Who is afraid of the dragon?

Before the beginning of spring, top diplomatic representatives from the United States and China gathered together in Anchorage (Alaska) for the first meeting between the two world powers under the new Biden administration (1) that succeeded the previous Trump administration. It was a critical meeting to understand the current global balance of forces.

At the beginning of the meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken began by saying: "[..] We'll also discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threatens the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That's why they're not merely internal matters and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today."

The President's Advisor for Homeland Security Affairs, Jack Sullivan, immediately adds:

"[..] Secretary Blinken laid out many of the areas of concern, from economic and military coercion to assaults on basic values, that we'll discuss with you today and in the days ahead. We'll do so frankly, directly, and with clarity. These are the concerns that are on the minds of the American people, but it goes beyond that. We've heard each of these concerns posed from around the world – from our allies and partners to the broader international community during the intensive consultations we've undertaken in the last two months. We'll make clear today that our overriding priority from the United States' side is to ensure that our approach in the world and our approach to China benefits the American people and protects the interests of our allies and partners. We do not seek conflict, but we welcome stiff competition and we will always stand up for our principles, for our people, and for our friends."

Yang Jiechi, Director of the Office of the Central Commission of Foreign Affairs, responds to these statements (2), saying:

"On cyber attacks, let me say that whether it's the ability to launch cyber attacks or the technologies that could be deployed, the United States is the champion in this regard. You can't blame this problem on somebody else. The United States itself does not represent international public opinion, and neither does the Western world. Whether judged by population scale or the trend of the world, the Western world does not represent the global public opinion. So we hope that when talking about universal values or international public opinion on the part of the United States, we hope the U.S. side will think about whether it feels reassured in saying those things, because the U.S. does not represent the world. It only represents the Government of the United States. I don't think the overwhelming majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United States could represent international public opinion, and those countries would not recognize that the rules made by a small number of people would serve as the basis for the international order."

Blinken retakes the floor calmly stating:

"I have to tell you, in my short time as Secretary of State, I have spoken to I think nearly a hundred counterparts from around the world, and I just made my first trip, as I noted, to Japan and South Korea. I have to tell you, what I'm hearing is very different from what you described. I'm hearing deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we're re-engaged with our allies and partners. I'm also hearing deep concern about some of the actions your government has taken, and we'll have an opportunity to discuss those when we get down to work."

Yang Jiechi replies, visibly very annoyed:

"[..] Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China it was necessary that we made our position clear. So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. [..] If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let's follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way. [..] cooperation benefits both sides. In particular, this is the expectation of the people of the world. Well, the American people are certainly a great people, but so are the Chinese people."

This meeting represents a clash between titans because we are talking about two continental economic powers fighting for the central position in the global arena. After the decolonisation process that marked the decline of Western-European imperialist ambitions, China is today the first country to be the victim of those past abuses to go from being rejected into a competitor, even a threat (3) marking the end of 500 years of unchallenged Western dominance in political and economic terms. The vehemence of Chinese diplomacy surprised American colleagues who dismissed the Chinese response as grandstanding, and it was. It is clear that Chinese diplomats have taken advantage of their American colleagues' accusations to reassert their positions in the most decisive way, which has had enormous positive feedback in China.

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the birth of a new world and creating a new balance of powers. For much of the last century, international cooperation was based on the systematic organization of violence by Western imperialist forces. When imperialism eclipsed, the United States inherited the position of the dying British Empire, fabricating the idea of "the West" so as to accommodate vassal states of the old continent, redefined the economic and financial structures with international institutions that favored exchange, launched a global order with the Bald Eagle at its center.. A rule-based order in which China was welcomed into because Western Powers believed the Red Country could support it and not overturn it (4). This concern has tormented both politicians and the American intelligentsia alike only in recent years while Chinese leaders feared throughout the whole process that this step would eventually lead the country into a trap that would ultimately destroy the economy and create social instability (5). But this last prediction turned to be wrong altogether and the worst fears of the US came true.

For this reason, we have witnessed the attention of Americans shifting from the Middle East to Asia under the President Obama administration. Such shift has not happened since September 11, 2001. And it is no wonder that Americans are anxious. The President of the People's Republic of China and Head of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping confirmed the fears of the West (6) at the National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017, stating: The Chinese model of growth under Communist rule was "flourishing" and had given "a new choice" to other developing countries." adding: "It is time for us to take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind."

President Xi continued his speech by saying that China is not aiming for global domination, but warned that "China should not be expected to swallow anything that undermines her interests." and that "China's rise aims to create a world order with" Chinese characteristics ".

No wonder the Americans rushed to the other side of the Pacific in an attempt to contain China. The United States has strengthened alliances with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, formed a coalition of neighboring countries to China, and initiated greater defense cooperation with India, Australia, and Japan. The United States also looks to Taiwan, an independent state with limited sovereignty, with which it has a robust and unofficial diplomatic relationship.

Today, many countries in the rest of the world are growing in terms of well-being and economic activity. This seriously undermines the current order, highlighting the weakest aspect of this system: most of humanity does not live in the West, and the resources of the planet are scarce. Maintaining such uncontrolled and omnivorous consumption that does not respect the biosphere's natural ability to reproduce the resources we need is the real dilemma of our century. A system that favors only countries rich in resources and means and which leaves the rest of the world to suffer the consequences of the well-being of a few is not ideal. Creating a system capable of adequately satisfying the needs of the multitudes on the planet is desirable but not sustainable. New technologies need to be developed to better exploit the energy produced and a new global collaboration that better distributes it, which requires diplomacy, dialogue, compromises, and cooperation. The clash between the United States and China highlights precisely this problem that neither country is able to solve alone. Indeed, the conflict is zero-sum: it does not benefit anyone. Rather, there is a co-dependence between the two states. But the United States came to the meeting with a weakened credibility.

Not only because the country is going through its own version of cultural revolution that sees two cultural and political factions clashing dogmatically without any dialogue with each other. In the United States, one-half of the country does not talk to the other, people fight in the streets, in schools, between states, in newspapers, in offices, in parliaments, and the big question appears to be what it means to be American in the twenty-first century. It needs to be factored in the disastrous handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has deliberately compromised the fundamental right to health of thousands American citizens and the anti-scientific positions of many politicians and the electorate. To justify suicidal choices, the Trump administration and many US state governments have adopted a racist and irresponsible anti-Chinese rhetoric that has escalated hate attacks against American citizens of Asian descent. How can the United States present itself as a friend of the countries of Asia when Americans citizens of Asiatic origin or generally Asians in the US are systematically (7)harassed and even (8) killed? What about the enormous silence they have kept for more than a century marked by laws designed to exclude them and concentration camps used to confine them? The anti-scientific position and the instrumental attack on China ended up damaging ordinary people by leveraging the racist prejudices and the specter of Marx and Lenin, fierce enemies of the triumphant capitalism.

After 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and on the wake of thr disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States has been hegemonic through military strength and the presence of its companies all over the world. None of the American ruling class then imagined that in three decades, not far away from where the remains of the Soviet Union rest, a country led by a Communist Party would emerge. And perhaps this is precisely the problem Americans have, the Soviet suggestion.

In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests (9)tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system.

This very simplistic narrative contributed to that overconfidence in one's own power that led to the production of much self-congratulatory material such as Francis Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man" which sees the history of humanity inevitably ending in Western democracies, seen as the only model to which all will inevitably converge as the last stage of their development. American elites certainly do not shine in openness as an author who for two decades wrote two books (10) and articles predicting over and over again the imminent collapse of China. It is to easy to call allies countries to which you wrote the constitution, as in the case of Japan. China is very different from the Soviet Union in history and culture. However, this should not lead us to believe that the Chinese governance is better. The Chinese system of government is undoubtedly original but not without its flaws. And this is shown in its internal affairs.

Xinjiang is a vast region (three times the size of France), representing one-sixth of the entire Chinese territory. The name means "New Frontier" because it was annexed to the Chinese Empire in the second half of the eighteenth century after a bloody battle that saw a million Zungari succumb to the offensives of the Qing dynasty. Once the territory was annexed, the Chinese imperial government used the region as a strategic frontier zone controlled through the presence of about 15,000-10,000 soldiers in the field. Despite several unsuccessful rebellions, the region was officially recognized as a province of the Chinese Empire in 1884. In 1933 following the fall of the Chinese Empire, and the period of political instability that followed, the province proclaimed independence in 1933 and the birth of the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan.

Sabit Damulla Abdulbaki (11), one of the prominent politicians who promoted the birth of the new state, said these words that are still fundamental today to understand the volksgeist among the Uyghurs.

"[..] The yellow Han people have not the slightest thing to do with East Turkestan. Black Dungans also don't have this kind of relationship. East Turkestan belongs to its people. Foreigners need to stop coming as our fathers and mothers [..] from now on, we do not need to use foreign languages or their names, customs, habits, attitudes, written languages, and so on. We must also overthrow and expel foreigners from our borders forever. The yellow and black colors are dirty [..] they have stained our land for too long. So now it is absolutely necessary to clean up this filth. Let's take down the yellow and black barbarians! Long live East Turkestan!"

Despite the inflammatory tones and fierce resistance, the state was short-lived as soon as the People's Liberation Army entered the region in 1949.

This region is vast but sparsely populated. The Chinese, to better facilitate assimilation, have always pushed the relocation of many ethnic Han Chinese to the region, which is where the discord is founded. The reason counts a human population of about 22 million individuals belonging to the following peoples: Uighurs, Han, Kazakhs, Hui, Kyrgyz, and Mongols. Chinese ethnic Han (8% of the population) are mainly in the city of Urumqi or in the regions where oil is extracted, a great wealth that amounts to 60% of the entire economy.

Considering the troubled history of the region, it is clear that there is a push for independence in some strata of the population and that coexistence between individuals of such a different cultural matrix still represents a challenge for the Chinese government today. On July 5, 2010, a series of riots took place in Urumqi when thousands of Uighurs poured into the city streets to protest the killing of two Uyghurs in Guangdong province on June 25 of the same year at the hands of Han workers. Han. The dynamics are not clear, but the demonstrators were attacked by the police, which further inflamed the spirits, leading the anger of the crowd to find shops and attack ethnic Han Chinese. The toll of this revolt counts 197 dead and at least 1,700 wounded, many of them of Han ethnicity. And many of the Han ethnic group, the day after the riots, invaded the areas where the Uighurs lived in search of revenge. It took the intervention of 10,000 soldiers to restore order, and the situation remained very tense for many months. The then-President Hu Jintao quickly returned to Beijing after hastily leaving the G8 held in Rome. A similar dynamic occurred in Tibet on March 10, 2008, the anniversary of a failed popular uprising in 1959.

On this occasion, Tibetan demonstrators attacked Han-run shops and other businesses in the Lhasa neighborhood. Many businesses were set on fire and the protests continued for five days with a death toll of 100 people from both sides. (12)

It is clear that there is widespread discontent and great annoyance. Sadly, there is a widespread belief on the part of the Han Chinese that the Tibetans are backward and primitive who only have to thank that the Chinese are trying to bring them civilization and development. This inevitably results in openly racist behavior and discriminatory acts. The secretary of the Communist Party of the Tibet Autonomous Region said: "The Communist Party is like a parent to the Tibetan people, always concerned about what the child needs [..] the Central Committee of the Party is the real Buddha for the Tibetans". Uyghurs share the same social stigma with Tibetans, and like them, they have not had an easy life since most of them reside in southern Xinjiang, poorer and less developed, and feel excluded in their own land and from the benefits that it appears to offer to the Han Chinese. These populations feel excluded, their natural wealth exploited and their dignity trampled on.

It is evident that the policies of the Communist Party of China have failed and that there is bitterness among the three ethnic groups. The development of the territories has brought material benefits, consolidated the positive dynamics in society and reassured Chinese policy-makers about the goodness of their intentions and results; however, the riots showthat there is something wrong and that needs to be addressed with a different approach.

For years, and particularly in the years following these incidents, ethnic minorities have enjoyed the positive action policies implemented by the government, especially in the field of education. Compared to students of Han ethnicity, for example, students belonging to minorities are awarded higher scores as belonging to minority groups to facilitate their advancement in the best universities in the country. Regarding religious tolerance, no religion in China enters the public debate, nevertheless there are 28,000 mosques throughout the country. Xinjiang alone has 19,000. Moreover, China has more Christians than France and Germany combined, and we are talking about an atheist country.

Since war is the last resort, both the US and China and their allies use anctions which, due to the frequency of their use, are a way of waging war by other means. Each with their own propaganda.

However, accusing the Chinese of atrocities against their Muslim citizens leaves one politely frowning considering all the displaced, killed, and dispossessed due to the interventions conducted in the Middle East by the Americans and its allies. Not to mention the separatist movements that animate a large part of Europe, especially Spain.

All in all, China is an affluent country. The elderly have seen the humiliation of war and poverty during reconstruction. The adults have witnessed the transformation of the country and the country's material growth, and Chinese infants come into the world in a rich country. Everyone seems to look to the future with confidence.

And unsurprisingly, it is the Chinese elite themselves who fear their own success. It is certainly not a guarantee that "the Chinese dream" will come true. The country faces serious challenges, including a US-led coalition pledging to contain China's economic, military and diplomatic might in Asia. China also has rising debt, stagnant economic growth, and declining productivity.

Then there are China's worrying demographics: the population is shrinking and aging. In fact, China's population declined in 2018 for the first time since the 1960s. The Chinese Academy of Sciences predicts that if fertility continues to decline from the current rate of 1.6 children per woman to an expected 1.3 children, the Chinese population will be reduced by about 50% by the end of this century.

Although China ended its policy of limiting families to one child in 2015, the population continues to age with the result that there will be fewer and fewer workers to support an increasing number of older people. These predictions have raised many concerns amongst Chinese leaders, raising fears that the country may "get old before it gets rich." This potential scenario could create serious social unrest. And the ruling Communist Party of China know this very well.

So, who's afraid of the dragon?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Secretary Antony J. Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Director Yang And State Councilor Wang At the Top of Their Meeting, REMARKS, ANCHORAGE (ALASKA), MARCH 18, 2021
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-chinese-director-of-the-office-of-the-central-commission-for-foreign-affairs-yang-jiechi-and-chinese-state-councilor-wang-yi-at-th/

2) Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi Hold China-U.S. High-level Strategic Dialogue with Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1862856.shtml

3) CIVILIZATION, Niall Ferguson, PAG.322 - 324

4) How the West got China wrong
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/03/01/how-the-west-got-china-wrong

5) The Legal Implications of China’s Accession to the WTO, Pitman B. Potter 1-2-3-17-18

6) BBC News, Xi Jinping: 'Time for China to take centre stage'
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41647872

7) Anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150% in 2020, mostly in N.Y. and L.A., new report says
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-nearly-150-2020-mostly-n-n1260264

8) Atlanta shootings: Asian women among eight killed at three spas
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56424616

9) BLACKSHIRTS & REDS, MICHEAL PARENTI PAG. 41

10) THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA, GORDON G. CHANG

11) Zhang, Xinjiang Fengbao Qishinian [Xinjiang in Tumult for Seventy Years], 3393-4

12) WHEN CHINA RULES THE WORLD, PAG. 317 - 323