© Romeo Ranoco / Reuters
U.S fighter jets on standby at the upper deck of a USS George Washington aircraft carrier while a U.S. Cowpens ship pass during a media tour at the South China Sea.
U.S fighter jets on standby at the upper deck of a USS George Washington aircraft carrier while a U.S. Cowpens ship pass during a media tour at the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, the Chinese remember all too well the sting of British colonialism: opium addiction and the lasting effects of British presumptions of superiority. The Chinese place in the Washington Consensus has been staked out as, in the case of Russia, supplier of inputs to feed the hungry capitalism of the US and the Western European former colonial masters. Directed by the United States, and backed up by its military, the real beneficiaries of the Washington Consensus were never intended to be the people of China, who were just viewed as a one billion plus, voracious, consumption-hungry machine for Western goods.
But the Chinese had another idea, and instead of becoming an engine of growth for Western economies, international political economists are now discussing the "China Model" or the "Beijing Consensus." Chinese Communist Party scholars now tout China as an alternative development model for the former colonized world. This is not what Washington had in mind with its so-called "China Opening" in 1972.
Thus, the US has embarked upon a strategy of containing the rise of Russia and China, rolling back any gains made by states friendly with them and willing to go against the neoliberal grain, and doing this by alternative means without overt or "hot" war. The US military establishment calls this "asymmetric" warfare.
Comment: Great countries lead from a solid and functioning center of strength, honor and heart, not from a periphery of control, fear and domination. The US should first tend to its own rotting core and twisted values. China's actions are international issues and should be investigated accordingly. And the US internationally? Where to begin?