DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / February 17, 2014
“C hina has not replaced America — and it never will.” For starters, China doesn’t want to be a global hegemon,” wrote Zack Beauchamp on Feb. 13, 2014. I read it on RealClearWorld among dozens of articles reacting to China’s rise. Beauchamp echoes some of my own replies to fear-mongering China-bashers who conjure up the “aggressive” and “provocative” Chinese ogre. He takes the right perspective by saying that “China faces too many… regional rivals to ever make a real play for global leadership.” Indeed, there’s India, Russia, the EU and the US itself. More importantly, China sees the lesson of US overreach that is slowly and surely destroying that fading superpower.
However, just two days after that Beauchamp article, another writer was immediately stoking the fires of a “China threat.” Zachary Keck (“Of Course China Wants to Replace the US”) countered that “If China becomes the world’s most powerful country, it won’t be satisfied being America’s number two.” Keck’s basic arguments, though, only reflect the twisted obsession of quite a number of US chauvinists that there has to be “a number one” and that everyone else would want to be that — which the US has been for so many decades since the end of World War II, with its over 800 military-naval bases across the globe (the cost of which is destroying it).
And so the stream of anti-China misinformation and disinformation continues. Even before Keck’s opinion piece, there was this article by Robert Kaplan that really got my goat: “Why is China Really Provoking Its Neighbors?” Why raise tensions as much as they have in the Pacific Basin? Beijing’s recent declaration of new fishing rules in disputed territorial waters has raised the ire of maritime neighbors and the consternation of the United States. It follows on the heels of the recently declared air defense identification zone or ADIZ.”
First, China is neighbor to 14 countries sharing land borders with it and 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean); of these, only three countries are involved in the issues Kaplan identified.
Then Kaplan further errs: China has issues involving the Pacific Basin with only one country, Japan, while the Philippines and Vietnam have issues involving the claims in the China Sea. China bashers invariably generalize and gloss over inconvenient details just to impress upon the generally uniformed public the terms “aggression” and “provocation.”
In the Asean, China is in extremely friendly relations with the rest of its 10 members, making that eight out of 10. Cambodia is, of course, China’s bosom buddy while Malaysia’s defense officials see no problem even with Chinese coastal patrols traversing the commonly claimed sea territories. Only the Philippines has internationalized its territorial dispute with China.
The US and its minions are very uncomfortable with the rise of China and fear losing US hegemony, particularly its freedom to interfere and dominate the world. China poses no aggressive threat as it continues to stress that it needs a peaceful and harmonious environment to pursue its “dream” in order to benefit the region and the world.
China, however, understands the historical record of Western capitalist-imperialists and their need for “markets.” Though the West is using China as a manufacturing base today, time will come when the capitalist-imperialist West will again resort to the “creative destruction of war” where human lives are just incidental.
US chauvinists in what remains of the empire the US still holds (particularly in the Philippines) have difficulty getting used to the idea that a “one-superpower-world” can no longer hold. Another World War may well revive this, as world wars are “winner-take-all” pursuits where the winner becomes the hegemon; but a thermonuclear war immediately banishes that thought.
The real rebalancing that is needed is not the US coming to the Asia-Pacific but keeping it in its place so that the world can have a “balance of powers” toward productive peace and harmony. The US has to get used to the idea that it can and will never again regain its “single superpower status.”
Promoting the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) alliance plays a strategic role in keeping this pompous US ambition in check.
The Philippines, which has no foreign policy vision today, can begin to count again in the world community by taking this up as a mission. Activating the Philippines’ role in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which recently called for global disarmament, will be a great boost as well.
The Brics should become the Bricseus (Brics with the EU and US). China can nudge the US toward this by crowding US hegemonism out of Asia.
In a truly balanced world, we can spare our children, grandchildren, and future generations what will be immeasurably worse than what history has witnessed in two world wars.
(Watch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on the “MRT TRO: Prolonging suffering”; tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
“C hina has not replaced America — and it never will.” For starters, China doesn’t want to be a global hegemon,” wrote Zack Beauchamp on Feb. 13, 2014. I read it on RealClearWorld among dozens of articles reacting to China’s rise. Beauchamp echoes some of my own replies to fear-mongering China-bashers who conjure up the “aggressive” and “provocative” Chinese ogre. He takes the right perspective by saying that “China faces too many… regional rivals to ever make a real play for global leadership.” Indeed, there’s India, Russia, the EU and the US itself. More importantly, China sees the lesson of US overreach that is slowly and surely destroying that fading superpower.
However, just two days after that Beauchamp article, another writer was immediately stoking the fires of a “China threat.” Zachary Keck (“Of Course China Wants to Replace the US”) countered that “If China becomes the world’s most powerful country, it won’t be satisfied being America’s number two.” Keck’s basic arguments, though, only reflect the twisted obsession of quite a number of US chauvinists that there has to be “a number one” and that everyone else would want to be that — which the US has been for so many decades since the end of World War II, with its over 800 military-naval bases across the globe (the cost of which is destroying it).
And so the stream of anti-China misinformation and disinformation continues. Even before Keck’s opinion piece, there was this article by Robert Kaplan that really got my goat: “Why is China Really Provoking Its Neighbors?” Why raise tensions as much as they have in the Pacific Basin? Beijing’s recent declaration of new fishing rules in disputed territorial waters has raised the ire of maritime neighbors and the consternation of the United States. It follows on the heels of the recently declared air defense identification zone or ADIZ.”
First, China is neighbor to 14 countries sharing land borders with it and 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean); of these, only three countries are involved in the issues Kaplan identified.
Then Kaplan further errs: China has issues involving the Pacific Basin with only one country, Japan, while the Philippines and Vietnam have issues involving the claims in the China Sea. China bashers invariably generalize and gloss over inconvenient details just to impress upon the generally uniformed public the terms “aggression” and “provocation.”
In the Asean, China is in extremely friendly relations with the rest of its 10 members, making that eight out of 10. Cambodia is, of course, China’s bosom buddy while Malaysia’s defense officials see no problem even with Chinese coastal patrols traversing the commonly claimed sea territories. Only the Philippines has internationalized its territorial dispute with China.
The US and its minions are very uncomfortable with the rise of China and fear losing US hegemony, particularly its freedom to interfere and dominate the world. China poses no aggressive threat as it continues to stress that it needs a peaceful and harmonious environment to pursue its “dream” in order to benefit the region and the world.
China, however, understands the historical record of Western capitalist-imperialists and their need for “markets.” Though the West is using China as a manufacturing base today, time will come when the capitalist-imperialist West will again resort to the “creative destruction of war” where human lives are just incidental.
US chauvinists in what remains of the empire the US still holds (particularly in the Philippines) have difficulty getting used to the idea that a “one-superpower-world” can no longer hold. Another World War may well revive this, as world wars are “winner-take-all” pursuits where the winner becomes the hegemon; but a thermonuclear war immediately banishes that thought.
The real rebalancing that is needed is not the US coming to the Asia-Pacific but keeping it in its place so that the world can have a “balance of powers” toward productive peace and harmony. The US has to get used to the idea that it can and will never again regain its “single superpower status.”
Promoting the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) alliance plays a strategic role in keeping this pompous US ambition in check.
The Philippines, which has no foreign policy vision today, can begin to count again in the world community by taking this up as a mission. Activating the Philippines’ role in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which recently called for global disarmament, will be a great boost as well.
The Brics should become the Bricseus (Brics with the EU and US). China can nudge the US toward this by crowding US hegemonism out of Asia.
In a truly balanced world, we can spare our children, grandchildren, and future generations what will be immeasurably worse than what history has witnessed in two world wars.
(Watch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on the “MRT TRO: Prolonging suffering”; tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
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