine Chinese nationals were killed in an explosion on a bus transporting Chinese workers to the construction site of a dam in the northern mountains of Pakistan, a region prone to attacks by religious militants. This incident raises the specter of jihadists also targeting China. It was the highest loss of life of Chinese citizens in recent years in Pakistan.

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The attack occurred amid fears that the Taliban will bolster ultra-conservative religious sentiment in Pakistan that celebrates the group as heroes, whose success enhances the chances for austere religious rule. “Our jihadis will be emboldened. They will say that ‘if America can be beaten, what is the Pakistan army to stand in our way?’” a senior Pakistani official. Indicating its concern, China has  the signing of a framework agreement on industrial cooperation, which would have accelerated the implementation of projects that are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Kamran Bokhari, for The Wall Street Journal, explained: “Regime change is a terribly messy process. Weak regimes can be toppled; replacing them is the hard part. It is only a matter of time before the Afghan state collapses, unleashing chaos that will spill beyond its borders. All of Afghanistan’s neighbors will be affected to varying degrees, but Pakistan and China have the most to lose.”

The demise of Chabahar and/or the targeting by the Taliban of Hazara Shia Muslims in Afghanistan could potentially turn Iran into a significant loser too.

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This week, before glancing at political division in the US, we look at what is shaping up to be a game-changing development in China. �����Ǵdz��������’s reporters refer to it as a “,” but mainstream media in the West have largely ignored it. This neglect may have something to do with the conviction in the West that, though there are monumentally important problems to deal with, the inertia of the political and economic system we have today is such that no one believes that anything we decide to do will ever change anything. Could China be on course to become the century’s new “exceptional nation”?

Xi’s Promise of a New Great Leap Forward

In his successful 2008 campaign, Barack Obama railed against George W. Bush’s tax cuts and wars, only to maintain both during his two terms in office. In his campaign last year, Joe Biden lamented Donald Trump’s provocative policies regarding Cuba and Iran as well as Trump’s tax cuts. But after six months at the helm, he has shown no serious intent to reverse those policies. 

Both Democratic presidents claimed they would effect change (Obama) and be transformative (Biden), hiding they would be acting to reduce the inequality between makers and takers that Republicans promoted as an illustration of capitalist virtue. Both Democrats have shown themselves ready to accommodate and defend the interests of the 1% who supported their campaigns while expressing a sentimental commitment to improving everyone’s lives. The structure of US democracy seems to make challenging the status quo an impossible task. Sentiments consistently fail to influence reality.

Thought Suppression Flourishes in France and Washington

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China is governed by an exclusive elite, the Communist Party. Its monopoly on power spares its leaders the trouble of having to invent campaign promises to seduce ignorant voters. Many have noticed the comfortable complicity of China’s communist leaders with an economy that has become a decidedly capitalist power structure. If the US has cultivated an efficient, legally validated system of structured private capitalist corruption that offers the wealthy class the privilege of controlling politics, the Chinese have perfected a system of state corruption that offers the politically powerful direct control of wealth itself.

All recent US regimes have had no choice but to capitulate to the private interests that literally own the economy. The Democratic Party’s public war against the progressive reformers within its midst provides a good demonstration of the phenomenon. The democratic processes laid out in the US Constitution have been successfully manipulated over time to comfort oligarchy. This makes it particularly remarkable today that China’s authoritarian regime under President Xi Jinping, a true and largely unassailable oligarchy, appears to be providing the rare example of a government intent on taking action against the powerful interests that control the global economy. Xi appears to be taking steps to move China’s political economy in a more egalitarian direction. It may not be Karl Marx, but it clearly isn’t Milton Friedman.

According to Bloomberg journalists, Tom Hancock and Tom Orlick, “Xi is engaging in a “” that will change the way the Chinese economy works in the coming years. Xi’s new agenda “puts three priorities ahead of unfettered growth.” The first, which should surprise no one, is national security. It “includes control of data and greater self-reliance in technology. All nations in our dangerous world are enamored of security. The second is far more radical: “Common prosperity, which aims to curb inequalities that have soared in recent decades.” The third is consistent with traditional Chinese culture: “Stability, which means tamping down discontent among China’s middle class.” In Chinese culture, this is the effect of the virtue of harmony.

In other words, Xi is attempting to do what Joe Biden has ominously warned he might do: use his authoritarian power to achieve pragmatic goals in the name of the people that are difficult to achieve in the kind of democracy practiced in the US.

Common prosperity:

The opposite of the now current regime of private prosperity that works by undermining what was once idealized in the notion of the commonwealth, implying a fraternal sharing of national wealth

The Context

Xi appears to be announcing a quiet but stern revolution that has already provoked panic among many of the vested interests in the world of finance, both foreign and Chinese. Forty years ago, Deng Xiaoping’s departure from Mao Zedong’s radical communist egalitarianism and his encouragement of Western-style economic freedom led to China becoming a fixture of the global capitalist system. It achieved this goal by exciting the appetites of both Western and Chinese economic opportunists, leading to a record-breaking expansion of the Chinese economy.

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The new policy aims at relieving the suffering of “stretched workers, stressed parents, and squeezed start-ups.” The article’s authors designate the losers: “tech billionaires and their backers in the stock market, highly leveraged property companies including China Evergrande Group, and foreign venture capital firms that had hoped to take Chinese companies public in the U.S.” The Economist describes the in these terms: “Alibaba in e-commerce or Tencent in payments and entertainment will be around but less overweening — and less lucrative. Policies to curb their market power will redistribute some of their profits to smaller merchants and app developers, and to their workers.”

Xi’s gambit doesn’t appear to be merely rhetorical. Whether he can accomplish his goals remains an open question. He has undoubtedly set the scene for a major drama that, as it plays out, will most likely dominate the decade to come. Both the world of global capital and the declining US empire will react. It could lead to war. It could also lead to radical restructuring of the current geopolitical order in what may become a more multipolar world. For the moment, we the spectators are simply discovering the dialogue of Act I, Scene 1.

Can Xi Really Corral Such Ferocious Animals?

The same Bloomberg article explains Xi’s political motivation for his “.”&�Բ�����; To ensure the population’s acceptance of his hold on the reins of power, Xi wants to reassure the middle class that he is defending their interests. There may be more complex geopolitical causes, but that motivation clearly explains the urgency of the shift. The authors go on to evoke the possible downside of Xi’s new agenda: “The bigger risk for Beijing: Heavy state intervention might dampen the animal spirits that drive private investment and reverse an integration with the global economy that has helped drive growth in the last four decades.”

Animal spirits:

The spontaneous exuberance attributed to unthinking creatures with energy to expend, an unbridled appetite and scorn for anything that stands in their way

The Context

Xi is undoubtedly a clever geopolitical strategist. He can see clearly the issues Western empires have struggled with in past centuries. China had a privileged vantage point for observing the British Empire’s strengths and weaknesses after experiencing a pair of Opium Wars in the 19^th century. The incoherence of nationalistic rivalries in Europe ultimately undermined the British Empire that had reduced much of Asia, and particularly India and China, to a state of economic submission, if not slavery. 

Two world wars that included an emerging Japanese Empire eventually cleared the space for the USA’s consumer society-led neo-colonial, officially apolitical but heavily militaristic empire that eventually crafted a productive role for China’s post-Marxist economy. The Chinese “workshop of the world” became a vital feature of a system focused on permanent growth and obsessively stoked consumerism. Following World War II, American consumers became literally addicted to falling prices on consumer goods. China, with help from US capitalists, could step in to provide an ever-expanding cornucopia of goods at lower prices.

Xi is aware that the entire Western world, struggling with various imperfect models of democracy, has reached a tipping point regarding two existential problems: health and wealth. Both are clearly out of control. Governments in the West have demonstrably failed to address both the health of the planet, increasingly subjected to climate chaos, and the health of their people. None more so than the US, a nation that continues to resist even the idea of universal health care and persists in spectacularly bungling most of its initiatives with regard to the COVID-19 drama. 

With its retrograde approach to the distribution of vaccines, the intellectual ownership-obsessed West, guided by the wisdom of Bill Gates, has failed to live up to its image as the putative provider of global solutions. As it focuses on protecting and exploiting its supposed intellectual property in competition with the rest of the world, the West has, embarrassingly for itself, allowed spectacular chaos to continue and amplify. As for wealth, the effects of the pandemic have aggravated the growing and insurmountable gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of humanity. The idea that everyone can someday become a millionaire has been replaced by the clear perception that the super-wealthy will do everything in their power to ensure that only a select few will ever be admitted into their club.

China’s authoritarian system has made it easier to enact and implement policy. Powerless to solve problems, Western governments, captured by binary logic, prefer to explore hypothetical consequences and debate what emerge as two contradictory positions. With his Belt and Road Initiative, Xi has already expertly used the contrast between the image of constructive cooperation and the American addiction to war, military operations and sanctions as the solution to all problems. Xi’s gambit may translate more as image-building than economic realism, and it may rely as much on corruption as the will to collaborate, but it stands as an effective example of soft power.

Now Xi can remake his image as a populist hero at home. His announced policies even correspond to the fantasies of populists on the right and left who would love to see the financial operators ushered out the door, replaced by laws and practices that at least appear to be transferring power to the people under the protection of the government. Xi promises to put a leash on the over-exuberant animals who alone make the law in the capitalist West.

Antony Blinken Worries About China’s Ambitions

The Biden administration has apparently decided that the key to consolidating its image with voters lies in a foreign policy that consists of getting tough on the nations that refuse to get in line behind US leadership. The first among them and the one most likely to inspire the kind of fear that galvanizes American voters is, of course, China. With nearly four times the population of the United States, the quantity of fear it can generate will be spectacular. And in politics, it’s the spectacle that counts.

Bloomberg has by Peter Martin with the headline, “Blinken Warns Asian Nations of China’s Growing Nuclear Ambitions,” in which he cites the US secretary of state’s&�Բ�����;“‘deep concern’ over China’s growing nuclear arsenal.”&�Բ�����;

Deep concern

The emotion politicians claim to have, thanks to their privileged knowledge of geopolitical realities, which, when communicated to the people, generates the degree of fear that justifies risky and aggressive policies, including war

The Context

Secretary Blinken’s complaint that “Beijing has sharply deviated from its decades-old nuclear strategy based on minimum deterrence.” China is expected to understand that only the US is authorized to practice maximum deterrence. The following two paragraphs in the Reuters article give an idea of why Blinken’s concern is so “deep”:

“A 2020 Pentagon report estimated China’s nuclear warhead stockpile in ‘the low 200s’ and said it was projected to at least double in size as Beijing expands and modernizes its forces.

Analysts say the United States has around 3,800 warheads, and according to a State Department factsheet, 1,357 of those were deployed as of March 1.”

Who wouldn’t be concerned with only 3,800 warheads to ensure peace in the world? Bloomberg quotes Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who disapproves of “countries interfering in each other’s internal affairs.” Wang added a casual historical observation “that Asian nations had been bullied by others in the past and didn’t require ‘teachers’ or ‘saviors.’” The Opium Wars apparently left an indelible smoky taste in the Chinese collective unconscious.

The Latest Skirmish Inside the Increasingly Divided US Democratic Party

As the Republican Party continues its existential anguish surrounding the role of Donald Trump, the Democratic Party struggles to define whether its loyalty is to the people or the lobbies that fund its campaigns. The drama played out this past week in a special election pitting two African American women against each other.

The Los Angeles Times provides its of the come-from-behind victory of mainstream Shontel Brown over progressive Nina Turner in a high profile Democratic primary election for a congressional seat in Ohio: “Brown’s primary win is a boost for moderate Democrats who have been in increasingly testy tussles with progressive activists and gives a new voice in Congress for voters who are more hungry for calm pragmatism than for the passionate populism that animates Sanders’ followers.”

Calm pragmatism:

The fear of calling into question the visible cause of one’s suffering because the status quo has proved so destructive that people think any change will make things even worse

The Context

One Democratic political consultant in Cleveland explained what he thought “calm pragmatism” amounts to: “People are tired and worn out after the last four or five years.” They have stopped thinking about the implications of political choices and simply hope there will be a new status quo. The loser, Nina Turner, claimed that her campaign “didn’t lose this race. Evil money manipulated and maligned this election.” She has a point, since the effect on politics of money — once deemed in the Christian West to be “the root of all evil” — now dominates the rhetoric deployed in campaigns to the point of definitively crippling and even excluding serious political debate. Populist passion is real, but so is the passion of fear-mongering that incites voters to retreat into the illusion of calm pragmatism.

On an unrelated topic, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, Marwan Bishara, has at the African Union’s acceptance of Israel as an observer despite its consistent criticism of what it qualifies as Tel Aviv’s apartheid policies. Bishara explains that African nations may “reckon that Israel has major sway in Washington and may be of help to influence the decisions of the world’s superpower in their favour.” He then adds, “Indeed, such pragmatism — read opportunism — may have worked for the likes of Sudan in getting US sanctions lifted after it began normalising relations with Israel.”

Bishara thus equates “calm pragmatism” with “cynical opportunism.” Can the Ohio voters who chose Brown over Turner be accused of opportunism? Undoubtedly no, if only because they have nothing specific to gain from Brown’s election. The true explanation is the “evil money” Turner complains about paid for yet another media campaign based on stoking voters’ fear of the unknown. Democratic Party stalwarts — which included Hillary Clinton, Jim Clyburn and their sources of corporate money — effectively countered the successful grassroots funding of Turner’s campaign and turned the tide in Brown’s favor. Those stalwarts and their backers are the opportunists. The voters persuaded by their fear of the unknown were their dupes.

What links these two stories together is what a significant factor in Brown’s primary victory. As the , a lobbying group, “Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) threw its support behind Brown.” The DMFI reportedly nearly $2 million to Brown’s campaign. Why? Because they know that Turner is one of the rare American politicians who has the independence of thought to criticize Israel, something no US politician is permitted to do on pain of being branded anti-Semitic. The idea that Turner might challenge the unconditional commitment of the US to supporting Israel galvanized the white suburban voters who ended up giving Brown the majority.

The lockstep alignment of the US with Israel has been as important a factor as access to oil in determining US Middle East policy in recent decades. That policy has been disastrous for the region, the US and the world in a variety of ways. Is that the result people still expect from following a policy of calm pragmatism?

A Washington Post Columnist’s Shameful Feinting With Damned Praise

Conservative Washington Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen quite logically makes it clear that he is ready to come to the as the most effective way of undermining pretentions of the most vocal black US Americans: “A�� the Cuban people — up to 75 percent of whom have Afro-Cuban ancestry — rose up to demand their freedom, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation issued a statement praising the brutal regime that oppresses them and calling on the Biden administration to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba.”

Praise:

Make an objectively true statement describing a complex situation that includes a reference to a regime that has been labeled for ideological reasons as a diabolical enemy of every moral (i.e., economic) principle the United States is believed to stand for

The Context

In July, protests spread in Cuba provoked by a variety of ills for which many Cubans, succumbing to conditions of severe deprivation, wish to hold their government to account. US media predictably seized upon the occasion to nourish the dream of various interested parties in the US — mostly located in the quintessential swing state, Florida — to restore the situation of effective neo-colonial rule that the US enjoyed over the island from 1915 to 1959.

The first thing to notice in Thiessen’s piece, as in most of the media treatment in the US, is the facile use of the term “the Cuban people.” When a crowd of protesters appears, they become “the Cuban people.” Many of the same pundits in 2003 claimed that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis were ready to toss flowers at US soldiers invading their country. Honest reporters might write “a significant number of discontented Cubans” or some variation on that idea, but the dishonest ones simply declare that the protesters, some waving US flags, are synonymous with “the Cuban people.”

Thiessen reveals his utter dishonesty when he complains that Black Lives Matters was “praising the brutal regime” in its statement. Thiessen links to a on Instagram that begins by condemning “the U.S. government’s inhumane treatment of Cubans.” At no point does it praise the Cuban government other than citing an objective fact of “the country’s strong medical care and history of lending doctors and nurses to disasters around the world.” The BLM statement notes one other objective fact concerning a government’s policies, that “the United States has forced pain and suffering on the people of Cuba” through its embargo.

Anyone inclined to doubt that fact need simply refer to the of April 6, 1960, that describes a policy that has been in place for the last 60 years: “The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” It recommends “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Although the sanctions regime was loosened in 2015 by Barack Obama, Donald Trump scaled back and imposed new crippling measures. During his campaign last year, candidate : “I’d try to reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families.” Instead, he has maintained Trump’s sanctions and last week , while promising even “more to come.”

 *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post In China, Cuba and Ohio, Reform and Inertia Go to Battle appeared first on 51�Թ�.

With American troops wending their way home from the 20-year-long hot war in Afghanistan, the new cold war that recently became a dominant theme in American electoral politics has taken a curious turn. The original Cold War had meaning because it appeared to be a largely equitable match between the United States and the Soviet Union. That changed with the implosion of the USSR in 1991. What didn’t change was the psychological dependence of American administrations on their ability to identify existential threats from abroad. What better way, after all, to distract from the growing disarray visible within its own society?

Are Americans Waiting for a Cyber Apocalypse?

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The decade that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated the scope of the problem. In his 2000 presidential campaign, grammatically challenged George W. Bush the fact that the nation had lost the reassuring feeling of living in “a dangerous world” in which “you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was.” Bush was nevertheless convinced that there was an enemy on whom the nation could concentrate its fears.

Just eight months into his first term, after being elected by the Supreme Court, Bush got lucky. Islamic terrorism stepped in to play the role of archvillain, becoming the steed three presidents would ride for the next two decades, though its effect would wear with time. Despite the FBI’s to incite rudderless young Muslims to play the role of domestic terrorists — even funding plots that were subsequently “thwarted” by the FBI itself — homegrown Islamic terrorism has never lived up to its role as the existential threat the nation’s leaders wished for. That’s why Russia and China are back.

The response to Islamic terrorism has been so chaotic and mismanaged that, instead of unifying the nation as it once did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it has had the effect of fragmenting society beyond recognition. Americans now live to hate and cancel other Americans. The most identifiable enemies are people’s own neighbors or fellow citizens with contrasting mindsets.

After the debacle of Trump’s election in 2016, establishment Democrats seeking a scapegoat focused on Russia as the source of the nation’s deepest fears. Their marketing geniuses imagined what they termed “collusion” between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Republicans preferred to focus on China, though the business wing of the Republican party continues to see China as a burgeoning marketplace for its goods. 

Now that Russia and China practice the virtues of capitalism, it has become more difficult to frame the rivalry in purely military terms, though the pressure to launch a is as real as ever. But that has more to do with the fact that the military-industrial complex has become the core of the industrial economy. The new focus is on the notion of cyberthreat. The Cold War is morphing into the Code War.

In April, The Times that the Biden administration had “imposed extensive new sanctions on Russia” for the famous SolarWinds hack. It did so on the grounds that the Russian government may have been involved, though, as WhatIs.com reported, it is clearly a rather than established fact: “Federal investigators and cybersecurity agents believe a Russian espionage operation — most likely Russia‘s Foreign Intelligence Service — is behind the SolarWinds attack.” One of the curious features of the SolarWinds attack is that nobody seems to know if there were any consequences other than the gathering of economic information. “The purpose of the hack remains largely unknown,” WhatIs reports.

If the complaint about Russian and Chinese industrial spying is little more than rebranded old news in the Russiagate tradition, the most substantial piece of new news is The Washington Post’s scoop about NSO’s software. The fact that it was used to spy on the widest diversity of targets by various governments not averse to exaggerated forms of despotism makes it distinctive and seriously troubling. This isn’t industrial espionage — it’s people espionage.

What has been the ? While the Israeli government has remained silent, The Washington Post that the “NSO Group firmly denies false claims made in your report which many of them are uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability of your sources, as well as the basis of your story.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Uncorroborated theory:

1. A common way of describing a boatload of unconnected facts that all point toward a person’s or an institution’s accountability

2. Most of what appears in the news to justify the aggressive foreign policy Americans now believe is a feature of their nation’s identity

Contextual Note 

The New York Times the latest scandal in these terms: “A major Israeli cyber-surveillance company, NSO Group, came under heightened scrutiny Sunday after an international alliance of news outlets reported that governments used its software to target journalists, dissidents and opposition politicians.” A person suspected of a major crime is arrested and eventually charged. In today’s neoliberal world, a company, even in the presence of massive evidence, is merely subjected to “heightened scrutiny.”

The goal of those using the software is the theft of private information and includes setting up kidnaps and murders, allegedly including the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Reuters explains what the US Justice Department believes to be of the Chinese hackers: “The campaign targeted trade secrets in industries including aviation, defense, education, government, health care, biopharmaceutical and maritime industries.” In other words, China’s crime is industrial spying rather than political espionage. It is about property rather than people, or what Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco as an attempt “to steal what other countries make.”

Historical Note

It is an observable fact in the functioning of today’s legal systems that protecting private property is far more important than the security of the population. National interest has come to be synonymous with corporate interest. The nations whose corporations historically grew by stealing the resources of the rest of the world after subjecting their populations to colonial rule see no crime as heinous as the attempts of those exploited nations and regions to use modern technology, not to steal, but to learn how to exploit the same processes the advanced economies have built.

Stealing ideas and processes — or industrial plagiarism — has always been a feature of dynamic economies. Defenders of the letter of the law complain that violating patents kills innovation. On the contrary, the prevention of the transfer of immaterial knowledge encourages monopoly. That not only stifles innovation but creates the conditions for various forms of oppression, including the ability to steal with impunity from weaker rivals. In October 2020, Business Insider the allegation against Amazon. An antitrust report by the House Judiciary Committee determined that “Amazon uses third-party seller data to copy the site’s most popular products.”

The Times offers this historical reminder: “While there is nothing new about digital espionage from Russia and China — and efforts by Washington to block it — the Biden administration has been surprisingly aggressive in calling out both countries and organizing a coordinated response.” Biden seeks to be remembered not as the new FDR, but as the defender of the neoliberal order and the consolidation of the corporate oligarchy as the virtual government overseeing a form of democracy that has been reduced to a set of electoral rituals.

Capitalists will always seek to steal what others have done. That is called getting an edge on the competition. Sometimes they can do it legally, but often they will do it illegally after taking a maximum number of precautions to avoid being caught. In today’s world of asymmetric economic warfare, the stronger corporations will get away with it, and the stronger nations will find effective ways of punishing those that are trying to catch up.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Is Spying an Art or a Crime? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Does the World Need to Contain China?

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Since becoming president, DPP leader Tsai Ing-wen has challenged Beijing’s “one-China policy.” In 2020, she declared that Taiwan could not accept with China under its “one country, two systems” offer of autonomy. Taiwan’s first female president said that “Both sides have a duty to find a way to coexist over the long term and prevent the intensification of antagonism and differences,” pouring cold water over Beijing’s long-cherished hopes of reunification.

Chinese Aggression, Taiwanese Response

China has responded aggressively to Taiwan’s position. In a recent , Lee Hsi-min, a retired Taiwanese admiral, and Eric Lee, an Indo-Pacific security analyst, point out that the CCP “is already taking action against Taiwan.” For years, China has undertaken incremental military measures against its tiny neighbor. Beijing has been careful not to cross the threshold of armed conflict, but its sub-conflict operations have been relentless.

These operations have come to be known as gray zone aggression. They involve airspace incursions, coastal violations, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. A recent by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Chinese aircraft had entered Taiwan’s airspace 20 times in the first eight months of 2020. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has stepped up its air and naval operations. Fighter and bomber aircraft frequently circumnavigate Taiwan as a show of force. Chinese aircraft carriers have been on military exercises and “routine” drills in near Taiwan.

This is part of China’s increased aggression in its neighborhood since Xi took charge of the CCP, with Beijing doing all it can to undermine Taiwan’s institutions, demoralize its society and undermine popular support for a democratically elected government. However, Taiwan has responded robustly to this aggression. In April, the Taiwanese foreign minister vowed that his country would itself to “the very last day.” Taiwan is spending more on defense, strengthening military ties with allied powers and even preparing for a potential war to retain its independence.

Indonesia’s Balancing Act

As tensions rise between China and Taiwan, Indonesia has been forced into a delicate balancing act. China is Indonesia’s largest , a big source of investment and a supplier of COVID-19 vaccines. In 2019, reached $79.4 billion, rising tenfold since 2000. Indonesia has even started using Chinese currency for trade in a historic move away from the US dollar. 

In 2020, Chinese foreign direct , including flows from Hong Kong, reached $8.4 billion, rising by 11% in a year. A 142-kilometer Indonesian rail project is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and is expected to cost $4.57 billion. In April, Xi met Indonesian President Joko Widodo and promised to Chinese investment further. Xi said the two countries should increase infrastructure projects such as the high-speed rail link between the capital Jakarta and Bandung, a major Indonesian city.

Before the pandemic, 2 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia every year. Jakarta’s nationwide vaccination campaign is using China’s COVID-19 vaccine. (So far, the West has failed to provide Indonesia with vaccines.) Derek Grossman, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation, has argued that Indonesia is quietly up to China.

Even as Indonesia develops closer ties with China, it is also deepening its relationship with Taipei. Taiwan’s track record in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has been spectacularly successful, and Taipei has 200 oxygen concentrators to Jakarta. Even though it has been for the recent rise in cases, Taiwan is still a role model for a country like Indonesia, which needs all the help it can get.

Like the US, the UK and many other countries, Indonesia does not recognize Taiwan’s independence. However, between the two countries is rising. In 2019, Taiwanese investment in Indonesia crossed $400 million. The previous year, trade between the two countries surpassed $8 billion, growing by 15.7% in a year. President Tsai’s “” is starting to yield results. 

Indonesia has to be careful in handling its relationship with both China and Taiwan. Recently, Japan’s deputy defense minister that Taiwan “as a democratic country” should be protected from China. The statement triggered fierce condemnation from Beijing. Jakarta should to avoid any pronouncement that may upset Beijing, Taipei or even Washington. Indonesia needs economic growth, increased investment and collaboration with all major powers.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Indonesia’s Balancing Act Between China and Taiwan appeared first on 51�Թ�.

When it comes to foreign policy, however, the Biden administration has been nowhere near as transformational. The phrase Joe Biden has used so often is “America is back.” That sentiment certainly captures some aspects of Biden’s relationship with the international community, such as repairing relations with the World Health Organization and rejoining the Paris climate accords. In these ways, the administration has brought America back to the status quo that existed before Trump was unleashed on the world stage.

How Joe Biden Looks at the World

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But on some very important issues — China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea — President Biden hasn’t managed to restore even the previous status quo. His approach to military spending and the arms race is decidedly hawkish. His message on immigration, as expressed by Vice President Kamala Harris on a visit to Guatemala earlier this month, effectively erases the inscription on the Statue of Liberty by  potential border crossers in the region to stay home. Okay, foreign policy is not a winning issue at the ballot box, and Biden certainly has a lot on his agenda. But even the notoriously cautious Obama took some courageous steps with Tehran and Havana.

It’s possible that Biden is focusing on America first before turning to the world as a whole. It’s also possible that he’s simply not interested in altering US foreign policy in any significant way beyond removing US troops from Afghanistan. True, it was exhilarating to have a conventional president again after Trump. But conventional, when it comes to US foreign policy, is just not good enough.

Confronting China

If the Biden administration’s overriding domestic preoccupation is a sustainable economy, then its dominant foreign policy obsession is China. Biden and Xi have spoken only once, by telephone in February. Xi participated in Biden’s virtual climate confab in April. They are likely to meet face to face sometime this year, possibly around the G20 summit in Rome in October. There’s been talk of greater cooperation on addressing the climate crisis. And there haven’t been any overt military confrontations in the South China Sea or elsewhere.

But otherwise, Biden and Xi have not really gotten off on the right foot. It was a no-brainer for the new Biden administration to lift the Trump-era tariffs on Chinese products and de-escalate the trade war that unsettled manufacturers and consumers on both sides of the Pacific. The Biden team is ostensibly doing a review of US–China trade policy with a focus on whether Beijing has met its commitments under the “phase one trade deal” signed back in January 2020 (so far, it’s been  of China meeting some targets for US imports and missing others).

The review is more than just bean-counting. In a marked departure from the usual neoliberal trade talk coming out of Washington, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai , “I want to disconnect this idea that the only way we do affirmative trade engagement, trade enhancement is through a free trade agreement.” Tai prefers to operate according to a “” that evaluates China on issues of forced labor, workers’ rights and the environment. A more nuanced approach to trade is all to the good, of course, and Tai should be commended for breaking with the Washington consensus.

But taken in conjunction with other Biden administration policies, the reluctance to lift tariffs on Chinese goods is part of a full-court economic press on the country. The Biden administration has effectively continued the Trump approach of not only lining up allies in the region to contain China (the Quad, the Blue Dot Network) but enlisting European countries as well to join the bandwagon. In his recent trip to Europe, Biden  the G7 to create the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative, a purported alternative to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure program, and twisted some arms to get NATO to prioritize China as part of its mission.

NATO’s new emphasis on China reflects the Pentagon’s shift in focus. Trump might have loudly proclaimed his anti-China animus, but the Biden administration is determined to close what it calls the “” by expanding capabilities beyond the Navy to challenge China in the air and above.

China’s moves in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea are deeply troubling. Nor is Beijing doing nearly enough to green its Belt and Road Initiative. But the Biden administration needs to think creatively about how to leverage China’s own multilateral aspirations in order to address global problems. Trade tensions and disagreements about internal policies are to be expected. Yet the Biden administration has an urgent and historic opportunity to work with China (and everyone else) to remake the international community.

Sparring With Iran

Another no-brainer for the Biden administration was reviving the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump tried to destroy. Granted, it was tricky to unwind the sanctions against Tehran and address ��������’s demands for compensation. It wasn’t easy to reassure the Iranian leadership of the sincerity of US intentions given not only Trump’s past hostility but the current animosities of congressional Republicans. And there was also Israel, which was doing everything within its power to scuttle diplomacy up to and including  and .

These obstacles notwithstanding, the Biden team could have gotten the job done if it had started earlier and been more flexible. Not wanting to open itself up to criticism from hawks at home, however, the administration argued for a mutual, step-by-step return to the agreement. By contrast, Iran quite sensibly argued that the United States, since it attempted to blow up the agreement, should be the first to compromise by removing sanctions, a position that some US policymakers have also .

Is the US Back Under Biden?

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Meanwhile, the Biden administration is continuing a tit-for-tat confrontation with militias aligned with Iran. This week, the administration launched airstrikes against facilities on the Iraq-Syria border from which these militias have allegedly attacked US.bases in Iraq. US forces in Syria subsequently came under .

Why are there still US soldiers in Iraq and Syria? Didn’t the Biden administration commit to ending �������������’s endless wars? Although US forces are scheduled to depart Afghanistan in September and Washington has pledged to remove troops from Iraq as well, negotiations around the latter have yet to produce a . Removing 2,500 US soldiers from Iraq would please the government in Baghdad, remove an irritant in US-Iranian relations and take US personnel out of harm’s way. What’s not to like, Joe?

Getting Nowhere With Cuba and North Korea

Late in his second term, Barack Obama orchestrated a bold rapprochement with Cuba. After lifting financial and travel restrictions, Obama  the island in March 2016 to meet with Cuban leader Raul Castro. It wasn’t a full opening. Washington maintained a trade embargo and refused to close its anomalous base in Guantanamo. But it was a start. Donald Trump brought a quick end to that fresh start by reimposing the restrictions that Obama had lifted.

Joe Biden promised to resurrect the Obama policy. Trump’s reversals, he  as a candidate, “have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.” And yet, as president, he has done nothing to reverse Trump’s reversals.

As Karen de Young  in The Washington Post, “Under Trump restrictions, non-Cuban Americans are still prohibited from sending money to the island. Cruise ships are banned from sailing from the United States to Cuba, and the dozens of scheduled U.S. commercial flights to Cuban cities have largely stopped. Tight limits remain in place on commercial transactions.”

The reason for the new administration’s lack of action, beyond its concerns about human rights in Cuba and its fear of Republican opposition in Congress, boils down to domestic politics. Robert Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey who never liked the Obama-era détente with Cuba in the first place, represents a key obstacle in Congress. Public opinion in Florida among Cuban-Americans, which had swung in favor of rapprochement during the Obama period, has now also  in the other direction, thanks to a steady diet of Trumpian demagoguery.

Here, the Biden administration could try something new by closing Guantanamo. The administration is already  to close the detention facility at the base by resolving the status of the several dozen inmates. He should go even further by rebooting Guantanamo as a center for US-Cuban environmental research, as scientists Joe Roman and James Kraska .

North Korea, meanwhile, is the one place in the world where Trump sought to overturn decades of US hostility. His attempts at one-on-one diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un didn’t achieve much of anything, but it still might have served as a foundation for future negotiations. Biden has instead followed the script of all the administrations prior to Trump: review policy, promise something new, fall back on conventional thinking.

The administration finished its  of the North Korea policy in April. Biden  his predecessor’s approaches as misguided and has relied on the usual big-stick-and-small-carrot policy that stretches back to the 1990s. On the one hand, Biden  against the country and has maintained a military encirclement. On the other, his emissaries have reached out to Pyongyang, with Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim  this month that the United States would meet with Pyongyang “anywhere, anytime, without preconditions.” “Without preconditions” is fine. But what about “with incentives”?

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea is more shut off from the world than usual. It is preoccupied with the economic challenges associated with its increased isolation. In his annual address in January, Kim Jong-un made the unusual  that the government’s economic program fell short of its goals. More recently, he has  that his country is “prepared for both dialogue and confrontation, especially … confrontation.”

Biden should focus on the first half of Kim’s sentence. South Korea’s progressive president, Moon Jae-in, nearing the end of his own tenure, very much wants to advance reconciliation on the peninsula. Instead of beefing up its military containment of the isolated country, Washington could work with Seoul to break the current diplomatic impasse with a grand humanitarian gesture. Whether it’s vaccines, food or infrastructure development, North Korea needs help right now.

Military Exceptionalism

It’s still early in the Biden administration. Remember: Obama didn’t achieve his major foreign policy milestones in Iran and Cuba until later in his second term. Biden no doubt wants to accumulate some political capital first by repairing relations with allies and participating in multilateral fora on the global stage and achieving some economic success on the home front.

The administration’s position on military spending, however, suggests that Biden is wedded to the most conventional of thinking. The United States is poised to end its intervention in Afghanistan and reduce its commitments in the Middle East. It is not involved in any major military conflicts. Everyone is wondering how the administration is going to pay for its ambitious infrastructure plans.

So, why has Biden asked for a larger military budget? The administration’s 2022 request for the Pentagon is $715 billion, an of $10 billion, plus an additional $38 billion for military-related spending at the Energy Department and other agencies. True, the administration is hoping to boost non-military spending by a larger percentage. It is planning to remove the “overseas contingency operations” line item that funded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But if there ever was a time to reduce US military spending, it’s now. The pandemic proved the utter worthlessness of tanks and destroyers in defending the homeland from the most urgent threats. Greater cooperation with China, a renewed nuclear pact with Iran and a détente with both Cuba and North Korea would all provide powerful reasons for the United States to reduce military spending. To use Joe Biden’s signature phrase, “C’mon, man!”

*[This was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post So Far, Biden’s Foreign Policy Is Proving Too Conventional appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Yet as restrictions ease and economies pick up pace, the sense of normality that many hope for is one of the few luxuries energy producers cannot afford. In the race to comply with mounting political pressure to reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously securing their energy futures, the Sino-Gulf alliance may become the new center of gravity for global energy markets.

Young People Are the Key to Reconciling China and Hong Kong

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The pandemic has undoubtedly cast a dark shadow on energy. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently that energy demand will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 in its most optimistic outlook or 2025 in the case of a delayed economic recovery. However, a return to pre-COVID demand does not necessitate a return to pre-crisis growth. Predicted growth in demand between 2019 and 2030 is estimated at 4% in the delayed recovery case, compared to 12% in a COVID-free world.

Nevertheless, the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of a reliable and accessible electricity supply. The IEA that the electricity sector, whose demand outpaces other fuels, will support economic recovery and account for 21% of global final energy consumption by 2030. This push for electricity is widely driven by the various global emission reduction targets, increased use of electric vehicles and heat sources in advanced economies, and greater consumption from emerging markets.

Leader of the Pack

Of the countries driving this growth, China is leading the pack and is predicted to be the main driver of energy demand over the next decade. Following his for an “energy ���𱹴DZ��ܳپ��Dz�,” President Xi Jinping has sought to reposition China as a key player in global energy markets. While the Chinese are currently the world’s consumers and producers of coal-fired electricity, Xi’s to make China carbon neutral by 2060 means that energy demands are increasingly being met via renewables.

China is predicted to account for of global renewable expansion, leading in the realm of nuclear power, biofuel production and will account for almost half of globally distributed photovoltaic power. In addition to this, Chinese demand is also predicted to account for 40% of global electricity sector growth by 2030, up from 28%. It was as a consequence of East Asia’s growing appetite for clean energy that, in 2016, global electricity investment outpaced that of oil and gas for the first time in history.

However, as with everything, there will be winners and losers. While electricity is on the up, sluggish global oil demand has led to falling oil prices. With demand predicted to in the 2030s, there is a growing urgency for Gulf Arab states to diversify as oil becomes more of a burden than a blessing. Yet, in their hurry to claim their stake in the new energy world order, Gulf countries may begin to look east rather than west for a friend to rely on.

China and the Gulf

Sino-Gulf relations are not a new occurrence. As the world’s importer of oil and natural gas, these two commodities dominate Chinese trade relations and have been the basis of the Saudi-led Gulf alliance. The Gulf Cooperation Council supplies over of China’s oil imports, with Saudi Arabia topping the list, accounting for of the oil import total. Nevertheless, in a world that is increasingly turning its back on oil, GCC states and China may increasingly look to each other to secure their respective energy futures.

From the establishment of the China–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) in 2004 to the China–GCC Strategic Dialogue in 2010, Sino-Gulf relations have grown from strength to strength. As such, it was hardly surprising when China gave the GCC a starring role in its Belt and Road Initiative. Announced in 2013, this global infrastructure project that seeks to boost physical connectivity, financial integration, trade and economic growth has become the core pillar of China’s increasingly active foreign policy approach under Xi.

During the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the CASCF in 2014, Xi about the Gulf Arab states as “natural cooperative partners in jointly building” the BRI. This set the stage for a of multi-billion-dollar investments and agreements between China and the Gulf states, advancing the Belt and Road Initiative in the Arabian Peninsula and deepening economic ties.

Chinese investment activity in the Gulf has followed the “” Sino-Arab cooperation framework. This features energy cooperation as its central axis, investment and infrastructure, and accelerating breakthroughs in three high-tech sectors, namely aviation satellite, nuclear energy and new energy. However, there is no doubt that the BRI aims primarily to strengthen this central pillar of energy cooperation. Aptly described as “oil roads,” the initiative will enable China to establish the necessary infrastructure, transport and refinery facilities needed to secure its energy future and keep GCC coffers full.

These ambitious plans will be of greater significance in the years to come. Despite the economic and energy market turmoil triggered by the pandemic, Sino-Gulf relations show no signs of . Rather, the pandemic may have made way for a greater mutual dependence between China and the Gulf states. This is particularly true for the GCC, whose economic wellbeing depends heavily on the revival of global oil markets. China may prove to be the answer to Gulf ministers’ prayers, stimulating growth by providing a guaranteed revenue stream for the region’s main export, no doubt stabilizing GCC economies.

Beyond the energy sector, however, the two regions offer a wealth of investment opportunities that will likely deepen relations, particularly as the GCC economies realize their various diversification plans. The synergies between the GCC’s “v�������Dz�” and China’s BRI are extensive, thus acting as a major point of collaboration. The two are already in the final stages of the long-awaited China–GCC free trade agreement, a move that would no doubt propel economic cooperation and open the doors to a vast array of trading opportunities. Saudi Arabia has already taken active steps to consolidate this BRI-vision cooperation by various agreements and memorandums of understanding with China. Riyadh has since the BRI to be “one of the main pillars of the Saudi Vision 2030,” consequently making China “among the Kingdom’s biggest economic partners.”&�Բ�����;

Closer Partners

It is thus clear that, willingly or unwillingly, recent global events have further pushed China and GCC into each other’s arms. Sino-Gulf relations can be expected to gain serious traction in the next few years, especially in the realm of energy cooperation, which is likely to continue to spearhead this strategic alliance as a sector of great mutual importance. Meanwhile, as China seeks to entrench itself in the Gulf, it may find itself caught in the middle of the regional power struggles that threaten stability, namely the Iran-Saudi rivalry. President Xi, however, shows no intent of mixing business with politics, as seen in his recent regional , which saw him visit both Saudi Arabia and Iran among others.

Nevertheless, if China wishes to grow its presence in the Gulf, ensuring regional peace will undoubtedly become a priority for Beijing. Chinese neutrality may be exactly what is needed to defuse regional tensions and maintain a level of accord that keeps the feud below boiling point. Yet despite Sino-Gulf relations taking center stage in the near future, China will not be replacing the United States as the dominant foreign power in the Middle East any time soon. Beijing’s focus on economic rather than political matters makes China, to use the of Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, “not necessarily a better friend, but a less complicated friend.”

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The divide between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong youth has reached alarming levels. Multiple surveys have revealed that almost no one under 30 in Hong Kong identifies as . The clash between these two groups has now arrived at university campuses around the world as both sides are adamant in presenting their side of the story. COVID-19 has only exacerbated these differences. Mainland Chinese see the success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in managing the pandemic as proof of its competence. Hong Kongers do not trust their CCP-influenced government and view the measures to control the pandemic as another excuse for increased repression.

Despite the Differences

The divergent beliefs among young people in mainland China and Hong Kong assume importance in the context of new geopolitical realities. US President Joe Biden is championing a democratic agenda for the world, corralling like-minded countries to counter growing Chinese influence. Hong Kong is key in this new global struggle between democracy and autocracy. Having been under British rule until 1997, the territory is still governed by common law and has enjoyed greater relative freedom than mainland China. Now, that era seems to be ending. 

Since 1997, many mainland Chinese have moved to Hong Kong. In particular, students have arrived in large numbers. At the end of 2019, more than were studying in Hong Kong. Greater interaction between these young people was supposed to increase mutual understanding. Instead, they still live in parallel universes. Mainland students live together, hang out with each other and tend to share similar beliefs. As hosts, Hong Kongers have made little effort to reach out.

Despite many differences, both groups of students have a lot in common. Both are tired of the rat race, the decreasing social mobility and widening inequality. Mainlanders celebrate slacking off during work. They speak of “mō yú,” a phrase that means “feeling the fish.” They also speak of “tǎngpíng,” or “lying flat.” This is a refusal to participate in the economic rat race. Hong Kongers are equally, if not more jaded about the economic system. They see the city’s economy in decline. They worry about getting decent jobs, buying an apartment and raising children. Prima facie, mainland and Hong Kong students should be uniting around common economic concerns.

Yet Chinese and Hong Kong youth have very different perspectives. The former has strong feelings of national pride due to ideological indoctrination. For many Chinese students, the CCP has delivered good governance, economic growth and social stability. The CCP’s “” has increased among mainlanders. They are wary of Western democracies that criticize the Chinese model. This wariness is rooted in an education system that the CCP developed in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The education system highlights the “century of national humiliation” that began when late imperial China was forced to cede sovereignty and territory to foreign powers. It glamorizes the CCP-led “national rejuvenation” that entails China reclaiming its seat at the top table as a great power. Under President Xi Jinping, the CCP has redoubled its drive to promulgate nationalist education. In 2019, the government published a for that emphasizes rejuvenation even further. As per this document, national rejuvenation is “,” Xi’s pet slogan from November 2012.

A Different Reading of History

Hong Kong students have a different reading of history. In 2012, they took to the streets to protest against a proposed that emphasized China’s model of political meritocracy over the messiness of Western democracies and downplayed political events like the Tiananmen Square massacre. In 2014, students rose up again in what came to be known as Occupy Central, or the Umbrella Movement. They demanded universal suffrage as promised in the Basic Law, the city’s constitution. 

Hong Kong students have a very different experience when compared to their mainland peers. Hong Kongers have opposed the CCP’s increasing interference in the territory’s governance. Mainlanders see the CCP as the torchbearer of national rejuvenation. Hong Kong students want the autonomy and freedoms of the “one country, two systems” model to continue. Mainlanders want China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong asserted.

Importantly, young Hong Kongers are increasingly cynical of authority. They are prepared for prolonged underground resistance to the harsh new . Some have adopted a destructive philosophy of “” because they have lost faith in the future. Today, almost 60% of those between 15 to 30 would if they had the chance to do so.

It is clear that young mainlanders and Hong Kongers have different historical memories and political aspirations. Consequently, prospects for long-term reconciliation between the two sides appear grim. However, such reconciliation is more important than ever. Hong Kong was once a model for the coexistence of Western democracy and Chinese one-party rule. Its political fate is a bellwether for the future relationship between China and the West.

As such, it is important to build trust among young people on both sides of the divide. Only when they start understanding each other’s history and grasping their respective cultural nuances does reconciliation stand a chance.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Why the sudden bipartisanship? China. The $250 billion investment into semiconductor production, scientific research, space exploration and the like is intended to decrease dependency on inputs from China and maintain a US lead in critical technologies.

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The Biden administration is now eager to replicate that experience on the global level. At last week’s G7 summit in the UK, the United States again used China as a threat to forge transnational solidarity around a global infrastructure deal. Despite some misgivings from Germany and Italy, President Joe Biden managed to steer the group toward something called the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative, which incidentally sounds a lot like Biden’s 2020 campaign slogan. But that slogan itself echoed a catchphrase adopted by the UN in 2015 to characterize its response to humanitarian disasters. So, B3W can sound both authentically multilateral and distinctively Bidenesque at the same time.

In the face of the global tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change — not to mention the sustained attacks by Donald Trump and other right-wing populists on the global order — it was entirely appropriate for the G7 to come up with a bold approach to addressing global economic inequities in a sustainable manner. Alas, B3W raises as many questions as it addresses.

For instance, is B3W more than just a fancy name attached to already committed financing and existing institutions like the Blue Dot Network? Isn’t the World Bank supposed to be closing the infrastructure gap between the have-lots and the have-littles? And shouldn’t China be a collaborator in this effort rather than its chief antagonist?

Improving Upon Belt and Road?

China launched its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Its aim has been thoroughly Keynesian: to pump money into the economies on China’s borders — as well as some further away — in order to sustain China’s own economic growth. The more these economies are dependent on Chinese financing, Chinese inputs and Chinese know-how, the more they will ultimately contribute to China’s global economic dominance.

Is China creating some kind of global alternative to capitalism like the Soviet Union’s old Comecon? No, Beijing is thoroughly capitalist in its orientation, though it pushes a version that rubs many laissez-faire purists the wrong way.

Is China determined to use BRI to consolidate an anti-democratic bloc of nations? Although Beijing may well prefer to deal with more predictable partners — and democracies can elect some pretty outrageous wildcards — it is ultimately agnostic about the political governance of its BRI collaborators. There are  participating in the BRI, including 18 countries in the European Union. For every Belarus and Cuba, there’s an Estonia and a Chile.

Well, then, isn’t China using BRI to build a kind of covert military bloc? Critics, for instance, have pointed to the deal China negotiated with Sri Lanka around the port it helped to finance in Hambantota. Struggling with loan repayments in 2017, Sri Lanka signed a 99-year lease arrangement with a Chinese firm. Couldn’t Beijing now turn this port into a military base?

In fact, Sri Lanka  to own the facility, though the Chinese commercial firm operates much of the port and thus gets much of the profit. Despite US government , China is not and doesn’t seem to have any intention of conducting military business at Hambantota. Two Chinese subs entered the port before the 2017 deal, and Sri Lanka has  such visits ever since.

The Sri Lankan example has often been used as exhibit A in the case of China’s use of the “debt trap” to advance its global objectives. According to this scenario, Beijing extends loans through BRI, the target country defaults, and China grabs the assets. It sounds plausible. Except that there’s no  that China actually operates that way, including in the Sri Lankan case.

The Belt and Road Initiative has many flaws, to be sure. It has facilitated large-scale corruption, for instance, in . It has promoted , including 240 coal projects and billions of dollars in oil and gas investments.

But it’s not as if China is the only country with dirty hands. Corruption is endemic in infrastructure projects, accounting for as much as 45% of costs. And when it comes to fossil fuels, the US was the largest oil  in the world last year as well as the fourth-largest exporter of .

So, why did the G7 think it was so important to come up with an alternative to China’s Belt and Road rather than work with Beijing to build back better together?

Beat ‘em Rather than Join ‘em?

The United States likes being number one. The success of Trump’s political campaign and his various hyperbolic slogans testify to the endurance of American exceptionalism. The stridency of these exceptionalist claims, however, introduces a measure of doubt. Front-runners who are anxious about their status generally compensate by raising their voices and thumping their chests harder. In this way, we betray our simian origins.

China has challenged the US status by growing what is now, measured by purchasing power parity, the world’s largest economy. Thanks to its performance in 2020 during the pandemic, China will likely become the world’s undisputed number one economy sometime 2026.

But China is also challenging the global economy by establishing its own institutions parallel to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The BRI, by encompassing so much of the world, is just the kind of grand initiative that number-one economies set up to maintain their dominance.

The United States is not so enthusiastic about relinquishing its top status. Ditto all the countries that have hitched themselves to the US economic locomotive. With Trump out of the White House, Washington has eschewed machismo in favor of multilateral and moral arguments against the Belt and Road Initiative: China is throwing developing countries into debt dependency; China is bolstering the power of authoritarian leaders; China is fostering unacceptable work environments including forced labor.

Those criticisms ring hollow. The developing world is already in debt dependency to the G7 and its financial institutions. The World Bank and IMF worked closely with dictators for decades. Western corporations long turned a blind eye to horrifying working conditions in the countries where they set up operations.

And the $40 trillion infrastructure gap between have-lots and have-littles that B3W is supposed to bridge? It’s because of this gap that China was so successful in reaching out to the Global South in the first place. In charge of the global economy since 1945, the richest countries failed miserably to achieve a modicum of global economic equity — because that was never really their goal.

But Can It Help?

For the sake of argument, let’s put all this history aside. Regardless of the mixed intentions of its backers, can B3W actually help countries that want to catch up to the rest of the world in a way that doesn’t further accelerate the climate crisis?

The experience of the Blue Dot Network is not encouraging. Established by Japan, Australia and the US in 2019 — after a series of failed infrastructure initiatives like the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor and the Trilateral Partnership — the Blue Dot Network  a Good Housekeeping seal of approval for infrastructure deals that meet more stringent requirements around governance, finance, labor conditions and the like. But here’s the problem: The Blue Dot Network doesn’t actually provide credit-hungry countries with access to any new pots of money.

B3W looks like it might be a similar example of grand rhetoric and few resources. It is articulating the same kind of criteria for investments as the Blue Dot Network. As for the financing, the G7 has promised to mobilize private sector funding — in other words, they aren’t ponying up any money of their own. This is no surprise. The Biden administration is hard-pressed to pass its own domestic infrastructure bill. Fat chance it can get Republicans on board to send similarly earmarked funds abroad, even under the rubric of challenging China.

Nevertheless, the White House is : “B3W will collectively catalyze hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries in the coming years.” The word “catalyze” sounds very dynamic, but frankly, it’s just a fancy way of saying: We will beg and wheedle and maybe twist an arm or two, but frankly we can’t promise much of anything. As Reuters wryly  in its article on the initiative, “It was not immediately clear how exactly the plan would work or how much capital it would ultimately allocate.”

The bottom line is that the world desperately needs a green B3W. It needs to find a way to close the infrastructure gap by providing the funds and financing for the developing world to leapfrog into a clean energy future. At the moment, the Belt and Road Initiative does not do that. And neither does B3W.

So, how about it, Washington and Beijing? Why not get together to see if you can turn two wrongs into a right and collaborate on a global Green New Deal?

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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NATO was born in the aftermath of the Second World War as the West’s response to the ambitions of the Soviet Union, which controlled large portions of Eastern Europe and represented an ideology considered inimical to Western political and economic culture. This gave rise to the Cold War, framed as the rivalry between two systems of social and economic organization: capitalism (supported by democracy) and communism (the dictatorship of the proletariat).

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Because humanity had entered the nuclear age, the Cold War cultivated a permanent and universal feeling of potential terror, unlike tensions and wars of the historical past. Its name, “Cold War,” has been to George Orwell, who didn’t live long enough to see how it would develop. The author of “1984” imagined “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” In the end, there were only two major players. The laws of hyperreality, just like the laws of conventional information technology, require reducing the governing logic to a binary opposition. The age of quantum logic, which humanity is only just now discovering, had not yet begun.

The Cold War was cold in relative terms, simply because the heat that a real nuclear war might produce would have dwarfed anything humanity had ever experienced. As soon as a nuclear war started it would be over, as no one would be left standing. This too reflected the binary logic of the time. There were exactly two choices: hot war or cold war. There could be no warm war between the two proud rivals. A cold war was clearly preferable in the eyes of anyone who wielded power. The leaders in the US understood how to profit from that preference. It justified the creation and rapid growth of a powerful military-industrial complex at the core of the American empire.

The Cold War marked a moment of history in which military technology was undergoing its most radical paradigm change, thanks to the invention of nuclear weapons in the US and their capacity for devastation demonstrated by their operational deployment in Japan that put an exclamation point on the end of the World War. The entire world became gripped in a state of permanent fear, attenuated only by the sense that because no leader would likely be suicidal enough to engage in open conflict, the actors of the economy were free to realize their boldest ambitions.

In the West, the Cold War produced an odd cultural effect of “carpe diem,” the feeling that it was necessary to “seize the day” and have fun, because there may be no tomorrow. This feeling drove both the rapid growth of the consumer society and the cultural liberation movements we associate with beatniks and hippies. It also proved fatal for the Soviet Union’s false utopia of worker solidarity that depended on accepting austerity for the good of the collectivity.

NATO should have become obsolete after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. But the camp built around the clout of the US military-industrial complex could not simply be dismantled and put to pasture. Two presidents, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, had little choice but to maintain NATO because the entire US economy now revolved around the logic of the military-industrial complex.

That militarized economy had become the key to installing a global, neocolonial system capable of replacing Europe’s colonial system that was in the decades following World War II. Because it was industrial as well as military, it spawned the technologies that began to dominate the global economy. These new technologies conveniently straddled the pragmatic (civil applications) and the political (military applications), providing a new motor for the late 20^th economy that we all live under today.

Though NATO had lost its initial geopolitical justification, it continued to operate as a pillar of the new military-economic system. It influenced the evolution of the formerly isolated regime of communist China, destined to become a major actor in the global economy. There was only one model for any large nation that wished to participate effectively in the global economy. It had to encourage capitalism and have its own military-industrial logic. China has succeeded, thanks to the global consumer market spearheaded by the US. For various reasons, India, which might have moved in that direction, failed.

NATO now finds itself in an odd position. Contested by the mercurial Donald Trump, its members greeted with a sigh of relief the electoral victory of a conventional Cold War establishment politician, Joe Biden. For the past five years, Biden’s Democratic Party has sought to revive the ambience and ethos of the Cold War, focusing on Russia. But Russia simply isn’t a serious rival of the US. Both major US parties have designated China as the bugbear to focus on. But China falls way outside NATO’s “North Atlantic” purview.

Nevertheless, Biden appears to have persuaded NATO to include China in its official discourse. The from this week’s meeting makes the case: “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Systemic challenge:

A politically correct euphemism for “serious threat,” applied to anything that calls into question the weaknesses and vices of an existing system, especially when that system’s weaknesses and vices have become dramatically visible

Contextual Note

The unresolved pandemic that has been raging for nearly a year and a half and the growing crisis of climate change have created a situation in which the system now being challenged has been found seriously wanting. Defending the status quo has become an ungratifying task. All lucid observers agree that the political and economic system inherited from the 20^th century needs either to evolve radically or be replaced by something new. 

It is equally clear that Beijing has no alternative system to propose. This is partly because China’s success is due largely to its adaptation to and integration within the system being challenged, but equally because the Chinese system of autocratic communism is a failed model itself and the Chinese themselves know it.

NATO worries about China’s “stated ambitions and assertive behaviour.” But in reality, its ambitions appear modest and the behavior, while certainly assertive, cannot compare with the historically aggressive behavior of the US, so clearly demonstrated in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.

Historical Note

As for the “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order,” the rules that existed at the time of the creation of the United Nations and the establishment of the Bretton Woods system have long been challenged by the Western powers, to the point of being distorted beyond recognition.

Even the reference to “areas relevant to Alliance security” needs to be put in historical perspective. NATO is nominally focused on one area in the world: the North Atlantic. But for the past two decades, it has ventured further and further, not only into Eastern Europe, but also Afghanistan, presumably turning Central Asia into an area of “Alliance security.” With the political turmoil that emerged in 2016 in both the US (Donald Trump) and Europe (Brexit), there should be enough to feel insecure about within NATO’s traditional sector of the North Atlantic. Reaching out to China’s area of influence would be a real stretch.

It’s true that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seeks to extend its influence across both Asia and Europe. This could be interpreted as potentially encroaching on the North Atlantic military fiefdom. But the BRI’s character is economic and clearly not military. It is soft power rather than hard power.

Most lucid observers in the West, conscious of the current system’s growing incapacity to deal with any global problem — whether it’s a pandemic, war, migration, domestic tranquility or climate change — find themselves looking for something that could be called a “systemic challenge” to the current unproductive and often unjust system of doing things. At the end of the day, the systemic challenge at home will likely have more impact than China’s.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In the first place, it should be understood that the world “includes many different groups with varying degrees of dependence from China,” says Domingo Sugranyes, director of a seminar on ethics and technology at Pablo VI Foundation. Therefore, he adds, “the need for containment will be seen differently if you are looking at textile supply chains, workers’ rights in [Xinjiang], data privacy rules, markets for European cars.”

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Oscar Ugarteche, a Peruvian professor of economics, believes the emergence of a new superpower competing with other Western countries may be “positive, particularly for the Global South.” That said, we are undeniably witnessing “the emergence of a new distribution of power in which relative weights are shifting away from the United States and its allies, although the absolute political and economic power of these nations is and will remain considerable,” he mentions.

Some, such as researcher Valerio Bruno, see the rise of China not only in the economic and military domains, but also as an ideological confrontation — “between two Weltanschauungen” — that determines whether the future world order will be defined by liberal or authoritarian ideas. Proponents of a containment policy believe that China does not offer a realistic alternative to the liberal order and that it should be obliged to comply with those rules. How? According to economist Etienne Perrot, it could be through “multilateral agreements and targeted alliances” designed to bring European powers more firmly into the containment effort in the economic and technological domains.

In contrast, some observers question the necessity of containment. Kara Tan Bhala, president and founder of Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics, argues that “a deliberate policy of containing another country, and thereby not allowing many to achieve their human potential” may not be morally justified. States should “respect the diversity of systems … while encouraging each other to become ‘better socialists’ and ‘better capitalists’ serving humanity,” says Christoph Stuckelberger, a professor of ethics. On the economic front, Ugarteche says, “the technological competition between the USA and China is positive for all of us as it speeds up innovation and reduces costs and consumer prices.”

At first glance, the Cold War rhetoric of containment refers to a bipolar world, which is not (yet) the case. Multipolarity seems to be the best guarantee to avoid the world sliding into bipolarity, with a risk of falling once again into a Thucydides’ Trap. In this perspective, the swift assertion of the European Union as a global, active player is urgently needed to leverage a new negotiated equilibrium anchored in a minimal level of mutual commitment on most urgent global challenges. In that sense, the notion of containment may be reformulated in terms of the world’s self-containment, especially, as Edward Dommen says, when we look “at the way the world economy abuses the planet.”

By Virgile Perret and Paul Dembinski

Author’s note: From Virus to Vitamin invites experts to comment on issues relevant to finance and the economy in relation to society, ethics and the environment. Below, you will find views from a variety of perspectives, practical experiences and academic disciplines. The topic of this discussion is: Does the world need to contain China and, if so, how?

“… multilateral agreements and targeted alliances…”

�Ԩ���. China, by virtue of its human capacities, its natural resources and its organization, is today the dominant power (in terms of purchasing power parity). Opposite, the United States retains a monetary and military advantage, which China seeks to steal from them. Knowing that “power corrupts” (Lord Acton) and that “only power stops power” (Montesquieu), how to contain China without submitting to the USA? Through multilateral agreements and targeted alliances against MNCs [multinational companies] who, in the global market, behave like privateers in the service of their country of origin, sometimes even like pirates without faith or law.”

Etienne Perrot — Jesuit, economist and editorial board member of the Choisir magazine (Geneva) and adviser to the journal Etudes (Paris)

“… China does not export its politics.”

“Is it the world or is it the West? Did the world need to contain Great Britain or Spain or the US in its time? What we are facing is a new superpower emerging that will compete with other Western countries and the result should be positive, particularly for the Global South. “The more, the merrier.” The technological competition between the USA and China is positive for all of us as it speeds up innovation and reduces costs and consumer prices. All else is irrelevant. China does not export its politics.”

Oscar Ugarteche — visiting professor of economics at various universities

“…negotiate with a clear understanding of issues at stake…”

“The ‘world’ is no geopolitical actor; it includes many different groups with varying degrees of dependence from China. The need for containment will be seen differently if you are looking at textile supply chains, workers’ rights in [Xinjiang], data privacy rules, markets for European cars and machinery, monetary balances, Taiwan security and microprocessor supplies, loans to Africa and Latin America, or rare earth resources. … If the question refers to containment from the ‘West’ or, more precisely, the European Union, then the answer is no. We should negotiate with a clear understanding of issues at stake, as in the case of the proposed comprehensive agreement on investment. Above all, we should learn more facts about the incoming largest economic power.”

Domingo Sugranyes — director of a seminar on ethics and technology at Pablo VI Foundation, past executive vice-chairman of MAPFRE international insurance group

“One world — diverse systems”

“How should the role of China be in the world? Three options: 1) China is disconnected from the world, sealed off, as it was to some extent 1949-1979, based on self-reliance and autonomous development; 2) China is fully integrated in the globalized world and follows the Western model of so-called capitalism and democracy as many powers in the West hoped that China, with its Open Door Policy since 1979, would develop; and 3) China is integrated in the world, but with its ‘Chinese characteristics’ of ‘third way’ combining planned and market economy, socialist one-party system with elements of consultative participatory processes and controlled civil society. The ethics of international relations needs to respect the diversity of systems as in option 3, while encouraging each other to become ‘better socialists’ and ‘better capitalists’ serving humanity.

Christoph Stuckelberger — professor of ethics, founder and president of Globethics.net foundation in Geneva, visiting professor in Nigeria, China, Russia and the UK

“…we are witnessing the emergence of a new distribution of power…”

“The danger of conflict arises when there is no longer a consensus regarding the real power situation of the major parties — in this case, Russia as well as China and the United States. Conflict can become real when the parties, acting on significantly different subjective visions of the objective situation, come into collision. The purpose of conflict will be to demonstrate what the real power relationships have become and to establish some new consensus. Avoidance of conflict requires peaceful development of such a consensus, for which prerequisites will be acceptance by previously dominant countries that we are witnessing the emergence of a new distribution of power in which relative weights are shifting away from the United States and its allies, although the absolute political and economic power of these nations is and will remain considerable.”

Andrew Cornford — counselor at Observatoire de la Finance, past staff member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with special responsibility for financial regulation and international trade in financial services

“…foster friendly and mutually fruitful relations…”

“Does the world need to contain China? The USA? Itself? To contain oneself is always good advice, and if we look at the way the world economy abuses the planet, the world ought indeed to contain itself. However, to struggle to contain another party normally provokes a hostile reaction, and things go from bad to worse. Better to converse with it and thus to foster friendly and mutually fruitful relations. Trade is a form of that kind of conversation. As Adam Smith said, “It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society … universal opulence.”

Edward Dommen — specialist in economic ethics, former university professor and researcher at UNCTAD and president of Geneva’s Ecumenical Workshop in Theology.

“…climate change will do more to change China…”

“C�DzԳٲ����Ծ��Բ� China may be too big a task, and not all the world necessarily agrees on this goal. Indeed, it’s questionable if a deliberate policy of containing another country, and thereby not allowing many to achieve their human potential, is morally justified. Certainly, we should robustly oppose her monstrous conduct in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong and counter the Chinese Communist Party’s unacceptable behavior, for example, in trade and IP [intellectual property] in a targeted manner. But the demographics of an aging and gender skewed population, and the devastating effects of climate change will do more to change China than any containment strategy. One final thought: Should the world have contained the US when it destroyed indigenous peoples or practiced slavery?

Kara Tan Bhala — president and founder of Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics

“…two comprehensively different conceptions of the world…”

“A�� Xi Jinping continues to steer the Middle Kingdom out of its historical isolation, avoiding challenging the United States for the position of world leader will be difficult, given China’s demographics and economic status. These two Weltanschauungen, two comprehensively different conceptions of the world, sooner or later will present the international community with a choice. Xi is well aware that the Biden administration can finally change course for the US and its allies, forging a united and progressive front after years of populist, nativist and authoritarian politics. Perhaps this element can help understand Xi’s assertiveness at the last World Economic Forum better than the recent economic successes. After all, political and civil rights are China’s Achilles’ heel.”

Valerio Bruno — researcher in politics and senior research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).

“…obliging China to follow the rules…”

“Present international relations cannot be correctly interpreted in the Cold War terms. The current confrontation between the United States and China is not Cold War 2.0 — it has a different nature. A historicist attempts to adapt the strategy of containment to post-Cold War realities are doomed to failure. The heterogeneous world is not able to be either an opponent or a proponent of the People’s Republic of China; only the consolidated West can be such an actor. China is a revisionist power. [It] criticizes the liberal world order but does not offer a realistic alternative. The most effective way to minimize Beijing’s destructive influence is to improve a rule-based order, and therefore a liberal order, by obliging China to follow those rules.

Yuriy Temirov — associate professor, dean of the Faculty of History and International Relations at Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University in Ukraine

*[A version of this article was originally published by  and .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Does the World Need to Contain China? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The fact that The Times cites “intelligence officials” is unfortunate. Intelligence officials are trained in the dual skills of obscuring the truth and fabricating alternative truth. That is in essence the purpose of intelligence. Its agents are also trained to exploit the media, and The New York Times in particular, to spread their message. The trusting relationship between The Times and the intelligence community is what enables the newspaper to be the first to give credible shape to whatever stories the intelligence community wants the public to believe.

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The Times journalists, Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper, inform us that “a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology.” The Times, as expected, takes that statement at face value. “That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret,” Barnes and Cooper write.

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Unexplained aircraft:

The opposite of explained aircraft. Flying objects that for the past 80 years have been seen by Americans and no one else.

Contextual Note

CNN gets to the point when, quoting “one of its sources,” it explains that “US officials also cannot rule out the possibility that these flying objects were aircraft belonging to American adversaries, namely Russia and China.” The Times less dramatically reports that there is simply “worry among intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology.” Of course, they “could be” doing lots of other things.

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd requisitioned Barack Obama’s former CIA director, Leon Panetta, to offer some on the issue. Todd asked him, “Is it your assumption that it is Russia or China testing some crazy technology that we somehow don’t have, or are we sort of over-assuming the abilities of China and Russia and that the only other explanation is that if it is not us ourselves then it is something otherworldly?”

This confused question should surprise no one. A significant part of Todd’s job at MSNBC is to focus the public’s fear on Russia and China. Panetta stepped willingly into his role of respected authority. He quite reasonably suggested that the most likely place to look would be in the direction of drone technology, which has become far more sophisticated than most people imagine. As expected, Panetta cited Russia and China, but few commentators have noticed that he didn’t stop. “I believe a lot of this stuff probably could be countries like Russia, like China, like others, who are you know using now drones, using the kind of sophisticated weaponry that could very well be involved in a lot of these sightings,” he said.

Who could the “others” be that Panetta mentions after the obligatory Russia and China? This could produce an interesting guessing game. Could it be Cuba, a nation that once threatened the US with Soviet missiles? Or Mexico? But it seems to have its hands full with the war on the drug cartels. India, which has begun to assert itself as an in space? What about the Europeans, especially France and the UK? As part of NATO, they wouldn’t dare. The list could go on, but when every other nation besides Russia and China is eliminated, only one remains: the United States.

On the CIA’s “Innovation and Tech” , the agency proudly announces its deep engagement in technology. The spy agency’s research is not directly connected to what the Pentagon does and certainly not shared with it at anything but the highest strategic level. The website proudly announces: “At CIA, we’ve pioneered bold and innovative technologies for decades.” It invites the visitor to appreciate its work. “Learn how our cutting edge solutions have helped solve �������������’s biggest intelligence challenges.”

What the site describes is impressive. This should lead any discerning visitor to speculate about what it doesn’t describe. A former high-level CIA operative once explained to us in a private conversation that when the CIA technology team briefed insiders, even at his level, about research on drone technology, they were only allowed to show technology from the past, which was already mind-blowing. In other words, it is unlikely that if the unusual behavior of an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) observed by a Navy pilot happened to be a CIA invention, that pilot would have any clue to what it might be. And in no case would they be briefed afterwards on the experience. The CIA is specialized in keeping all kinds of things “unidentified.”

Does this mean that The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and the others are unaware of the possibility that it could be “our guys” who are up to these visual tricks? Both The Times and Chuck Todd evoke the possibility, only to dismiss it with no further discussion. That alone should raise questions in the public’s mind. 

When The Times’ journalists write that “a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology,” and then state that that “would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots … might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret,” they are admitting two things while creating the opposite impression. By evoking a “vast majority,” they admit that a significant minority actually did originate with US technology. The journalists never bother exploring that paradox. And when, in a Times article sourced from the intelligence community, a sentence begins with “would appear to eliminate the possibility,” the discerning reader should see the verb “would appear” as a signal that the possibility in fact exists.

Panetta may have inadvertently revealed the truth to Todd, who, as an inquiring journalist, could have asked the former CIA chief which “others” he had in mind. But the media have a mission to reduce the question to exactly two possible explanations of the UAPs: extra-terrestrial invaders, on the one hand, or one of the two officially recognized adversaries of the US, Russia or China (or both), on the other.

The further implication is that because serious scientists have pretty much dismissed the thesis of intelligent, technologically advanced extra-terrestrial visitors, there is one logical conclusion: The US needs to beef up its military technology in a new arms race justified by what the media have been promoting for at least five years: a new cold war. Donald Trump provided the nation with a new branch of the military, the Space Force. It’s time for President Joe Biden to make it work.

Historical Note

With his novel, “War of the Worlds,” the British author H.G. Wells launched a new genre of fiction involving space travel. The serialized novel was later turned into several Hollywood films and a famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles in 1938. Advances in aerial, military and rocket technology that came to prominence during the Second World War turned extra-terrestrial science fiction into a genre that quickly displaced the Western in Hollywood’s culture. Martians vs. earthlings came to replace cowboys vs. Indians.

Unsurprisingly, Wells set his story in England. Equally unsurprisingly, Hollywood’s extra-terrestrial dramas always take place in the US. Those movies may have tipped off the non-fictional extra-terrestrials about where to guide their crafts, though no one has bothered to explain how they managed to access the films.

On “,” former US Navy pilot Ryan Graves claimed that pilots training off the Atlantic coast were seeing UAPs regularly: “Every day for at least a couple years.” The fact that the tell-tale sightings all seem to occur in or near the US tells us that either the intergalactic visitors are fascinated by US culture or there is some magnetic force that draws them to North America. Unless, of course, the technology itself, which may be the drones Leon Panetta mentions or nothing more than optical illusions, was made in America.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post They Are Coming for Us appeared first on 51�Թ�.

As it happens, she’s slightly younger than me, but still getting up there, and we were chatting on the phone about our world, about the all-too-early first  near Los Angeles, the intensifying  across the West and Southwest, the increasing nightmare of  in the Atlantic and so on. We were talking about the way in which we humans — and we Americans, in particular (though you could  in the Chinese without a blink) — have been wreaking fossil-fuelized havoc on this planet and what was to come.

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And, oh yes, we were talking about our own deaths, also to come at some unknown future moment but one not as far away as either of us might wish. My friend then said to me abashedly, “I sometimes think it’s lucky I won’t be here to see what’s going to happen to the world.” And even as she began stumbling all over herself apologizing for saying such a thing, I understood exactly what she meant. I had had the very same thought and sense of shame and horror at even thinking it — at even thinking I would, in some strange sense, get off easy and leave a world from hell to my children and grandchildren. Nothing, in fact, could make me sadder.

And you know what’s the worst thing? Whether I’m thinking about that “destroyer” in the Strait of Taiwan or the destruction of planet Earth, one thing is clear enough: It wouldn’t have to be this way.

China on the Brain

Now, let’s focus on the Curtis Wilbur for a moment. And in case you hadn’t noticed, US President Joe Biden and his foreign-policy team have China on the . No surprise there, though, only history. Don’t you remember how, when Biden was still vice-president, President Barack Obama announced that, in foreign and especially military policy, the US was planning a “pivot to Asia”? His administration was, in other words, planning on leaving this country’s war-on-terror disasters in the greater Middle East behind (not that he would actually prove capable of doing so) and refocusing on this planet’s true rising power. Donald Trump would prove similarly eager to dump �������������’s greater Middle Eastern wars (though he, too, failed to do so) and refocus on Beijing —  first, but  not far behind.

Now, as the US  its last troops from Afghanistan, the Biden team finds itself deep in its own version of a pivot-to-Asia strategy, with its collective foreign-policy brain remarkably focused on challenging China (at least until Israel briefly got in the way).

Think of it as a kind of pandemic of anxiety, a fear that, without a major refocus, the US might indeed be heading for the imperial scrapheap of history. In a sense, this may prove to be the true Achilles’ heel of the Biden era. Or put another way, the president’s foreign-policy crew seems, at some visceral level, to fear deeply for the America they’ve known and valued so, the one that was expected to loom invincibly over the rest of the planet once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991; the imperial power our politicians () had long hailed as the greatest, most “exceptional” nation on the planet; the with “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known” (Obama), aka “the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world” (George W. Bush).

We’re talking, of course, about the same great power that, after almost 20 years of disastrous wars, drone strikes, and counterterror operations across vast stretches of the planet, looks like it is sinking fast, a country whose political parties can no longer agree on anything that matters. In such a context, let’s consider for a moment that flu-like China obsession, the one that leaves Washington’s politicians and military leaders with strikingly high temperatures and an irrational urge to send American warships into distant waters near the coast of China, while regularly upping the ante, militarily and politically.

In that context, here’s an obsessional fact of our moment: These days, it seems as if President Biden can hardly appear anywhere or talk to anyone without mentioning China or that sinking country he now heads and that sinking feeling he has about it. He did it the other week in an  with David Brooks when, with an obvious on-the-page shudder, he told The New York Times columnist, “We’re kind of at a place where the rest of the world is beginning to look to China.” Brrr… it’s cold in here (or maybe too hot to handle?) in an increasingly chaotic, still partly Trumpian, deeply divided Washington and in a country where, from  the vote to  the teaching of history to  the carrying of unlicensed weapons, democracy is looking ill indeed.

Oh, and that very same week when the president talked to Brooks, he went to the Coast Guard Academy to address its graduating class and promptly began  — yes! — that crucial, central subject for Washingtonians these days: freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. (“When nations try to game the system or tip the rules in their favor, it throws everything off balance,” Biden said. “That’s why we are so adamant that these areas of the world that are the arteries of trade and shipping remain peaceful — whether that’s the South China Sea, the Arabian Gulf, and, increasingly, the Arctic.”) You didn’t know, did you, that a guided-missile destroyer, not to speak of aircraft carrier battle groups, and other naval vessels had been anointed with the job of keeping “freedom of navigation” alive halfway across the planet or that the US Coast Guard simply guards our coastlines.

These days, it should really be called the Coasts Guard. After all, you can find its members “guarding” coasts ranging from  in the Persian Gulf to the. Evidently, even the coast of the island of Taiwan, which, since 1949, China has always claimed as its own and where a subtle dance between Beijing and Washington has long played out, has become just another coast for guarding in nothing less than a new “partnership.” (“Our new agreement for the Coast Guard to partner with Taiwan,” said the president, “will help ensure that we’re positioned to better respond to shared threats in the region and to conduct coordinated humanitarian and environmental missions.”) Consider that a clear challenge to the globe’s rising power in what’s become ever more of a showdown at the naval equivalent of the OK Corral, part of an  new cold war between the US and China.

And none of this is out of the ordinary. In his late April address to Congress, for instance, President Biden anxiously  the assembled senators and congressional representatives that “we’re in a competition with China and other countries to win the 21^st century. … China and other countries are closing in fast.” In his own strange way, Trump exhibited similar worries.

What Aren’t We Guarding?

Now, here’s the one thing that doesn’t seem to strike anyone in Congress, at the Coast Guard Academy or at The New York Times as particularly strange: that American ships should be protecting “maritime freedom” on the other side of the globe, or that the Coast Guard should be partnering for the same. Imagine, just for a second, that Chinese naval vessels and their Coast Guard equivalent were patrolling our coasts, or parts of the Caribbean, while edging ever closer to Florida. You know just what an uproar of shock and outrage, what cries of horror would result. But it’s assumed that the equivalent on the other side of the globe is a role too obvious even to bother to explain and that our leaders should indeed be crying out in horror at China’s challenges to it.

It’s increasingly clear that, from  to the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea to the , Washington is pushing China hard, challenging its positions big time and often in a military fashion. And no, China itself, whether in the South China Sea or elsewhere, is no angel. Still, the US military, while trying to leave its failed terror wars in the dust, is visibly facing off against that economically rising power in an ever more threatening manner, one that already seems too close to a possible military conflict of some sort. And you don’t even want to know what sort of warfare this country’s military leaders are now imagining there as, in fact, they did so long ago. (Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame only recently  that, according to a still-classified document, in response to the Chinese shelling of Taiwan in 1958, US military leaders seriously considered launching nuclear strikes against mainland China.)

Indeed, as US Navy ships are eternally sent to challenge China, challenging words in Washington only escalate as well. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks  in March, while plugging for an ever-larger Pentagon budget, “Beijing is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system… Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin and I believe that the [People’s Republic of China] is the pacing challenge for the United States ���������ٲ�����.”

And in that context, the US Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard are all “pacing” away. The latest proposed version of an always-rising Pentagon budget, for instance,  $5.1 billion for what’s called the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, “a fund created by Congress to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.” In fact, the US Indo-Pacific Command is also  $27 billion in extra spending between 2022 and 2027 for “new missiles and air defenses, radar systems, staging areas, intelligence-sharing centers, supply depots and testing ranges throughout the region.” And so it goes in the pandemic world of 2021.

Though seldom asked, the real question, the saddest one I think, the one that brings us back to my conversation with my friend about the world we may leave behind us, is: What aren’t we guarding on this planet of ours?

A New Cold War on a Melting Planet?

Let’s start with this. The  of rising and falling empires should be seen as a thing of the past. It’s true that, in a traditional sense, China is now rising and the US seemingly falling, at least economically speaking. But something else is rising and something else is falling, too. I’m thinking, of course, about rising global temperatures that, sometime in the next five years, have a  of exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius limit (above the pre-industrial era) set by the 2015 Paris climate accords and what that future heat may do to the very idea of a habitable planet.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the US, the Atlantic hurricane season is only expected to worsen, the mega-drought in the Southwest to intensify — as fires burn  in previously wetter mountainous elevations in that region — and so on. Within this century, major coastal cities in  US and China  New Orleans, Miami,  and Hong Kong could find themselves flooded out by rising sea levels, thanks in part to the melting of  and . As for a rising China, that supposedly ultimate power of the future, even its leadership must know that parts of the north China plain, now home to 400 million people, could become quite literally  by century’s end due to heat waves capable of killing the healthy within hours.

In such a context, on such a planet, ask yourself: Is there really a future for us in which the essential relationship between the US and China — the  greenhouse gas emitters of this moment — is a warlike one? Whether a literal war results or not, one thing should be clear enough: If the two greatest carbon emitters can’t figure out how to cooperate instead of picking endless fights with each other, the human future is likely to prove grim and dim indeed. “C�DzԳٲ����Ծ��Բ�” China is the foreign-policy focus of the moment, a throwback to another age in Washington. And yet this is the very time when what truly needs to be contained is the overheating of this planet. And in truth, given human ingenuity, climate change should indeed be containable.

And yet the foreign-policy wing of the Biden administration and Congress — where Democrats are successfully  into the economy under the rubric of a struggle with China, a rare subject the Republicans can go all in on — seems focused on creating a future of eternal Sino-American hostility and endless armed competition. In the already overheated world we inhabit, who could honestly claim that this is a formula for “national security”?

Returning to the conversation with my friend, I wonder why this approach to our planet doesn’t seem to more people like an obvious formula for disaster. Why aren’t more of us screaming at the top of our lungs about the dangers of Washington’s urge to return to a world in which a “cold war” is a formula for success? It leaves me ever more fearful for the planet that, one of these days, I will indeed be leaving to others who deserved so much better.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post What Planet Will Our Children and Grandchildren Inherit? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The New York Times Predicts Our Future

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�����Ǵdz��������’s on the conference reached nearly 3,000 words, claiming to have “captured the pulse of the event throughout the forum.” There is still plenty of matter to unpack even after 3,000 words, but Bloomberg has treated its readers far more respectfully than The Times or The Post. One of the explanations of this contrast is evident in a quote from the Bloomberg article: “Chinese and U.S. companies agreed both nations should prevent politicization or making troubles in dealing with trade relations, and decoupling is not good for anyone.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Politicization:

The process by which any truth is deformed by a simplistic electoral strategy into the equivalent of a precept of an ideologically structured moral system.

Contextual Note

The problem with geopolitical truth is that it is always much too complex to reduce to any kind of simple message. There are always multiple actors, varied interests and competing intentions buzzing around in different directions. The problem with politics in modern democracies is that because its fate turns around elections, it strives to reduce all truth to “something voters can understand.”&�Բ�����;

For the average media consumer, the geopolitical realm is made up of allies and rivals. Nation-states sharing similar objectives of security and influence are deemed allies. Allies buy weapons and critical commodities from allies. Our rivals attempt to sell weapons and commodities to their allies and sometimes to their rivals, our allies. Doing so permits populist demagogues to brand them as adversaries and cite anecdotes about not respecting the rule of law. This instills a level of fear that justifies tariffs and sanctions. Without that excuse, these “defensive actions” would be denounced as protectionism. The more systematic the hostility becomes, the more it opens the door to potential conflict.

The explanation in the preceding paragraph is an example of a simplistic description. But it points to two parallel pockets of complexity whose combined force represents an exponentially higher degree of complexity. The first is properly geopolitical and concerns the way any two nations or groups of nations interact economically, politically and ideologically within a highly fluid geopolitical space. Analyzing it becomes feasible once enough facts are known about borders, demography, economic principles, institutional stability, and cultural and historical evolution, among other discernible factors.

Internal politics is more variable. It isn’t about knowledge, but perception. Politicizing an issue means packaging and branding it as a consumable commodity for the consumer society. In the US, the world’s premier consumer society, politicization responds to open questions with closed answers. How do you feel about being constantly reminded of racial injustice? How do you feel about Russians influencing our impeccably democratic elections? How do you feel about low-paying manufacturing jobs expanding in countries with much lower pay scales and living standards? How do you feel about nations that challenge our successful monopolies by violating intellectual property rights? How do you feel about stifling what we brand as democratic revolts? 

Politicians never ask how and why these issues appear on the horizon. That enables them to ignore or hide from sight the complex explanations required to decipher their meaning. The Bloomberg article provides a number of clues that The Times and The Post, beholden to their political masters, do not want people to trouble over. Among them is the very real convergence of interest between American free market business interests and the Chinese version of state capitalism.

For example, the article brings up some of the unintended consequences of the type of protectionism associated with Trump’s “America First” policy, which the Biden administration has largely maintained. Biden understands that, for electoral reasons, he must not appear to be soft on China, a nation that the media insists is an adversary because it challenges US “exceptionalism” (i.e., hegemony). The irony is that, for decades, it is American businesses that have traditionally defined what the State Department refers to by “American interests,” whose defense has in the past led to invasions and wars. Instead of sharing the public’s hatred of China, they see it as the world’s most dynamic consumer market with a population four times that of the US.

The Bloomberg article cites many critical issues, including Chinese observations on the Western policy of printing money to confront its various crises. These remarks occur alongside mention of the current Chinese focus on the digital yuan. The People’s Bank of China’s Deputy Governor Li Bo claimed it was not meant to threaten the dollar. But clearly, these two parallel phenomena, in conjunction with the continuing development of the Belt and Road Initiative, indicate a weakening of the dollar’s status in the offing. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, drove the point home when he said, “The world is overweight in U.S. bonds and underweight in Chinese ��������ٲ�.”

Larry Summers, the Biden adviser whose career at The American Prospect as “marked by a carnival of policy debacles,” spoke at the forum to defend the idea that the US and China must find ways of working closely together: “It doesn’t really matter what their feelings are about each other’s attitudes,” so long as they cooperate on building global business. It isn’t clear whether Summers is aware that politics at home is all about “feelings,” not the reasoning of the global business crowd.

Historical Note

In contrast with Summers, The Times and The Post follow the lead of the Democratic administration that needs to stoke the feelings of the population for electoral reasons. At the same time, they must serve the interests of the multinational corporations that finance their campaigns. This central paradox has, over the past several decades, polluted the reporting of the once reasonably serious media. Which master must they obey?

Reading a New York Times article about global politics is an excellent guide to understanding the political pressures that exist inside the Gray Lady’s editorial department. It is far less valuable for a reader seeking to understand the issues it discusses. The articles seek to validate feelings while carefully avoiding troubling nuance. The key is to reduce it to a game of heroes and villains. The Trump administration was beyond redemption. The Biden administration remains beyond criticism, though we have seen a possible exception concerning the “reckless” idea of ending a glorious war in Afghanistan after a mere 20 years. The paper’s relationship with the military and security state is too deep to deprive them of their voice.

The Times’ diminutive piece conveys a unique and largely incoherent message suggesting China’s hypocrisy when talking about cooperation and free trade while in reality challenging US economic hegemony. The AP article republished by The Post drives in a different direction. After a few random quotes from the event, it focuses on inspiring fear of China’s military build-up. With four times the population, China spends about a third as much on the military annually as the US. Given that auditors found a hole of $21 trillion over two decades’ worth of , the difference is probably far greater.

And yet the impression the writer, Joe McDonald, leaves is that Xi Jinping cannot be telling the truth when he claims that “No matter how far it develops, China will never seek hegemony, expand, seek spheres of influence or engage in an arms race.”

The rhetorical game that played out at Hainan provides some real clues about what is clearly a moment of hegemonic transition is already having a seismic impact on history. The serious media continues to believe the average American has more important things to think about. The politicians agree.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The New York Times Has Feelings for China appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Forecasting the US-China Relationship

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Xi was already on track for a third term. First, he was “reelected” to a second term at the 19^th Party Congress in September 2017. A few months later, the pliant National People’s Congress (NPC) the two-term limit for the presidency. Despite acquiring total control, Xi remains wary of potential rivals, particularly Li Keqiang, his second-in-command. At the 19^th Party Congress, Xi kept Li on largely as a , calculating that elevating anyone else to the number-two job would have anointed them as a potential successor. Since 2017, Xi repeatedly sought opportunities to undermine Li, cannily him to Wuhan in January 2020 to associate the premier with the botched response to COVID-19.

Neutralizing Potential Challengers

Xi is now looking beyond Li with the goal of neutralizing all potential challengers. Li has in the CCP’s top echelons, but he wields formidable power on paper. Formally speaking, the CCP and the Chinese state are separate institutions. Xi Jinping is both general secretary of the CCP and president of the People’s Republic of China. Li is ostensibly the second-ranked official in the CCP, but his position as the head of the State Council, the executive branch of the Chinese state, is more important. Until the recent rule change, Xi had no formal authority to order direct personnel changes in the State Council. That meant Li’s four main subordinates, known as vice premiers, had some level of job security and could potentially use their position as a springboard to challenge Xi.

All of that has changed at this year’s lianghui with a legislative amendment. The in question is Article 32 of the Organic Law of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. The NPC meets per year, at the spring lianghui. Under the new rules, the Standing Committee of the NPC, which answers to Xi, can remove any official on the State Council, except the prime minister, at any time. This means that Xi does not have to wait for the next lianghui to get rid of Li’s subordinates.

In strict formal terms, if Xi wanted to fire a vice premier, Li would still have to consent. In practice, Li’s hand would be forced by Xi. The NPC is China’s top legislative body, a rubber-stamp parliament that exists to legitimize the CCP’s actions. If the NPC recommends personnel changes on the State Council, the premier of the State Council cannot resist. If Li were to do so, that would be tantamount to overriding the “democratic will” of the people of China.

Why is Xi bothering to amend the law if his third term is not in doubt? We do not know for sure, but we can speculate. Perhaps Xi is just generally wary of Li. But there might be another reason. There was among the top brass of the CCP when Xi eliminated term limits three years ago. Rumors tell us that there is still some level of semi-organized resistance, with Li potentially involved. It might also be the case that Xi tried to replace one or more vice premiers, but Li resisted. Vice premiers of the State Council are all members of the CCP Politburo, the 20-member body that is the second-highest organ in the party bureaucracy.

Xi probably wants total control of the Politburo. Of course, Xi has other ways to take out such senior officials. In the past, “anti-corruption” crackdowns have cut many down to size. However, this anti-corruption process is disruptive and could send a signal that Xi’s control is shaky. Therefore, a sneaky legal change might be a better alternative.

Succession Matters

We suspect that Xi is targeting a particular leader. China has four vice premiers: , , and . Han is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the CCP’s top body. This legal amendment would not be enough to get rid of Han. So, he is not the target of Xi’s ire. Neither is Liu, Xi’s personal friend who won the in the 14^th Five-Year Plan. In the shady world of CCP politics, Liu’s job seems safe as of now. Sun, the highest-ranking woman in the modern history of Chinese politics, is past the mandatory retirement age and poses no threat to Xi. This leaves Hu as the only possible target for the amendment. The fact that he is the most charismatic and popular of the vice premiers makes him a potential threat to Xi.

From 2012 to 2017, Hu was the party secretary of Guangdong, China’s most prosperous province. For decades, this position has been a stepping stone for national leadership. Ironically, Xi’s father served as party secretary of Guangdong, as did other CCP luminaries such as Zhao Ziyang, Li Changchun, Zhang Dejiang and Wang Yang. Hu is the youngest official at his level of seniority in the CCP. He is also connected, though not related, to Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao. Before the 2017 NPC, there was widespread speculation that Hu Chunhua would leapfrog straight into the Politburo Standing Committee and be groomed as a putative future leader. Xi this, giving Hu the position of vice premier instead. Now, Xi has gone further and hung a sword over Hu’s head.

Xi is determined to ensure an orderly confirmation of his third term at the next NPC in 2022. For three years, the Chinese media have humored Xi by resolutely avoiding the topic of his succession. Xi knows that it cannot be avoided indefinitely. According to longstanding CCP custom, anyone featuring in the succession sequence needs experience in the positions of vice premier, national vice chairman and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. Those who currently occupy these positions are either too old or not close enough to Xi to be considered successor material. The only exception is Hu who now holds office at the pleasure of Xi.

The study of Chinese elite politics is as much an art as a science. Like Kremlinologists at the height of the Cold War, China analysts make educated inferences from a small number of highly choreographed public events and documents. As a result, the line between speculation and analysis is often blurry. Nevertheless, as US-China relations deteriorate, the CCP’s succession plans are more important now than at any point since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

Coming out of the lianghui, all signs indicate that Xi remains at the height of his power at home. Furthermore, he is likely to enter his third term in 2022 with a new suite of tools to deter — and, if necessary, eliminate — potential elite rivals. In this context, , as one anonymous senior US official recently recommended, would be reckless as it is likely to backfire.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Myanmar: What Comes Next for Minority Groups?

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To be fair, the US has not always or entirely been sanctimonious. The historic integrated China into the liberal postwar order. It facilitated investments into, transferred technology to and trained manpower in China. Under Deng Xiaoping and his successors, China continued its peaceful rise. Xi Jinping, the current Chinese president, has ended that peaceful rise and destabilized the world order.

Missing Out on Myanmar

The US approach to Myanmar has been muddled and inconsistent. During the Cold War, Washington was happy to deal with allies in Asia that were military dictatorships. Under President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the US was happy to deal with a communist regime.

In contrast, Burma was a parliamentary democracy from 1948 to 1962 when Ne Win led a military coup. For the next 26 years, the country was ruled by the Tatmadaw, the official name of the country’s armed forces. In 1988, nationwide broke out. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Oxford-educated daughter of Burmese independence leader Aung San, emerged as the leader of a pro-democracy movement. The National League of Democracy (NLD) went on to win the 1990, 2015 and 2020 parliamentary elections.

In comparison with China, Myanmar’s regime has been far less oppressive. There is no counterpart to the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. The Tatmadaw has yielded to public pressure and held largely free and fair elections. In elections, even members of the Tatmadaw have voted for Suu Kyi’s NLD. Yet the US and its Western allies have ignored the strategic importance of Myanmar in the Indian Ocean region in general and the Bay of Bengal in particular.

Chinese Influence Wanes and Waxes

In the past, the US and its allies put pressure on the Tatmadaw by imposing sanctions on Myanmar. Instead of weakening the Tatmadaw, sanctions hurt the people and pushed the country into the arms of China. Between 2004 and 2007, a generational change in the Tatmadaw caused a rethink in Myanmar’s relationship with China.

The younger officers of the Tatmadaw decided to decrease dependence on Beijing. They tried to reduce Chinese influence in political and military governance. They attempted to transition to some form of democracy and improve relations with the West and neighbors like India. In 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Myanmar. President Barack Obama twice in 2012 and 2014. By 2016-17, the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority in the country’s Rakhine state, was in the news and relations between the US and Myanmar were already souring.

Yet this was a relatively good time for the country. Even financial such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened their purse strings. During this brief honeymoon period with the West, China found itself on the back foot for the first time since 1988.

In 2011, Myanmar suspended the construction of the , a controversial hydroelectric project financed and led by a state-owned Chinese company. In 2015, Myanmar’s general led to yet another victory for Suu Kyi’s NLD. This was an opportune moment for the West to build relations with Myanmar and counter China. The Tatmadaw had ceded ground to elected officials. Washington could have cultivated both of Myanmar’s centers of power: the NLD and the Tatmadaw.

But the US missed this opportunity. From 2017, the Rohingya issue clouded Myanmar’s relationship with the West and allowed China to regain its clout in the country. The military in February this year strengthens China’s hand further.

China has already been strengthening its hand by following its tried and tested policy of investing in infrastructure. The China–Myanmar Transport Corridor is the Chinese province of Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal. Roads, railways, river navigation, oil and gas pipelines are deepening economic ties between Myanmar and China. It is part of the Middle Kingdom’s “Look South” policy that seeks to draw Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan into the Chinese arc of influence.

The military coup in Myanmar presents a great opportunity to China and represents the first major foreign policy challenge to President Joe Biden’s administration as well as the Quadrilateral Security Alliance, the informal strategic dialogue between the US, Japan, Australia and India known as the Quad.

The US Still Has Some Cards

China may be in the ascendant right now, but the West still has clout in Myanmar. Suu Kyi studied at Oxford, lived in the UK for decades and married an Englishman. People from Myanmar have immigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US. So, the West commands what Joseph Nye has calls “soft power” in the country. Burmese people want to immigrate not to China but to the US.

Yet American foreign policy to Myanmar has squandered this soft power prodigally. Obama is the only American president who gave Myanmar the attention it deserved. His foreign policy pivot to Asia was a strategic masterstroke, but Donald Trump abandoned Obama’s outreach not only to Myanmar but the rest of Asia.

The military coup is a wake-up call for the US to act. China is now firmly in the saddle in Myanmar. The Tatmadaw is finding ferocious resistance on the streets. There is another overlooked problem. Like many postcolonial states, Myanmar is a bewildering patchwork of cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups. Many of them have been fighting for independence or autonomy for years.

Few in the West realize that a savage might be about to break out. About 20 rebel groups, including the United Wa State Army, Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Army, control 33% of Myanmar’s territory. Many of them have condemned the coup. In response, the Tatmadaw has launched airstrikes in Karen state. With drugs and arms flush in rebel areas, Myanmar might be about to become the new Afghanistan.

The Quad leaders’ joint statement on the website emphasizes “the urgent need to restore democracy and the priority of strengthening democratic resilience” in Myanmar. This mention is heartening, but the Quad and the US need to do more. Opening dialogue with the Tatmadaw would be a good start. Intelligence sources report that most young officers favor multi-party democracy and are wary of Myanmar turning into a Chinese tributary.

A carrot-and-stick approach by Washington could still work. The World Bank has payments to projects after the military coup. International condemnation has rattled the Tatmadaw. Pressure to reach a political reconciliation might bear fruit. Carrots in the form of infrastructure funding and development assistance could prove attractive. Involving Asian nations such as India, Japan, South Korea and Bangladesh, as well as member states of ASEAN, could pave the path to Myanmar’s transition away from military rule.

Despite foreign policy blunders, economic woes and internal division, the US is still the undisputed top dog in the world. With the help of its Asian and European allies, Washington can counter China, prevent civil war and restore democracy in Myanmar. The time has come for Biden to act.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why Joe Biden Must Act on Myanmar appeared first on 51�Թ�.

With this ever-increasing antagonism between China and the US playing out on the world stage, little imagination is required to appreciate the catastrophic result of a conflict between the world’s two largest economies with nuclear triads.

Forecasting the US-China Relationship

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Several years ago, Dr. Graham Allison of Harvard University unveiled a historical pattern where increasing tensions between rising and reigning states led to diplomatic friction and war. Allison this pattern Thucydides’ Trap, in honor of the Athenian strategos who identified “the growth of the Athenian power, which [put] the Lacedaemonians into fear” as a cause of the between 431 and 404 BC. Allison identified 16 cases throughout history in which the rise of a rival state provoked a response from an existing hegemonic power. In 12 of those cases, titanic wars followed, while peace prevailed in only four.

So, what lessons do the four cases with a peaceful ending offer when considering the nascent Sino-American rivalry? Close examination reveals that military, economic and political considerations contributed to a diplomatic decision for peace. In every case, both sides were vulnerable to substantial military losses in terms of personnel and equipment. The winner of the contest would find economic gains that paled in comparison to what they could have achieved in peacetime, and the loser could expect nothing short of economic devastation. Likewise, winning these conflicts could leave the victor weakened politically and almost certainly lead to the deposition of the loser. Victory in each case would have been Pyrrhic in human, economic and political terms. Defeat would have been near annihilation.

Thus, the four cases in which adversaries escaped the trap provide potential avenues for China and the US to do the same.  

Spain vs. Portugal

In the late 15^th century, the Iberian Peninsula held two of Europe’s economic and military powerhouses: Spain and Portugal. In Portugal, the reign of Henry the Navigator ushered in a period of exploration and colonization in Africa. Through a combination of squeezing out rivals and occupying key positions in the Eastern Atlantic, Portugal was able to utilize important sea lanes to facilitate with western Africa. However, the War of Castilian Succession between 1475 and 1479 with a unified Castille and Aragon, greatly shifting the balance of power by creating a unified Spain.

After the Reconquista ended with the capture of Granada in 1492, Portugal’s trading empire was exposed to a newly united Spain. Flush with captured Muslim treasure and in possession of an experienced military, Ferdinand and Isabella needed only to look west to find targets for future expansion. Later that year, the discovery of the Americas and the potential for economic dominance over two continents made war even more likely. Yet Spain and Portugal were able to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. In doing so, they averted a potentially brutal military conflict.

Subsequently, Spain and Portugal concentrated their militaries and economic might into their colonial empires. Spanish colonies in Latin America and the Pacific created a colonial that only crested in the 18^th century. Portugal’s possessions in Brazil, Africa, India and the Far East allowed it to access spice markets, and it a Portuguese-Indian sea trade monopoly. Though both empires eventually faded, their shared peace allowed each of them to experience massive economic growth — albeit at the cost of the indigenous peoples they attacked and enslaved in doing so.

The example illustrates an emphasis on foreign trade and domestic investment instead of escalation to war. As a result of their peaceful settlement of tensions and the ensuing economic boom, Spain and Portugal became more politically stable. The new Spanish monarchy consolidated its power after 1492, making its previously multifaith state into a Catholic and ensuring that the ties between Aragon and Castille were permanent. Meanwhile, spurred on by strong trade from their colonies, Portugal was able to endeavor its

The United States vs. the United Kingdom

The precipitous rise of American industrialism and the modernization of the US Navy challenged British domination of the seas at the turn of the 20^th century. As American factory , as well as iron and steel production, surged, the US built a formidable modern of the latest capital ship designs. Consequently, the British government realized that the cost of a conflict was something it could ill afford. By the early 20^th century, the first lord of the Admiralty admitted that the United States could create a navy than the British Empire.

A territorial dispute over Venezuela in 1895 threatened to ignite a third Anglo-American war, creating economic panic. By 1901, the British Admiralty realized that the US Navy would soon possess the potential to outstrip the British Grand Fleet. Thanks to the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt, American naval tonnage had tripled from to . Britain’s ability to maintain a stronger navy than its allies was threatened by this massive growth.

Meanwhile, Britain was also engaged in a naval race with Germany, its primary antagonist during the era. The rapid construction of the German high seas with the latest armor and guns threatened the British coastline and maritime trade routes in the event of a war. Faced with two bids for naval supremacy, the UK concentrated on the German threat and ignored American naval competition. By exempting the US from the two-power standard (to have as many battleships as its next two great competitors, plus 10%), and by leaving the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine unchallenged, Britain was able to deescalate the potential conflict between the two countries.

As a result of this diplomatic and military resolution, Britain’s prudence soon netted extensive economic and national security gains. As the Great War commenced, Britain’s war economy relied increasingly on raw materials, munitions production and food supplies from the United States. This ongoing trade, coupled with Imperial Germany’s unrestricted submarine and the of the Zimmerman Telegram, helped propel the US into declaring war on Germany in April 1917 and thus into becoming an ally to its onetime rival. By averting a war, Britain was able to win another, one with truly disastrous consequences for European liberty had it lost.

Although its enemies were dismembered or subjected to humiliating terms that sowed the seeds of political violence and the Second World War, the UK enjoyed a period of political continuity, which helped its victory against Nazi Germany in 1945 and led to a more gradual dissolution of the British Empire by the 1960s.

The Soviet Union vs. the United States

Following a joint victory in World War II, tensions rose rapidly between the United States and the Soviet Union. A 40-year rivalry and a nuclear arms race threatened the world with a mutually annihilating conflict. But despite multiple flashpoints, such as the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Cold War never fully went hot. 

Though the “mutually assured destruction” is typically used to refer to destruction by nuclear weapons, a conflict even before both sides wielded large arsenals could have been catastrophic. The Soviet Union was savaged by the Second World War with an estimated 24 to 27 million and could not afford another conflict in the immediate aftermath. Though the United States held a stronger economic position, it realized that an invasion of the Soviet Union was likely to end the same way it did for the Germans in the summer of 1941. Thus, for both sides, victory would have come at too great a cost.

Reeling from the cost of total war from 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union quickly repaired its economy and produced notable growth consistently. Its annual gross national product (GNP) by 5.7% from 1950 to 1960 and 5.2% from 1960 to 1970. At the same time, the US experienced development. This was due in part to geographic isolation from Europe during World War II, which prevented extensive damage to American industries. The inception of new industries such as television, the rise of suburbia and government investment in infrastructure helped the US economy expand continuously for decades after 1945. The resources for each nation’s respective economic success would not have been available if they had chosen to start a third world war.

Extensive proxy wars led by the US and the Soviet Union offered glimpses of the destruction and economic hardship that would have ensued if NATO combated the Warsaw Pact. From 1955 to 1975, the United States fought a desperate containment war against insurgents in Vietnam that ended with a communist victory and the destabilization of several other countries in Southeast Asia. In Afghanistan, the Soviets 10 years trying to suppress the mujahadeen before their ignominious withdrawal in 1989.

Both conflicts resulted in the US and Soviet Union suffering tens of thousands of casualties among military service members, while causing even higher death tolls among the people of Vietnam and Afghanistan. Those wars also cost the US and the Soviet Union large sums of money that could not be regenerated, prompting economic hardship. The price of these proxy wars, terrible as they were in their own right, offered a window to the horror that would have ensued if the two superpowers had gone to war.

Eventually, the nonviolent end of the Cold War brought with it far greater political stability than a military tête-à-tête between the Americans and Soviets would have done. The new government of the Russian Federation was to take power quickly and without international incident.

Germany vs. the United Kingdom and France

Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, the fear of a third world war was foremost on the mind of the British and French governments, who prepared to make an independent should Germany rearm. Understanding this fear, and with the horrors of the world wars within living memory, Germany opted against its military to the same degree as earlier in the 20^th century. The costs of the two world wars further dissuaded Germany from posturing in a way that would invite another total conflict. In this way, the Germans ensured peace for the foreseeable future in Europe. 

As a result of decreased military tensions between the UK, France and Germany, Europe focused its energy on opening its borders and harmonizing its economic exploits. The of the European Union and the introduction of the euro currency cemented these aims. All three partners benefited economically from this period of stability. In 2019, Germany had the largest in Europe, followed closely by the UK and France, respectively. There is freedom of travel and ease of custom that furthers cultural interaction and social development, and Europeans are arguably happier, healthier and freer than they were at any previous point in history.

Subverting the Modern Trap

None of the four cases cited above is an exact clone of current relations between the United States and China. In both the Iberian and the American-British examples, there was a shared cultural background and a similar language between the two sides that doubtlessly contributed toward peace. During the Second World War, the US and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. By contrast, the US assisted nationalist forces during the of 1945-49 and combated Chinese communist soldiers during the Korean War of 1950-53. In the late 1980s, memories of both world wars provided Britain, France and Germany with enough incentive to resolve their issues peacefully.

This does not mean there are no similarities each side can use as a guide to peace. Economic incentives played a role in the reduction of tensions between Spain and Portugal. Similarly, ending the trade war between the US and China and resuming normal economic ties would help fill each nation’s coffers. The United States and Great Britain were able to ally before combating a single enemy. If climate change were viewed as a shared problem, the US and China could ally to combat it together.

Finally, the US and China do not share a land border, which was also true of the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War; this reduces the opportunity for an overzealous or nervous service member to inadvertently start a conflict. Both countries, in addition, are important members of the United Nations, which mirrors how Britain, France and Germany were important members of the European Union and NATO.

Graham Allison’s analysis of relations between rising and reigning powers paints a grim future, one in which two powerful nations armed with nuclear weapons fight one another. To avoid such a future, the American and Chinese governments must strive to understand the lessons of the past. They must learn about the instances in which Thucydides’ Trap did not spring. Diplomacy between the two powers must always be pragmatic, and each side should understand that they will never get everything they want at the negotiating table. Finally, each side must scale down their military presence, particularly in the South China Sea, before a misstep or negligent discharge can potentially ignite a global war.

By recognizing the devastating harm that would occur in the event of a war, and the potential for economic growth and political stability if peace is sustained, two of the world’s largest powers can concentrate on shared goals and projects for mutual benefit. This will not be easy. But, as Benjamin Franklin once observed, “There has never been a good war or a bad peace.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Biden’s America Is the New “Middle Kingdom”

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Like most powerful leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping leads a government that has had people killed and routinely does things contrary to the taste of American politicians. But the image of Xi, a calm, rational bureaucrat, does not resemble the kind of theatrical villain the American public loves to hate. He lacks the character traits, the posture, the gestures, the gait and the sheer stage presence that defined leaders like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and even Hugo Chavez. Perhaps this lack of a recognizable villainous foil to the heroic US president explains why Biden’s bureaucratic secretary of state, Antony Blinken — rather than Biden himself — has assumed the task of defining the terms of the new Cold War with China that is brewing.

Here is how Blinken his case for a warlike posture: “China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system — all the rules, values, and relationships that make the world work the way we want it to, because it ultimately serves the interests and reflects the values of the American people.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Open international system:

In the 21^st century, a rulebook of geopolitical relationships, whose doors can be closed and locked only by the United States of America

Contextual Note

Blinken succinctly describes what is meant by American exceptionalism. He distinguishes it from former President Donald Trump’s policy of “America First,” which focused on domestic issues, such as closing off the southern border to immigration and allowing real Americans to concentrate on the essential business of “winning” as they compete against their rivals and neighbors. Blinken feels that Trump’s idea that every nation should pursue its particular interest without regard for the others was a recipe for instability. In contrast, �������������’s imposition of leadership on dependent allies will ensure stability.

Blinken and Biden apparently believe in international solidarity — provided, of course, that it is structured around themes the US chooses. “Another enduring principle,” Blinken intones, “is that we need countries to cooperate, now more than ever. Not a single global challenge that affects your lives can be met by any one nation acting alone.” But a closer look at his idea of cooperation reveals an idea closer to former President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” than open concertation. He also makes it clear that even though Russia, Iran and North Korea stand out as a vague equivalent of Bush’s “axis of evil,” China is the real threat against which an effective coalition must be assembled.

The Biden administration simply refuses to acknowledge that China’s rise, which has effectively lifted more than 800 million out of poverty, should be considered as having any redeeming factors that might lead the US to promote a policy of cooperation with China rather than confrontation. It may be the administration’s belief in the theory of the “,” which, if taken seriously, fatalistically supposes that a waning power and a rising power must not seek to cooperate, but must be resigned to confronting each other, forcing the weaker to submit.

In his speech, Blinken made this intriguing comment about cooperation: “That requires working with allies and partners, not denigrating them, because our combined weight is much harder for China to ignore.” He is undoubtedly thinking about Trump’s propensity to lambaste US allies in Europe and elsewhere. This may also explain why the Biden administration has avoided reproaching Saudi Arabia with its crimes and blatantly undemocratic behavior.

Blinken asserts that “as the President has promised, diplomacy — not military action — will always come first.” But, contrary to most expectations, there has been no diplomacy with Iran, and the attempt at diplomacy with China last week in Alaska turned to the kind of confrontation that precedes military action. At the same time, Admiral Philip Davidson has indicated that he believes war with China will be because of the US commitment to defending Taiwan’s independence. The Financial Times that “Biden has taken a tough rhetorical posture towards China over its military activity around Taiwan and in the South and East China Seas.” The tone in Washington seems closer to preparation for war than an intensification of diplomacy.

The Chinese have expanded their geopolitical activity with a focus on infrastructure rather than military presence. The US sees this as an assault on its global hegemony. Underlying this feeling is the reality that since the beginning of the century, the US has seen a decline in its influence across the globe. The rise of China means that any new president of the United States must feel that getting tough with China will be electorally advantageous. But posturing with an eye to seducing the electorate can sometimes lead to actions that severely undermine the very stability Blinken believes must be ensured through American leadership.

Historical Note

Antony Blinken’s logic can be seen as the application of John Mearsheimer’s notion of US hegemony as the central feature of a “realist” foreign policy. That realism reflects a binary vision of the world, as a choice between hegemony and anarchy. Hegemony is the lesser of the two evils and is therefore deemed good. No great power should renounce its quest for hegemony. For the US, ever since the Monroe Doctrine established in 1823, regional hegemony has become the reigning orthodoxy.

As a realist, Mearsheimer opposes the “neo-liberal” idea that US hegemony should be guided by the belief in a moral mission. Because hegemony is good, its abuses will always be tolerable as conditions for maintaining the good. Mearsheimer even had a soft spot for Trump’s “America First” approach. Secretary Blinken and President Joe Biden have chosen to deviate from Mearsheimer by promoting a version of hegemony that relies on a return to the moralism of the neo-liberal agenda. They paint the US as a force for promoting democracy and human rights across the globe. Biden it leading by the force of example rather than the example of force.

Blinken offers some examples. “It requires standing up for our values when human rights are abused in Xinjiang or when democracy is trampled in Hong Kong, because if we don’t, China will act with even greater impunity.” Does “standing up for” mean envisioning war? The absurdity of his statement becomes clearer when one imagines the way the Chinese might reformulate it to criticize the US: It requires standing up for our values when human rights are abused among the black population in �������������’s inner cities or when democracy is denied and trampled in Puerto Rico, because if we don’t, the US will act with even greater impunity. Only a global hegemon “stands up” in that manner.

The realists correctly point out that the attitude that consists of feeling justified to use force on the grounds that another nation is not living up to one’s own rigorous moral or political standards is at best a distraction and at worst an invitation to chaos. Realists, like Mearsheimer or Henry Kissinger, respect power alone rather than any abstract notion of virtue. They see moral considerations as irrelevant, though they tend to think that, according to some mysterious metaphysical principle, the values of the US are more valid or trustworthy than those of other nations.

Power will always assert itself. Superior power will usually win every spontaneous contest. That is the reality of politics. But is that a recipe for stability? The real question that every honest human being must consider is this: Should politics and political thinking alone rule human society? Is there a place for morality and not just as a feature of political rhetoric?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Naturally, the unified Republican caucus complained that President Joe Biden was not displaying his promised bipartisanship. It didn’t seem to occur to them that bipartisanship is a two-way street. How soon they’ve forgotten that nearly every Democrat in both houses voted for the Trump administration’s initial bailout package in March 2020.

A Deeper Look into Hong Kong’s Evolution

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Nevertheless, the Biden administration remains eager to find common ground with Republican legislators. The president has  that he can attract Republican support for an infrastructure bill this summer, given that rebuilding American bridges, highways and the like was a priority for the previous administration.

But here’s a truly troubling scenario. Casting around for another unifying topic, the Biden team has seized upon China. Democrats and Republicans alike are concerned about what China is doing these days. There is bipartisan disgust over what’s happening in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Hawks in both parties have long warned about Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea. Despite wildly different economic ideologies, Democrats and Republicans have joined hands in their opposition to Chinese trade and currency policies, cavalier approach to intellectual property rights and efforts to dominate markets in the Global South.

On the face of it, however, the bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is starting to pull together is just another infrastructure initiative. It is meant “to shore up U.S. supply chains, expand American production of semiconductors, create 5G networks nationwide and pour billions into investments into U.S. manufacturing companies and hubs, among other proposals,”&�Բ�����; to The Washington Post.

But it’s not just infrastructure. The measure is specifically designed to bolster the full-spectrum US fight against China. “Hating China is a big bipartisan thing, and Schumer has the opportunity to take ownership of being against China,”&�Բ�����; out Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-wing American Action Forum.

According to the most benign reading of this bipartisanship, the Biden administration will be manufacturing an anti-Chinese version of the Sputnik moment when, in 1957, the Soviet launch of the first artificial satellite prompted a frenzy of US government spending on science and technology to catch up to the Russians. “The danger China poses could fundamentally reorder U.S. attitudes toward government’s role in domestic economic growth, research and development in ways that leave the United States stronger,”&�Բ�����; liberal columnist E.J. Dionne.

A robust industrial policy is indeed preferable to, say, the tariffs that the Trump administration levied against Chinese products. If fear of China overcomes the conservative distaste for government interventions in the economy, should progressives really be looking this particular gift horse in the mouth?

Full Court Press

The Quad is the latest multilateral mechanism through which the United States is putting pressure on China. The four countries — the United States, India, Japan and Australia — all have their separate beefs with Beijing. But last week was the first time that the heads of these four states met as part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which was set up in 2007.

The statement the four leaders recently  in The Washington Post makes no mention of China. It’s all about cooperating on climate, the pandemic and strengthening democracy. But that’s just being diplomatic. As Alex Ward  in Vox, China has “gotten into a deadly fight over a disputed border with India, started a trade war with Australia, hacked the US government, and for years used its might to push Japan around on economic and military matters.” Trump tried to rally the four countries behind his own anti-China agenda. But his efforts were compromised by a suspicion in many quarters that he’d just as soon negotiate a deal with China behind the Quad’s back as coordinate a united front.

The current president, by contrast, has moved steadily away from a preference to engage China. “Biden had to be reprogrammed on China” during the presidential campaign, one of his advisers . This reprogramming explains Biden’s harsher tone during the election, such as calling Chinese leader Xi Jinping “a thug.”

As president, Biden has been careful to sound notes of both amicability and threat. Cooperation to deal with the climate crisis is certainly a possibility. But promoting deals with China is not going to win the new president support in Congress or, for that matter, with the American public. China’s unfavorability rating rose to 79% in a Gallup poll, its worst showing in more than four decades. A shift has taken place in just the last couple of years. According to a Pew Research Center , 67% of Americans now have “cold” feelings toward China, compared to only 46% in 2018.

The appointment of Kurt Campbell as the Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council (NSC) indicates the direction of the administration’s new take on Asia. Campbell was a key architect of the “Pacific pivot” under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration. He’s not going to play quite the anti-China role that Matt Pottinger did on Trump’s NSC, but he’s a firm believer in strengthening bilateral alliances and multilateral coordination to contain China.

In a January 2021 piece in Foreign Affairs, Campbell channeled Henry Kissinger in asserting the need for the US to restore a “balance of power” in the region. What that really means is that the US, with the help of its friends, must push back against China to reassert its own Pacific authority, both militarily and economically. Practically, Campbell , this means that:

“Although Washington should maintain its forward presence, it also needs to work with other states to disperse U.S. forces across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. This would reduce American reliance on a small number of vulnerable facilities in East Asia. Finally, the United States should encourage new military and intelligence partnerships between regional states, while still deepening those relationships in which the United States plays a major role—placing a ‘tire’ on the familiar regional alliance system with a U.S. hub and allied spokes.”

Over the years, China has steadily eroded US power not only in Asia but internationally. It used the anti-globalism of the Trump years to expand its influence in international institutions such as the United Nations and its associated bodies like the World Health Organization. Where It has encountered difficulties in expanding its influence, such as with international financial institutions, it has simply created its own. Shortly after Biden’s election, China joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes the countries of Southeast Asia, plus Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan). This move, plus Beijing’s recent investment agreement with the European Union and President Xi’s announcement that China would also consider joining a modified Trans-Pacific Partnership, suggests an economic counteroffensive to the US ramping up of multilateral security arrangements.

These moves have not gone unnoticed. On the eve of their first visit to Asia this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin III  in The Washington Post, “If we don’t act decisively and lead, Beijing �ɾ�����.”

The Biden administration’s decision to focus on beefing up US economic competitiveness, particularly in the tech sector, is in some ways an admission of defeat. China has outmaneuvered the United States in the global economy. The only way Washington can compete at the moment is by throwing its weight around militarily and trying to play catch-up on the home front.

Is China a Useful Threat?

It’s hard to argue with the importance of investing in critical US industries. Republicans and laissez-faire economists generally oppose such a policy of picking winners and losers in the marketplace, except when it comes to the military-industrial complex. Only a large external threat can move such ideologues to accept the obvious: governments can and should shape markets.

But here are some problems with hitching this industrial policy to the “China threat.” The global economy needs an overhaul to address the climate crisis, rampant economic inequality, automation and other developments. This is no time for the US to turn its economic relationship with China into a Cold War competition. Sure, let the two countries compete over who makes the best laptop computer, but cooperation is essential for developing new rules for the global economy. A robust industrial policy doesn’t preclude cooperation, unless it feeds into a rancor and a parochialism that makes cooperation near to impossible.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of global supply chains, with the collapse of international trade and countries initially competing for scarce medical equipment. This is not a new problem, however. Shelley Rigger writes in her 2013 on Taiwan about a moment “in 1999 when a power transmission tower on a remote mountain in central Taiwan toppled, blacking out the island’s high-tech industry for a day. The interruption nearly doubled the world price of memory chips and the supply of TFT-LCD flat screens took six months to return to normal.” Natural (and unnatural) disasters can wreak havoc on the supply of essential components.

Ensuring an indigenous supply of computer chips may well protect the US in the short term, but it does little to address the underlying problem of supply chains. A return to a time when every country produced all of its essentials or went without is not really an option, considering the importance of global trade routes going back to the Silk Road and even before. Reshoring and relocalization are both essential in this age of climate crisis. But a reordering of the global economy that accommodates such changes should be a matter for coordination, not Cold War competition.

In addition, an industrial policy that prioritizes gaining a competitive edge over China could overshadow the other major focus of the Biden administration, namely reducing the national and global carbon footprints. High-tech products often rely on key outputs of the extraction industry, like cobalt and lithium. An industrial policy built on minimizing carbon emissions and the use of rare minerals, rather than besting China, would pick very different economic winners and losers.

When it comes to foreign policy, bipartisanship is not necessarily a virtue. The two major US parties came together around waging the Vietnam War, confronting the Soviet Union during the Cold War and fighting “terrorism” in the wake of September 11. The first failed, the second was outrageously expensive and nearly ended in nuclear apocalypse, and the third led the country into the infamous “forever wars.”

Selectively challenging China over its human rights record, its overreach in the South China Sea or the conduct of its businesses around the world (like this fish meal in Gambia) is appropriate. Going all out in a military, economic and cultural competition with the Asian superpower — and forging a wafer-thin bipartisan consensus to do so — is the height of folly.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Coverage by Western media of the street battles that took place generally condemned what was perceived to be a betrayal by Beijing of “pledges to allow Hong Kong’s governance to remain semiautonomous until at least 2047.” Western politicians and pundits seized on China’s aggressive crackdown on the protesters as a pretext for denouncing the People’s Republic for its anti-democratic, authoritarian methods.

Ken Burns’ Misunderstanding of Pronouns

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With the help of the coronavirus pandemic that helped to clear the streets, the government finally managed to quell the protests. Profiting from the calm, the Chinese are now planning a number of reforms. The WSJ quotes Bernard Chan, a member of Hong Kong‘s cabinet, on the nature of the intended effort: “What Beijing ultimately wants to address in Hong Kong is ‘not the politics, but the deep-seated issues’ including the lack of affordable housing and the city’s deeply polarizing income gaps.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Deep-seated issues:

The kind of issues that developed nations with a modern, free market economy refuse to address directly due to their belief that private enterprise will step up as soon as they discover how solving such problems can become profitable

Contextual Note

Chan distinguishes between “politics” that fascinate the elite (as well as the media) and “deep-seated issues” that affect all citizens. The WSJ provides some indication of the nature of the struggle to come, particularly concerning housing: “Land-policy reforms can help improve access to cheaper homes, although officials must overcome the entrenched influence of local property tycoons whom Beijing regards as too passive in their support of government goals.”

With its focus on how the economy works, The WSJ is well placed to understand the impact of “entrenched influence” exercised by “property tycoons.” For the past four years, the US itself was governed by a property tycoon specialized in wielding influence. The example of Donald Trump, the former president, may serve to demonstrate that the only effective way to “overcome” tycoons’ influence is to eject them from their position of power. But when the tycoons are legion and anonymous, as they are in Hong Kong, the struggle will be bound to last a certain time. 

The debate this has provoked in Hong Kong is fraught with the hypocrisy everyone would expect when the stakes are so high. The Chinese government appears to be focusing on soft power as it promises relief for a struggling population to distract from the issue of democratic representation. The policy may reflect the Marshall Plan approach that worked so well to consolidate �������������’s soft power in Europe following World War II.

The Beijing government’s narrative attributes the discontent of the protests to the very concrete social issues, deviating attention from the political issues the protesters themselves highlighted. Chan bluntly explains: “They want us to fix it.” He may be right. Just as the Americans fixed Europe with the Marshall Plan and nobody complained about their encroaching power.

Not everyone is convinced. Opposition politicians have expressed skepticism “that Beijing can overcome the decades of policy inertia and infighting that beset Hong Kong‘s political and business elite.” So long as those by virtue of their assets and cash wield actual power, the inertia is likely to continue.

Emily Lau, a former chairwoman of Hong Kong‘s Democratic Party, complains that former leaders appointed by Beijing in the face of the social challenge “never bothered to solve it.” She believes the new ones appointed after the showdown with protesters are unlikely to do any better. This could be interpreted as an excuse for maintaining the status quo. But there are reasons to believe the new policy will force change. One member of a think tank dedicated to Hong Kong policy claims that if those in charge “can’t serve the people well, they must step down.”

Historical Note

Keith Zhai and Chun Han Wong remind readers of what Western media prefer to ignore: that Hong Kong is not just a glamorous, glitzy coastal resort, but has a history. Without returning to the dramatic historical events that made it a British colony, they cite examples of how things worked during the colonial period that only ended in 1997. Hong Kong has maintained a “low-tax regime, largely unchanged since British rule,” with no “duties on sales, consumption, capital gains, dividends or inheritance,” the journalists write. The British designed this to draw Western finance, multinational companies and tourists to the enclave, turning it into a free-wheeling platform for global capitalism with a commanding seaside view over all of eastern Asia.

The writers also cite Hong Kong’s “land policies, another legacy of British rule, which have long been criticized for artificially inflating real-estate prices that boost government coffers and developers’ profits.” This system “effectively imposes shadow taxes on residents through sky-high housing prices and rent.” As in practically every modern democracy run less by representatives of the voters than by the forces of the free market, assets are privileged long before governments can even begin to consider the people’s needs. The journalists give the details of some of the proposed reforms but conclude by evoking a potential battle to come: “Such changes could see officials take on the city’s influential property tycoons, who have wielded outsize influence over land policy.”

An article in The South China Morning Post the real motives behind China’s new policy. The author cites “a historical moment rooted in the Chinese collective consciousness, and central to the very concept of national identity, that set the trend of that relationship [between Beijing and Hong Kong].” The historical narrative “cuts across various layers of society and is shared by both opponents and supporters of the Communist government.” The Chinese remember it as the “century of humiliation.”

The Opium Wars stand as one of the most shameful episodes in the annals of British imperialism, an act of aggression that saw London apply the proverb, “to kill two birds with one stone.” The two birds were China and India, which together now represent approximately a third of the world’s population. Under British direction, India produced the opium that the Brits themselves, playing the role of the neighborhood drug dealer, incited the Chinese to get hooked on, which, according to mercantilist logic, produced the means to pay for the Chinese exports of silk, porcelain and tea that the British themselves were increasingly addicted to.

A major prize in the settlement of the First Opium War was the cession of Hong Kong to the British in 1841. That marked the beginning of the century of humiliation. For the British, the acquisition of a delicious Asian bauble was the reward for their military planning and valor. Contemplating the spoils of war, Queen Victoria famously that her husband, Prince Consort Albert, “is so amused at my having got the Island of Hong Kong.”

The South China Morning Post article explains the sense of injustice felt by the Chinese after their treatment by the British. Many of them, and not just the government, see the question of Hong Kong as a question of national pride and part of their anti-colonial mission. “Deep down, Chinese nationalist sentiment is based on the hope of correcting and overcoming the legacy of imperialist invasion of Chinese lands,” The Morning Post reports.

When the Chinese speak of “deep-seated” issues, their notion of depth includes the reality of the lives of working people in Hong Kong, many of whom can no longer afford rent even for a few square meters of living space. The issue no longer concerns preferences or superficial claims. It is even less about being “amused” at possessing a piece of coastal territory with a strategically situated harbor. These are indeed deep matters. The Western powers and their media, as they attempt to deal with the rise of China, would be well advised to break free from their addiction to shallow reasoning as they seek to defend their waning hegemony.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Foreign-Language Entertainment Is Having Its Soft-Power Moment

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Is this new status enough for China? Probably not. New blockbusters will soon rebalance these numbers, but soft power — the ability to seduce people from all over the world through culture — takes time to build up. Soft power also brings lasting income to its country of origin in terms of products and services, like tourism for example. When in 1934, Walt Disney began work on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” other film studio chiefs derided the project as “,” since adults, not children, were considered to be primary consumers. These executives forgot that children watch films over and over again and want all the related merchandise. “Snow White” went on to become the first film in history to gross $100 million, selling 400 million tickets from 1937 to 1948.

Welcome to Chinawood

These are just numbers. Disney’s greatest achievement was making his creations into lucrative vehicles of US culture for decades to come. That is what China wants to achieve. It has been taking similar steps ever since farmer-turned-entrepreneur Xu Wenrong began building Hengdian World Studios in the 1990s. Known as , it became the largest outdoor film studio in the world and one of China’s biggest domestic tourist attractions, historic film sets, a resort hotel and live performances. itself “China’s tourism and performing arts capital,” Chinawood attracts thousands of TV shows and film productions every year.

Also, since fewer than are allowed to take a bite of this massive market due to a strict quota system, Chinawood also foreign productions like “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” a Hollywood-Chinawood co-production (these escape quota restrictions), starring the likes of Brendan Fraser and Jet Li, grossed over in the first 21 weeks of its release.

Is this enough to make Chinawood a new soft power? The answer is, probably not. Because Chinawood productions face a similar challenge as all the other blockbusters shot in the country, these films often lack creativity, self-criticism, audacity and freedom. Take the recent historical war drama, Guan Hu’s “,” for example. The film — at , 2020’s top-grossing production — pushed China to the number one spot in global box office revenues. However, most of this comes from China itself and not international markets. While European and US theaters still struggle to open because of COVID-19, even without the pandemic, it’s hard to say that such productions could help the Chinese film industry overseas.

“The Eight Hundred” was abruptly pulled from a scheduled premiere at the in 2019 without an explanation. A version shorter by 11 minutes later opened in theaters, with much fewer scenes involving forces. Besides likely censorship, what may explain the little impact the film had internationally, as the film critic suggests, is that while avoiding the “rabid China-is-top-dog quality of the Wolf Warrior movies,” its “spirit is resolutely neo-nationalist,” with “all the bombast and jingoism of the current moment.”

Hollywood became an effective soft powerhouse not only because of million-dollar budgets and top-quality products, but also thanks to creative freedom. For instance, Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989) and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979), both masterpieces, were expressly critical of US military intervention in Vietnam. The films are also on the patriotic side, with American values overemphasized. However, by criticizing �������������’s own culture and politics, the films are far from being hard-power propaganda.

Hard Power Interference

The Communist Party of China (CPP), on the other hand, interferes directly in cultural productions. According to a report by , PEN �������������’s deputy director of Free Expression Research and Policy, since 2011, the CCP’s Central Committee issued a statement declaring the “urgency for China to strengthen its cultural soft power and global cultural influence.” As Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin in The Guardian, the party is trying to “reshape the global information environment with massive infusions of money” with the aim being to “influence public opinion overseas in order to nudge foreign governments into making policies favorable toward China’s Communist Party.”

The official People’s Daily once , “we cannot be soft on soft power,” calling for culture must be exported in order to strengthen China’s international stance. Chinawood is part of this effort, which includes spent annually on public diplomacy, in contrast with $2 billion by the US Department of State in 2018. Soft power works well when China opens hundreds of to spread its language and culture around the world. What doesn’t work is when the same party severely punishes Chinese ethnical minorities, like the Muslim Uighurs facing persecution in Xinjiang.

China already has an important cultural soft power: its art, poetry, painting, sculpture and pottery, from the early imperial dynasties to the 20^th century, coveted by museums and collectors around the world. It succeeds because the state hard power doesn’t interfere significantly with it. But when it comes to contemporary culture — films, games, TV shows and apps like Tik Tok — Chinese hard power seems to impose harmful control. That’s not how soft power works. It needs freedom and self-criticism to produce genuine and seductive art.

George Orwell once said that “Journalism is printing what someone does not want printed; everything else is public relations.” The phrase also pertains to the arts and the entertainment industry. When President that “the stories of China should be well told, voices of China well spread and characteristics of China well explained,” by “well” he probably means “positive.” That is definitely not how one wins soft power for the long term.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Is China the New Champion of Globalization?

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he , conceptually at least, that former President Donald Trump “was right in taking a tougher approach to China” and that he supports the prior administration’s finding that Beijing’s treatment of Uighur minorities in Xinjiang constitutes “genocide.” In early February, the new administration conducted naval to contest Chinese dominance in the South China Sea and reaffirmed the US security commitment to defending the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.

Veterans of the Obama Administration

Yet all of this cannot conceal the two major fault lines threatening to undermine President Biden’s promise. The first centers on the heavy presence of Obama-era veterans on his national security team, particularly those associated with that administration’s “” toward the region. Two of President Biden’s top staffers were key architects of the much-touted initiative: Kurt M. Campbell, who was in charge of East Asian affairs in the State Department under President Barack Obama and is now the White House’s Asia policy czar, and Jake Sullivan, who was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and is now Biden’s national security adviser.

The rhetoric of Obama’s pivot to Asia simultaneously antagonized Beijing while its actual track record largely failed to impress other Asian governments. According to one , the pivot’s hype caused a marked increase in Chinese military spending at the same time that sharp cuts in the Pentagon budget were hampering US military operations in Asia. During a visit to Japan in 2013, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that “We are going to have to think about how to remain a global power with fewer resources. I think we are going to have to find ways to accomplish almost the same things but with smaller force structures.” In early 2014, the Pentagon’s acquisitions chief that budget constraints were forcing a reconsideration of the initiative.

As Obama’s coordinator for North Korea policy has , the effort “was ill conceived and bungled in its implementation.” In late 2013, the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, an “increasingly widely shared view in Japan and the region that the Obama administration may not have enough political capital or the financial assets to implement” the pivot. It added that some have even come to see it as no more than a “bumper sticker.” Similarly, a leading Australian analyst , “There is a growing perception in Asia that the Obama administration’s much-ballyhooed ‘pivot to Asia’ has run out of puff.” By late 2014, a foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times that most of Asia had concluded the pivot was nothing more than hot air.

Memories of this track record persist. A commentator focused on Asian affairs last year that “Officials in Tokyo, Taipei, New Delhi, Singapore and other capitals have grown relatively comfortable with Trump and his tough approach on China. The prospect of a Biden presidency, by contrast, brings back uncomfortable memories of an Obama era that many Asian movers and shakers recall as unfocused and soft toward Beijing.”

Just before the 2020 election, The Washington Post that current and former officials of the Taiwanese government and ruling party had “privately expressed concern that a return of Obama-era foreign policy advisers in a potential Biden administration could mean a U.S. approach that is more conciliatory toward China compared with the Trump administration’s — and less supportive of Taiwan.” The Financial Times also along similar lines.

The personnel problem extends to Biden himself, as he is a late convert to the tough-on-China crowd. Prior to his becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, he had regularly the notion that China mounted much of a geopolitical challenge. His campaign staffers were reportedly troubled by his naivete, and one adviser later that for the rest of the campaign, Biden had to be “deprogrammed” on China. While this was going on, Robert M. Gates, Obama’s first defense secretary, to CBS News his earlier judgment that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”&�Բ�����;

Standing Strong vs. Climate Change

The second fault line running through Biden’s approach to China is the irreconcilability between maintaining a hard line and his administration’s insistence on the pressing urgency of securing Beijing’s cooperation on climate change. Biden officials claim they can somehow manage this tension and will not have to make significant concessions in other policy areas in order to fulfill its global climate ambitions.

John Kerry, President Obama’s secretary of state when the 2015 Paris climate agreement was signed, is now Biden’s special climate envoy with a spot on the National Security Council. He insists, for example, that climate is a critical stand-alone issue that can be compartmentalized on the US–China bilateral agenda. Administration officials believe that collaboration is so self-evidently in Beijing’s interest that it will naturally sign on to Washington’s new push for significant climate action.

The Chinese government so far is not much impressed with this logic, with its foreign ministry that climate could not be separated from other issues “unlike flowers that can bloom in a greenhouse despite winter chill.” A Chinese government Twitter account also that “China is willing to work with the US on climate change. But such cooperation cannot stand unaffected by the overall China–US relations. It is impossible to ask for China’s support in global affairs while interfering in its domestic affairs and undermining its interests.”&�Բ�����;

Given the White House’s fervor on the issue, one suspects the Biden administration will be making the concessions in the end. During the presidential campaign, Biden that climate change is an “existential threat” and the “number one issue facing humanity.” Now that he is in the Oval Office, Biden “we can’t wait any longer.” He signed a directive making the the “center of our national security and foreign policy” and ordered government agencies to factor “climate considerations” into their assessment of international priorities. Kerry uses similar language, that “the stakes on climate change just simply couldn’t be any higher than they are right now. It is existential.” He added that Biden “is deeply committed — totally seized by this issue.”

In shutting down construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, as well as freezing new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands and waters, the administration has also shown it is willing to subordinate important domestic goals, such as energy security and employment stability in the middle of a job-killing pandemic, to climate priorities. It has written off large job losses as inevitable and is accepting of a backlash from important labor unions that aided its electoral victory just a few months ago.

Susan Rice Returns

It is also telling that Susan Rice, the national security adviser during Obama’s second term, has returned to the White House as President Biden’s top domestic affairs coordinator. Bilahari Kausikan, the former senior Singaporean diplomat widely regarded in East Asia, that Rice “was among those who thought that the US should deemphasise competition to get China’s cooperation on climate change, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of international relations.” Another observer has made the same point, that “Obama and Rice wanted to work with China on issues such as climate change, but they did so at the cost of treating Beijing with kid gloves.”&�Բ�����;

Influential members of the Democratic foreign policy establishment have advocated the same thing. Anne-Marie Slaughter, the head of an influential think tank in Washington and a former director of policy planning in the Obama-era State Department, recently that “Biden should prioritize global issues over geopolitical competition” and that the president’s focus on climate “should guide his foreign policy as well.”

Rank-and-file party members also share this view. In a recent public opinion , Democrats by a wide margin believe climate change to be a more critical threat than the rise of China as a peer competitor to the US. Indeed, according to Democratic respondents, China did not even rank among the top seven challenges facing the country.

Something will have to give in the new administration’s approach toward China. There is already an early indication of how things will play out. Notwithstanding the protestations about Beijing’s egregious human rights abuses, the Biden team to support holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in that city.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Iran Deal vs. the Logic of History

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The World Health Organization (WHO) team conducting an investigation in Wuhan released its preliminary findings this week on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It maintained, as Reuters, “that the virus likely came from bats and not a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.” On February 10, an official of the US announced what appeared to be a retreat to the Trump administration’s position: “The United States will not accept World Health Organization … findings coming out of its coronavirus investigation in Wuhan, China without independently verifying the findings using its own intelligence and conferring with allies.”

One of the WHO inspectors, British zoologist and expert on disease ecology Peter Daszak, reacting to the State Department’s note, addressed this advice to Biden in a : “Well now this👇. @JoeBiden has to look tough on China. Please don’t rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects. Happy to help.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Look tough:

1. The principal action required to maintain the status of a bully, a person whose demeanor counts more than their substance

2. The principal action required to maintain the image of the leader of a hegemon, called upon to make a show of being hyper-aggressive toward nations elected by politicians and the media as an existential threat  

Contextual Note

While the WHO team offered no definitive explanation of the origin, it focused on different possibilities of animal transmission requiring further investigation. When asked at a press conference on February 10 whether he had “any interest in punishing China for not being truthful about COVID last year,” President Biden cagily replied, “I’m interested in getting all the facts.” That answer leaves him free to look tough on China or, alternatively, to look tough at the intelligence that for the past four years has done what intelligence always does, responded obsequiously to the political solicitations of the administration in place.

One American who, for the past four years, has made a point of looking tough and has been regularly featured in the media is Mike Pompeo, the final secretary of state under the Trump administration. In a desperate effort to keep the Trump mystique going to maintain its flagging ratings, Fox News brought Pompeo back to defend the Wuhan flu theme Trump consistently exploited for electoral advantage during last year’s presidential election campaign. In the, “Pompeo said ‘significant evidence’ remained that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory, casting doubt Tuesday on the World Health Organization‘s assessment that it likely spread from animals to humans.”

Pompeo, a former CIA director, in 2019 that his job at the Central Intelligence Agency consisted of lying, cheating and stealing. He implied that he was now telling the truth, a fact ironically borne out by his honest admission of duplicity while at the CIA. And yet, there may be reason even today to believe that Pompeo has retained something of his talent for lying, which he will be willing to use for what he deems virtuous purposes. 

The language people like Pompeo use often reveals how they manage to bend the truth when they aren’t simply betraying it. In the Fox interview, Pompeo explains, “I continue to know that there was significant evidence that this may well have come from that laboratory.” What can Pompeo possibly mean when he says, “I continue to know”? Is knowledge for Pompeo something that can appear and disappear? Knowledge is a state of awareness of truth, not an act of will, something one can decide according to the circumstances. 

And because what someone knows must be a fact, what is the solid fact he says he continues to know? He tells us that it is the idea that the coronavirus “may have come from” the Wuhan laboratory. But something that “may” be true is at best a reasonable hypothesis and at worst a fabricated lie. Something that “may” be true cannot be called knowledge. Any honest speaker would use the verb “suspect.” But, in this age of conspiracy theories, people tend to suspect anything that is merely suspected. And Fox News has always preferred assertions to suspicions.

In the same interview, Pompeo describes his recommendations for the US policy on China. He says the nation must “continue to make sure that the next century remains one dominated by rule of law, sovereignty and the things that the America first foreign policy put in place.”&�Բ�����;

Besides the fact that Pompeo offers another example of his favorite verb, “continue,” his odd assertion that “the next century” (the 22^nd?) must be “dominated by rule of law” offers a curious yoking of two theoretically antinomic ideas: dominance and rule of law. The very idea of “rule of law” posits a relationship of equality between all concerned parties. It opposes the effect of domination. Rule of law is about level playing fields and fair play. Pompeo’s formulation reveals that he thinks of the rule of law as a specific tool of American domination. This is of course consistent with the facts, whatever the administration. The US still steadfastly refuses the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and Trump’s “America First” policy refused any law other than its own.

For those wondering why Fox News has taken the trouble to interview the former secretary of state of a president now being tried for sedition, the journalists reveal the interest at the end of the interview. Fox sees Pompeo as a worthy contender for the 2024 presidential campaign. He’s a cleaner version of Trump, but one who will always talk and look tough.

Historical Note

After the most contentious presidential election in its history, the US has been preparing to experience the transition from one radical style of hyperreality to another — from Donald Trump’s outlandish display of petulant rhetoric committed to reshaping the world in his image to Joe Biden’s reserved and fundamentally uncommitted avuncular manner. Just as in 2008, when they voted in Barack Obama after eight years of George W. Bush’s chaotic wars and a Wall Street crash, Americans are expecting a change of style and focus from the never-ending drama of the Trump years. 

But just as the self-proclaimed change candidate Obama, once in office, showed more respect for continuity than commitment to renewal, on the theme of foreign policy, President Biden appears to be following Trump’s lead while simply reducing the tone. This phenomenon reflects a more fundamental reality at the core of today’s pseudo-democratic oligarchy. It is regularly masked by the transition from Republican to Democrat and vice versa. The reigning political hyperreality, despite the contrasting personal styles of successive presidents, will always prevail. Continuity trumps change.

Biden’s future policy on both China and Iran provides two cases in point. The clock is ticking on the need to recalibrate both of these relationships, more particularly on Iran, which has an election coming in just a few months. As the world anxiously awaits the new orientations of the Biden administration, the kind of continuity Pompeo appreciates may prove more dominant than the reversal people have come to expect. After all, Trump set about reversing everything Obama did, so why shouldn’t Biden do the same? The answer may simply be that that’s not what Democrats do.

The average American has never been seriously interested in foreign policy. That very fact has consistently led to the kind of Manichaean thinking that dominated during the Cold War. In his 2000 election campaign, the inimitable George W. Bush up how that Manichaean system works: “When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.” As John Keats once wrote, “That is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How Tough Is Biden Prepared to Look? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

However, with Trump out and Joe Biden now in the Oval Office, there seems little to suggest any in US policy, at least in the foreseeable future. If the US isn’t particularly eager to work with China toward free trade and multilateral cooperation, the European Union, and Germany in particular, quickly opted for a completely different approach, signing a key investment deal with Beijing at the end of last year. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment () will grant a greater level of market access for investors than ever before, including new important market openings.

Forecasting the US-China Relationship

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Washington did not miss the opportunity to express its concerns about a deal that suddenly and unexpectedly the United States at a moment when, after four years of relative anarchy and opportunism, should be a priority. Writing in the Financial Times, recently pointed out how little sense it makes to rely on a US security guarantee in Europe while undermining its security policy in the Pacific, considering how much Europe has benefitted from the fact that for the past 70 years, the world’s most powerful nation has been a liberal democracy. Germany, in fact, was able over the last decades to exercise a sui generis role of Zivilmacht (civilian power) by framing its national interest in geoeconomic terms, encouraging German exports worldwide while to the reassuring presence of US troops.

To better understand Xi’s quasi-imperial stance at the World Economic Forum, it has to be placed not only against the backdrop of the recent investment deals with the European Union or with the 15 countries of the Asia-Pacific region, but on the big news that China is on course to overtake the US as the by 2028, five years ahead of earlier predictions, mainly due to the asymmetric impact of COVID-19. While it is clear that China has successfully contained the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak and the Chinese economy is now recovering at a than other countries, it is also true that a and delays in sharing information with the international community about the virus have contributed to an acceleration of the pandemic at a global level.

Nonetheless, in the current debate over shaping more efficient emergency policies, China is still emerging as the model to follow and imitate, despite being unpopular. There is little doubt that in the “social imaginary” of liberal societies, as reports from and the suggest, authoritarian regimes are seen by many as more efficient and better prepared to deal with crises than democracies. Yet we must not forget that this efficiency comes at the inevitable cost of political and civil rights.

Xi Jinping is well aware that the Biden administration can finally change course for the US and its allies, forging a united and progressive front after years of populist, nativist and authoritarian politics. Perhaps this element can help understand Xi’s assertiveness at the World Economic Forum better than the recent economic successes. After all, political and civil rights are China’s Achilles’ heel. Criticism of the Communist Party, let alone advocating for basic human rights such as freedom of speech or the rule of law, inexorably leads to repression that falls with equal severity on the rich metropolis of Hong Kong and the poor areas of Xinjiang, sweeping up ordinary citizens and billionaires alike, from to .

Can China credibly profess the virtues of globalization to achieve harmony and balance in an international system if it doesn’t adhere to international law? Can Beijing speak of cooperation to solve global problems when it has withheld vital information about the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic? As Xi Jinping continues to steer the Middle Kingdom out of its historical isolation, avoiding challenging the United States for the position of world leader will be difficult, given China’s demographics and economic status. Will these two Weltanschauungen, two comprehensively different conceptions of the world, sooner or later present the international community with a choice?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Joe Biden Will Face a Much-Changed and Skeptical World

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If President Trump presided over a rapid deterioration of the US-China relationship, under President Joe Biden, the relationship is likely to experience a stable deterioration. A stable deterioration is typified by two features: the continuance of deviating trajectories and the transactional nature of future cooperation. These two features interact to create a new status quo in the US-China relationship.

Deviating Trajectories

The era of engagement between Beijing and Washington was sustained through a shared interest in China’s economic and political in the international community. Today, China under President Xi Jinping has sought to both international political institutions and international financial bodies, thereby challenging US spuremacy and allowing for more Chinese dexterity. Xi’s struggles against American national interests, creating a split between the two global giants.

As President-elect Joe Biden is in the final stages of forming his national security team, he sends a strong, clear signal: This will not be a third Barack Obama term. Biden has declared that he plans on nominating Antony Blinken as secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser. While both are veterans of the Obama administration, their tone and language signal a break from the Obama years. Both Blinken and Sullivan have acknowledged the need to develop a new strategy for China that goes beyond traditional engagement into managing competition.

At a Hudson Institute event last summer, Blinken , “We are in a competition with China — and there’s nothing wrong with competition, if it’s fair.” Continuing the theme of managing competition with China, a for Foreign Affairs co-authored by Sullivan with Kurt Campbell, the CEO of the Asia Group, suggests that “the signs that China is gearing up to contest �������������’s global leadership are unmistakable, and they are ubiquitous.”

These statements follow a larger trend within the Democratic Party of getting tougher on China. For example, in the , China is only mentioned seven times. In the , mentions were up to 22 and included language like “push back against” and “stand up to.” A Biden administration is going to bring strategic clarity to US-China competition. Key advisers like Sullivan and Blinken are not pollyannish about the relationship and recognize the dramatic change that has been occurring for nearly a decade. As Biden leaves �������������’s engagement strategy behind, he will advance a more confident and more energetic foreign policy in defense of US interests and values.

Meanwhile, on the Chinese side of the relationship, President Xi Jinping has pursued an aggressive posture that has shaken the regional order. His ambitious “” strategy has created consternation. Xi has abandoned institutional integration and instead established his own multilateral financial institutions to blunt the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The People’s Liberation Army has also been more assertive in promoting Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The complete political absorption of Hong Kong has alarmed neighboring Taiwan. Lastly, Xi’s extraordinary Belt and Road Initiative has expanded China’s political influence across the region.

President Xi’s national rejuvenation campaign is in direct conflict with the interests of the United States and its allies. The US stands atop of an international order that promotes political and economic liberty. Through this alliance system, the United States promotes and secures a free and open Indo-Pacific. Under Xi’s helmsmanship, China wants to displace, if not replace, the US and develop a new, Sinocentric order. These trajectories will only continue to deviate until a new status quo can develop.

Areas of Cooperation

While the chasm in the US-China relationship widens and deepens, there are several areas where American and Chinese interests align. The United States and China must develop procedures for collaboration in these areas. If the relationship is only limited to competition, problems will arise that could otherwise be solved. Additionally, neither country gains from complete destruction of bilateral relations.

The stabilization of the Korean Peninsula will require significant coordination between Washington and Beijing. Neither the Chinese nor the Americans want to see conventional or nuclear conflict on the peninsula. The two countries do not need to feign friendship to achieve stabilization, but it does require communication.

Climate change is an issue that is not only an opportunity for cooperation but a problem that demands collaboration. As the world’s two largest economies, the US and China have a lot of influence in affecting the trajectory of global warming and climate change. Both countries stand only to gain from working together on this issue. Collaboration on the environment does not require a new proclamation of camaraderie between the two nations. Each government can recognize that cooperation on climate change is important without declaring a new era of relations. The business-like, transactional nature of US-China cooperation creates an environment where the two countries can work together without upsetting the aggressive factions within their respective countries.

When accounting for these dynamics, the most likely scenario to play out under the Biden administration is stable deterioration. Stable deterioration recognizes the continued decline in bilateral relations brought about by the deviating trajectories of the two countries but understands that there is a limit to that decline. Both countries accept collaboration when interests align, but the nature of cooperation is transactional. Through managing competition and transactional cooperation, a new status quo in the US-China relationship will develop.

This scenario assumes that neither President Biden nor President Xi perceives any value in the destruction of bilateral relations, but both recognize that competition is unavoidable. Both countries will continue to pursue their interests in the region, and neither will apologize for it. But both the United States and China will work together to develop a new relationship that allows them to compete without the total abandonment of the relationship.   

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Beginning in 2020, Shenzhen, in partnership with Chinese tech behemoth Tencent and NBBJ Architects, embarked on the design of a coastal, sustainable, state-of-the-art neighborhood called to serve as the exclamation point capping Shenzhen’s status as China’s Silicon Valley. And yet, upon its completion in 2027, Net City, like Shenzhen itself, will represent far more than just technology company’s corporate . In fact, Net City might just set the for urban development in the 21^st century. That is if it can navigate the perilous waters that have sunk so many similarly intentioned projects in the past.

Policies, Principles, People

Green, tech-infused infrastructure is no longer groundbreaking in and of itself, but neither is the desire of major global firms to directly fund urban investment as a business strategy. Examples of this often quixotic foray range from Google’s disappointing but understandable of investments in a Toronto smart city project to , Ford Motor Company’s failed Amazonian utopia chronicled brilliantly in Greg Grandin’s 2009 award-winning book. For both the Googles of today and those of generations past, it appears that products remain significantly easier to manufacture than physical places.

Any local economic development professional, or for that matter anyone who has tried to renovate a kitchen, will tell you that construction projects, no matter their scale, are marked by an eternal struggle between the perfect and the possible. What, then, can set Tencent’s Net City apart from these previous failures? To borrow the time-honored language of geopolitical analysis, the potential answers come in three “buckets”: policies, principles and people.

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On the policy front, the analysis must begin with the fact that there exists no better example of the , however gradually and cautiously, as an accelerant for innovation, growth and prosperity than Shenzhen. It is stunning how much economic dynamism has been unleashed in this former fishing village over the past few decades, and the same innovation-spurring economic policy framework that enabled the city’s rise will similarly nurture the growth and ongoing vitality of the Net City project as it matures.

That said, Shenzhen is not the only part of China that has grown. And, in immediate relevance to Net City, it would not be the only place where China has invested untold billions only to end up with what are commonly referred to now as . A Net City skeptic might point to both the ambiguous nature of the true costs of this ambitious urban development and those still unoccupied, debt-funded townscapes littering China’s interior still awaiting their first residents as the fodder for their wariness.

Product and Place

Skeptics are also right to cite the lingering uncertainty of COVID-19 and fissures with nearby Hong Kong as risks to the sizable Shenzhen has enjoyed throughout its rise. While the Chinese government and Tencent have every incentive to ensure the successful development of Net City, even these giants are not immune to the conditions of the world economy and thus should double down on the (relatively) open policy frameworks and diversified, reliable financing strategies that have thus far enabled Shenzhen’s rise.

Next, as it relates to the upon which Net City has unapologetically been founded, its focused, intentional blending of work and leisure with the natural world place sustainability at its core in a manner and at a scale no previous corporate community can claim. Limitations on cars in favor of pedestrian-friendly walkable spaces coupled with reliance on renewable energy sources will provide a rising China with beautiful, tangible evidence that it, too, is taking steps to combat climate change and to shape the next century of life on this planet in ways the rest of the world might cheer.

These commitments to sustainability, while encouraging, cannot only be for show. Net City provides China with an opportunity to demonstrate not only its desire to lead the world as a center of innovation, but as an upholder of the shared values and responsibilities that come with the terra firma for any global power.

Lastly, as it relates to the people who will someday call this new neighborhood home, it is possible that no single neighborhood in the world has ever rooted itself so enthusiastically in the philosophy of user-centered design as Net City. The blurring of lines between to come upon its completion will pale in comparison to the implications of Net City’s more meta-level, but no less intentional, blurring of product and place. But just as fatefully as the designers of Fordlandia discovered that places are not products, so too must Net City’s master planners remember that people are not products either.

Net City’s development has begun at a moment when the familiar dueling concepts of work and life have also merged into one amorphous, quarantine soup of time and space. While billions around the world cannot wait to return to certain elements of pre-COVID work-life balance, a more realistic forecaster will admit that work and life have become intertwined in ways that have transformed experiences on both fronts and will not soon be undone.

This march may appear inevitable, but it remains an open question how much further people will willingly participate in the elimination of boundaries between home and work, of private and public spaces and of restrictions instead of rights. Whether discussing a new piece of technology or a new smart city, the tired bargain between new features and old freedoms is a false one. Smart cities need not — and should not — dangle the possibility of positive environmental outcomes behind the acceptance of stricter, tech-fueled surveillance states.

The ongoing development of this initiative will fascinate global analysts for the majority of the next decade that stands to reveal the level of commitment its designers have to the lofty promises they have made at its outset. But beneath all that potential and possibility Net City might also reveal the answer to a deeper question: Is the internet a place we want to live?

*[51�Թ� is a  partner of .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In August 2019, India revoked Article 370 that gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. It has now carved out Ladakh as a union territory controlled directly by New Delhi. China takes offense at this unilateral action because it claims parts of Ladakh as its own. The decision by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to change the status quo on Ladakh signals India’s hegemonic ambitions in South Asia. The move ruffled feathers in Beijing, impelling China to act in order to curb India’s regional hegemonic ambitions.

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China’s aim is to contain India, not trigger another military dispute with its southern neighbor. However, India has blamed Chinese troops for taking “” actions on their disputed border. New Delhi claims that China has violated previous deals between the two nuclear-armed rivals intended to ease tensions in the region.

Dangerous Blame Game

The blame game in South Asian border conflicts is not a new phenomenon, but bloody confrontations between India and China certainly are. For the first time since 1975, lives have been lost on the China-India border. The June in the Galwan Valley left 20 Indian soldiers dead and caused an unspecified number of Chinese casualties. The blame game between two nuclear-armed neighbors has now turned deeply dangerous.

The China-India border is known as the (LAC). It runs over thousands of kilometers in the Himalayas. The Ladakh region is especially complex. China and India dispute the Galwan Valley, the Pangong Lake and the Hot Springs area. India claims 37,244 square kilometers of Aksai Chin as well as 5,180 square kilometers of land that Pakistan ceded to China in 1963.

On August 31, the Indian army that “PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.” On September 8, China by alleging that Indian troops had illegally crossed into its territory and fired shots at Chinese soldiers. As winter sets, heavy snowfall in the Himalayas has put military clashes on hold. Talks between Chinese and Indian generals to ease the military standoff, but it is clear that tensions between the two Asian giants are rising.

The Real Bone of Contention

A key element causing China and India to clash is the (CPEC). Beijing and Islamabad are enhancing their road, rail and air links to create a bilateral economic corridor. The aim is to boost trade, investment and growth, creating millions of jobs in the process and benefiting other countries such as Afghanistan, the Central Asian republics and even India in the process.

Chinese engineers have built the , one of the greatest feats of human engineering, from Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang province to Hassan Abdal in Pakistan, a small town near the capital Islamabad. The highest-ever paved road, known as the eighth wonder of the world, passes through territory India claims as its own. Daulat Beg Oldie is the world’s highest airbase that India has built to keep an eye on this highway. The Galwan Valley is next to this airbase and so India is pushing to beef up its presence there.

The CPEC is a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s gargantuan infrastructure project. It promises to improve Pakistan’s infrastructure, boost trade and create jobs in a struggling economy. India has continuously the CPEC, claiming that this megaproject violates its territorial sovereignty. The US has backed the Indian position because it sees China as an emerging rival and wants to cut it down to size.

India has another reason to oppose the CPEC. It fears this infrastructure could dramatically transform the lives of people in the part of Kashmir that lies in Pakistan. For decades, they have lived under a reign of terror unleashed by Indian security forces. The economy of India-occupied Kashmir is stagnant, and the people are denied legitimate rights. A shining beacon of hope across the border is not in India’s interest.

India and the US are now pitted against China and Pakistan over the CPEC for geostrategic and geopolitical reasons. In the process, they are stymying benefits to millions who would benefit from the success of the economic corridor. The international community must take note of this fact and put pressure on the world’s two largest democracies to act responsibly, not as bullies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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There is a simple scientific reason for this. Systems react immediately to dramatic events that occur quickly and unexpectedly. They typically mobilize their defenses to improvise a rapid reply. Rather than signaling change, such actions serve to protect and reinforce the status quo.

The 9/11 attacks, clearly the most dramatic event of the past two decades, provoked a massive response from the US government. The effort to oppose the emergence of the new shape of terrorism appeared to mark a decisive shift in contemporary political history. The response consisted of a global military alliance intent on defending the prevailing “rule of law” and the elaboration of a powerful security state.

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The effort piloted by George W. Bush and Tony Blair ended up simply reinforcing the focus of Western nuclear powers on the idea that sophisticated military technology provided the key for governing the world. It confirmed and consolidated the long-term trend of building the entire Western economy and culture around the American military-industrial complex.

Distracted by a relatively meaningless transfer of power in the US following Joe Biden’s election and other colorful events such as the comic melodrama of relations within British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chaotic Brexit team, today’s media have paid scant attention to one event of monumental importance that took place on Sunday. The event itself was unremarkable, but it is a powerful indicator of historical change. The signing on Sunday of the act that brought Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) into existence marked a crucial moment in a slowly evolving shift that began nearly a decade ago and will have a profound impact on history in the coming years.

In its on the event, Al Jazeera quotes one American expert, Jeffrey Wilson, who sees RCEP as “a much-needed platform for the Indo-Pacific’s post-COVID recovery.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Post-COVID recovery:

The idea which some people consider to be phantasy that the global economy may some day return to normal once COVID-19 is eradicated.

Contextual Note

The New York Times that RCEP has been in the plans for eight years and describes it as “designed by Beijing partly as a counterweight to American influence in the region.” In other words, this is a chapter of a story that lives within the context of a massive and continual decades-long shift of momentum in the global economy. The center of gravity of the global economy has been silently but steadily migrating from the North Atlantic following World War II on a toward Asia.

Back in 2015, Reuters market analyst John Kemp pointed to the West’s to sense this movement, stating that “Most western policymakers and journalists view the world economy through a framework that is 10-15 years out of date.” He further points out that “India’s economy has also started to become a major source of global growth, which will ensure the centre of gravity continues to move more deeply into Asia over the next 50 years.” Analysts who have even attempted to assess the speed of the shift appear to agree on a “rate of about 100 kilometres or more per year.” It may have accelerated since 2015, and even intensified as a consequence of the implicit isolationism of Trump’s “America First” philosophy.

Fearful of the threat to US hegemony posed by the RCEP, the Obama administration launched the (TPP), designed to eclipse the RCEP and protect some of the key historical advantages that underpinned US economic hegemony. Once Trump decided to leave the TPP, the US could no longer take advantage of its provisions to protect industrial property rights or oblige other nations to respect unified labor standards.

The US has literally been left behind in the race to define and enforce the rules that will govern commerce and economic development throughout the Asia zone over the next 50 years. Most commentators suspect that once president-elect Joe Biden is in office, he will not in the short term make an effort to catch up. In the midst of a complex health and economic crisis, there are other priorities. But Jeffrey Wilson’s comment about “Indo-Pacific’s post-COVID recovery” reveals that Asia, under China’s leadership, today has a clear head start and can set the tone for what a post-coronavirus world will look like. This is a question every nation is grappling with. There are no obvious answers. But there can be little doubt that the world that emerges once COVID-19 is completely under control or eradicated will be very different from what preceded the pandemic.

The Times signals the fact that “to some trade experts, the signing of the R.C.E.P. shows that the rest of the world will not wait around for the United States.” Many commentators have noted that four years of Donald Trump have convinced European leaders that depending on the ideological and geopolitical framework provided by the US is too risky an engagement. It may even transpire that, despite the intensified military cooperation between India and the US directed against the Chinese threat, as reported in this column by Vikram Sood, Atul Singh and Manu Sharma, India could eventually be attracted to the RCEP. Security is one thing. A humming economy is another.

India could, for example, be positioned to profit from a key feature of RCEP. The Times quotes Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, who notes that “R.C.E.P. gives foreign companies enhanced flexibility in navigating between the two giants. Lower tariffs within the region increase the value of operating within the Asian region, while the uniform rules of origin make it easier to pull production away from the Chinese mainland while retaining that access.” Narendra Modi’s India has not yet managed to fulfill its promises to expand manufacturing in India. Could RCEP be the key to providing conditions favorable to that evolution?

In short, the world is faced with a formidable number of variables that combine in a variety of different ways. As Brexit demonstrated, today’s political alignments can be nullified in a trice as the perception of economic opportunities and the pressure of uncontrollable crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic lead to new geopolitical configurations. Those trends are far more powerful than bilateral agreements.

Historical Note

Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will only begin to produce practical effects two or three years down the line. But it already opens channels of communication and coordination between fifteen countries. This will not only confirm the shift of the global economy’s center of gravity but also accelerate the shift toward a new power relationship between the US and China. As the recent presidential campaign highlighted, Americans tend to see this as a binary relationship. Yet all the indicators point toward a multipolar reordering.

The Times article reminds readers of the historical situation when RCEP was first proposed: “The prospect of China’s forging closer economic ties with its neighbors has prompted concern in Washington. President Barack Obama’s response was the T.P.P.” Trump’s action upon taking office of killing the TPP before it could be signed opened the door to the eventual 15 nation agreement, with the roles of the US and China inverted. Obama designed the TPP to allow China in through the back door. RCEP is designed to allow the US in through the back door.

The world awaits the evolution and hoped-for denouement of a series of crises nested each within the other. However painful and disruptive, these crises have the merit of signaling the existence of a common interest for all of humanity in stark contrast with the traditional model of geopolitical reasoning based on national rivalries. It is in everyone’s interest to keep our eyes fixed on the slow but deep movements of history as well as the superficial ones that the media throw in our faces every day.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post In Asia, a New Kid on the Trade Bloc appeared first on 51�Թ�.