FOW058 – US-China Relations, Then and Now (with Graham Webster) [EN]

I believe most of graham’s facts he mentioned are plausible but i don t agree to his opinion. there are more reasons to believe USA is a thread to China than the other way around and i think to be fair one should mention these before making such comments:

A) Military
Fact 1: USA military expenses are almost triple than china’s although China’s population is more than 4 times bigger than US population. With NATO this gap is even bigger. (Countries military budget 2019:
Fact 2: USA has many military bases around China but China nothing around USA, even no allies is surrounding USA. (The coming war on China from Pulitzer Price winner and Assange supporter John Pilger
Fact 3: China has just a small fraction of illegal military actions like the USA in the past and present. Examples wars (e.g. 2nd Iraq war, Afghanistan, Libya,…), military interventions (e.g. Iran, some south American countries,…), military exports, spying activities on other countries (e.g. on german Chancellor Angela Merkel cell phone), influencing political coops (e.g. audio record of US Diplomat Victoria Nuland about Ukraine coop, when she said „…Fuck the EU…“

My opinion: Based on this it’s a normal human reaction that China wants to defend itself and can be less seen as threat to the USA. USA would react maybe much stronger if we consider US behavior during Cuba crisis. During this talk with Graham he was calling some of the wars / interventions under Bush and Trump insane and said about 20 minutes before its a reasonable argument to see china as a thread to USA just because of its increasing economically and military power. Actually both sounds insane not just what Busch or Trump did. Additionally I can hardly believe that all of US illegal military actions and violation of human rights with Torquer in Guantanamo and other prisons caused less harm than China’s violation of human rights.

B) Economically:
Fact 1: Technology wise USA is by far more advanced than China in nearly all important sectors e.g. in IT ( AI, Operating systems, databases, enterprise software e.g. oracle & sales force, GPU and CPU IT Hardware e.g Nvidia) and also in car, airplane, ship, machine, medicine, chemistry banking, Insurance consulting, military sector
Fact 2: US GDP is more than 30% bigger than China’s although China’s population is more than 4 times bigger than US population
Fact 3: China’s absolut poverty and health system is much worse than US
Fact 4: USA has much more influence and power over the World banking system and world trade currency. With this specific Tool USA is threatening other democratic countries to enforce sanctions on other countries (like countries in EU to enforce sanctions on Iran or like Germany to stop North stream 2 pipeline with Russia)

My Opinion: Based on this it’s a normal human reaction that China wants to grow economically like USA and defend this growth against USA in order to give 1.5 billion people a better life with more happiness, health and safety,…. If USA tries to avoid China by growing it looks like a kicking away the ladder or hegemonic politics which is rather aggressive from USA than from China. When Graham said that Trump and Bush administration crossed a certain line by treating Hua Wei or other countries so bad. why is it then a reasonable argument for him to say China is a thread to USA just because china is growing.

C) Human rights violation and less openness
Fact 1: there are much more human right violations in China than in USA
Fact 2: Most of human right accusations against China or USA show not enough evidence for an international court justified verdict.
Fact 3: Chinese human right violation is a thread to the people in china and not the people in USA.
Fact 4: Protectionism has been used by all western countries in the past to protect their week sectors against foreign countries Especially by the USA. China is doing the same now. => My Opinion: One should should talk about how fast china should open his still weaker industries but be patient because every country took his time to open up in the past.

I just listened to a speech of Biden on DLF a public mainstream german radio channel and this interview with Graham just came back into my mind.

WE and THEY

Fact 1: For a very long time we could hear following: We deal with China because it will lead to a change toward democracy. In Germany we say “Wandel durch Annäherung“ ( i believe many leading politicians believed when we deal with China they will see how good we are and they will become more like us)
Fact 2: Deng Xiao Ping has been mainly reluctant in foreign policy in comparison to USA which means at least openly that he did not want to change America (that it become more than China).
Fact 3: Western Media write more and more that with Xi Jingping this reluctance in foreign policy changed.
Fact 4: In Biden’s recent speech on last EU summit he spoke about China and said we will write doctoral thesis about who succeeded, Democracy or Autocracy, this is at stake.

Opinion: China and its people became just recently more confident and not just because of Chinese propaganda. I think most people who know about government media know how to take those news better than people who just experienced so called free media (similar opinion has Noam Chomsky). Most Chinese trust their political system because it is in their eyes successful. Furthermore they had the opinion Hu Jin Tao the leader before Xi was by far too reluctant in foreign policy. Considering above facts that it has been unchallenged said for decades that the Chinese system is worse than the American, it is just so normal, emotionally healthy and logically fair to challenge this Hypothesis by China and its people. Nevertheless i think to see the world in winner and loser, good or bad, in a logic of a zero buzz game this will strengthen conflicts in the world. Thats what we in the west started to do wrong, kept doing it for decades and Biden will probably go on with it in the future. If this doesn’t stop China will react at least with the same arrogant behavior and i think thats maybe not worst reaction to save their peoples interests.

BUT I think the opposite of all this it’s much better in many ways. Overall it is more peaceful and more efficient in the long term. Don’t compare, look on your own strength, get successful without a kicking away the ladder foreign policy. let companies decide if they want to work with other foreign companies and don’t use sanctions. Convince other countries about your system with your success and your good example and not by telling how bad the others are. Specifically with China, don’t be so loud when you want china to do something in your interest (like getting something done on the area of our western human right concept). For example don’t held press conference before negotiation with China. Try to find things what we can learn from each other. I would not categories democracy and autocracy i would not use that often to point out the differences. don’t give NGO money to fight against current political systems. Be very careful what how you say something against china its difficult for the masses to distinguish between anti asian rhetoric which strengthen anti asian racism especially in America. I would emphasize the And between we and they more than the Versus.

very nice lecture and different view on China’s Geopolitical Positions in the Biden Era from Prof. Eberhard Sandschneider FU Berlin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBUO6jpVu5g