A while ago, Alex Lo from the South China Morning Post kindly quoted me in one of his columns, and I am happy to return the favour. In his piece last week, Lo raised an interesting aspect. America has always needed an enemy, or so he put it, and China was but the latest in a long series of “monsters” in need of destruction. His introductory quote of John Adams, the 6th US president, warning against such behaviour had long been dismissed and become a blueprint for America’s engagement in the world.
Lo goes on saying that every post-War president, including Donald Trump, went into office trying to heed Adams’ wise advice but ended up doing the opposite. We can see the temptation. When your military is deployed in more than 150 countries in a world that has fewer than 200, one may claim not to run an empire, and America has obviously not done that in the textbook sense of it, but according to Lo it obviously becomes harder to justify your presence regardless what fanciful claims you make.
When you have a democracy, public opinion must be managed or, in some cases, even manufactured. And these days, America seems to be in the business of demonising China to do just that and deflect from domestic issues. Lo thinks that simply existing as a rising power, such as China, is enough to make someone an enemy, which must be isolated, demonised, contained, if not destroyed. How Washington has tried to use Hong Kong as a pressure point and factor in this hegemonic calculus is remarkable.
But here it comes what Lo is saying that absolutely resonates… Creating an enemy requires the opposing entity to behave like one or declare itself as one. The issue with this is, does China want to be America’s enemy? From the evidence of China’s actions and reactions, one wouldn’t get the impression. Despite the poking and provoking of Trump’s vassals as well as the entire Washington establishment itself Beijing hasn’t exactly taken the bait and manoeuvred skillfully across the minefield.
Isolating China as Mike Pompeo trumpets to be America’s foremost policy is easier said than done on a globe of many stakeholders. It would inevitably mean some sort of a Cold War, but China can’t be compared to the Soviet Union in any respect. Who would assemble to constitute one bloc versus the other? Washington by way of modern-day mantras such as America First doesn’t seem to be able to recruit an incremental number of countries to form a bloc.
To be sure, there are a few allies that would go out of their way to walk in step with America. A die-hard one these days appears to be Australia that under their current government seems to have sold their soul to America’s cause of having an enemy, or otherwise called the Indo-Pacific initiative. There may be others, but they haven’t come forward as carrying Washington’s water. Apart from possibly the UK, forget about Europe. India more and more seems inclined to play ball, but don’t bet on it.
On the flip side, China isn’t even interested in forming a bloc, and it may not need to in the first place. As long as Beijing’s trading partners behave in the context of an open and multilateral word order, why have a bloc? Readers may think I forgot Japan and South Korea as US allies in Indo-Pacific. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Tokyo and Seoul have been careful not to provoke Beijing, much as the ASEAN countries will not be lured into taking sides. Trade and regional integration are top on their minds.
Europe is developing a similar mindset gradually and under the duress of Trump’s bullying. Never mind what formal condemnations echo from Brussels with regards to China’s presence and actions. The reality is that China’s economy has been least impacted by the health crisis, and who wouldn’t want to partner with the top dog in global business, for maybe years to come. Pragmatism against the backdrop of a sole superpower in relative decline seems to be the motto going forward.
While Trump and Joe Biden are busy greasing their propaganda machines and attempt to outperform each other bashing China, as they have little else to show for but the declared enemy, vast parts of the rest of the world are moving on. It’d be too nonchalant to claim that all is business as usual for the Chinese, but apart from building its own mouthpieces on social media the Beijing leadership has distinctly avoided direct confrontation with mostly Pompeo’s attack tirades.
Instead, the moves from Beijing have been a lot more subtle, such as leaving no doubt about the territorial integrity of China, rushing its contingency plans in response to US tech bans, building on its alliance with Russia, schmoozing European countries into commercial partnerships, veering trade away from America to ASEAN, cultivating a more constructive relationship with Japan and Korea, and stubbornly pursuing the generational Belt and Road and the commensurate expansion of its ecosystem.
If you think about it, no sane person would call any of these actions outright anti-American, apart from the American government itself of course. Anything and everything Beijing does, as a matter of the country’s existential needs or as a reaction to any bullying, is deemed a provocation on Washington’s end. It’s not even a question of chicken and egg. This is what propaganda is and does. It creates a narrative that the masses and stakeholders are being spoon-fed, no matter how much truth there is.
China doesn’t want conflict. Why would it? Neither is it in any danger of trying to become an imperial power and take over the world as some mainstream media have insinuated. All China wants is to further its country and people, a legitimate quest. Naturally, its growth changes the global equation, and that is being perceived as a threat. But is China an enemy by definition? Well, in the world of one sole superpower it has the potential of becoming one. In a multilateral and -polar world of the future, however, it doesn’t need to be.
