Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Chinese-American antagonism

The NY Times has an article ("Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions"). It is written by someone who has access to high circles in both China and the US. He sees in China an increasing attitude that their country should be the next number one in the world. America's antagonistic policy certainly hasn't contributed much.

What led to World Wars I and II was the British and French unease with the rise of Germany. As Germany had a bigger population and its economy was growing faster it was destined to become the most powerful. That led to containment policies that led to distrust, antagonism and in the end to war.

Now we see America making the same mistakes regarding the rise of China. Instead of stressing international law and cooperation - what would open the door for a peaceful transition - it is doing the opposite. In the case of Libya and Syria it is openly thrashing international law. There was nothing wrong with the US stationing a few soldiers in Australia. But there was a lot wrong with the way it was advertised as a containment policy towards China.

If the US wants to prevent China from becoming no.1 its priority should be to get united once again around a common goal. Unfortunately there is no sign of that. All the hate talk only serves to distract the population from the increasing inequality and dubious deregulation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The US is not trashing international law in Libya and Syria. Also, there is no evidence of US "antagonism". You have a habit of tossing out some outrageous untrue accusations in a matter of fact fashion, with no evidence.

"All the hate talk only serves to distract the population from the increasing inequality and dubious deregulation."

This particularly deserves attention. Inequality is a complete non-issue, and this issue only appeals to fascists who want the State to step in to make things more equal, and the result always is that the ruling class ends up taking the lions share.

Deregulation? We need a lot more of it. Over regulation forces companies to fire people.

The German analogy does not match actual history also. What led to war was Germany's imperialist attitude. Not those who warned against it. There's a similar thing going on with China. China is still engaged in a brutal and senseless occupation of Tiber, and it threatens to send its armies across an international border to destroy Taiwan. This is what really concerns much of the world. And not wanting imperialist aggression is not "antagonism"