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Alex Lo

Drawing historical comparisons can be helpful and enlightening. It can also mislead. Whatever you think about China today, it’s important to understand the country as it is, not as something else to fit your preconceptions.
Comparing it to the former Soviet Union and claiming it’s even more threatening definitely verges on the outlandish and the untenable.
But that’s according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“What’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is in some ways worse,” he told the Czech senate.
“The CCP is already enmeshed in our economies, in our politics, in our societies in ways the Soviet Union never was.”
Gloves are off between China and US with latest arrests
Perhaps that’s because the world and China, including until recently the United States, have free trade; and hence the “enmeshing”? Many political scientists believe trade is a good thing because it enhances mutual economic benefits and reduces potential hostilities.
And while Xi Jinping may not be a nice guy, he is not Joseph Stalin, and China is not the USSR. Quite simply, China doesn’t want another cold or hot war with the US the way the old Soviets did.
What’s happening now isn’t Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is in some ways worse
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Lazy historical analogies can be dangerous, Michael McFaul, professor of political science and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, wrote in the latest Foreign Affairs journal.
“Chinese citizens enjoy much greater autonomy over their own economic well-being than Soviet citizens did in the early days of the Cold War – a product of China’s more open, market-oriented, and globally integrated economy,” he wrote.
“On this dimension, the comparison is not even close. Xi has not orchestrated the overthrow of a single regime. Hong Kong comes closest, considering Beijing’s expanding acts of repression there … Xi has yet to instigate a coup, arm insurgents, or invade a democracy and install a communist regime.
“Little suggests that he seeks to subvert American democracy. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has been much bolder and more aggressive on that front.) And although the United Front Work Department – one of the CCP’s main agents of influence overseas – warrants close scrutiny, its efforts to export the Chinese system of government seem feeble and ineffective next to Soviet tactics.
Is the West in decline?
“Promoting a positive image of Xi’s China or proclaiming the economic benefits of its development model is not the same as invading countries or providing AK-47s and Katyusha rocket launchers to communist guerillas. If Xi and his comrades are actually trying to promote Marxism-Leninism-Maoism around the world, they are doing a bad job of it.”

Ideologues such as Pompeo know they have only a small window of opportunity to impose their views on US foreign policy until the November election. They had long been held in check by an opportunistic Donald Trump, who just wanted to make the Chinese buy American. But as his mismanagement of the health crisis makes it possible for the pandemic to cause havoc with the US economy and undermines his chances of re-election, the president decided to play the “Red China” card. Here is a rare opportunity for the “hawks” to spread their wings.
‘Shameless and despicable’: Hong Kong decries US sanctions over security law
By all indication, there has been little policy formulation or serious discussion among the honchos in Washington. The barrage of actions that was unleashed – whether it was sanctions against hapless officials in Hong Kong or kicking out any company that has a Chinese name – has no strategic rhyme or reason, or any method to the madness.
It looks more like: let’s get China and anything that sounds Chinese.
“The United States must understand China ‘as it is’, to quote Pompeo, not as some in Washington want it to be,” wrote Professor McFaul.
“The Trump administration undoubtedly would like a Stalinist leader to be in charge in Beijing, if only to better mobilise and unite Americans against him. But China ‘as it is’ is not ruled by a new Stalin.
“Asserting otherwise doesn’t change that fact and gets in the way of developing a sophisticated, successful US policy to contain, deter, and engage China over the long haul.”
I couldn’t have put it better.



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My Take

US ‘hawks’ target anything that sounds Chinese

US President Donald Trump is playing the ‘Red China’ card to boost his chances of re-election, and this has created a rare opportunity for the ‘hawks’ in his administration to spread their wings. Photo: Shutterstock

epa08599167 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adjusts his protective face mask after a press conference with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis (unseen) after their talks in Prague, Czech Republic, 12 August 2020. Pompeo is on an official two-day visit to the Czech Republic, and he starts his tour of four European countries from there. EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK

(200721) -- BEIJING, July 21, 2020 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium with entrepreneurs in Beijing, capital of China, July 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

Is the West in decline? (Take 2)

‘Western mankind, without exception, is under the influence of an immense optical illusion’, writes Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West. Photo: Shutterstock

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE: Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew addresses delegates at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore, 16 August 2004. Lee Kuan Yew will no longer be involved in day-to-day government as mentor to the cabinet, his son, the new Prime Mnister Lee Hsien Loong, said in remarks published 16 August 2004. AFP PHOTO/ROSLAN RAHMAN (Photo credit should read ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Is the West in decline?

All civilisations rise and fall, and the West is no exception. Photo: Shutterstock

US-China relations: new-look seals for American missions spark online rumours

The new US mission seal (left) next to the old-look seal (right). Photo: US embassy China

A picture of U.S. Embassy Beijing Seal and U.S. Consulate General Chengdu Seal. Photo: Handout

The new-look mission seals were released as US Health Minister Alex Azar was visiting Taiwan. Photo: EPA-EFE

US-China relations: bankrupt, broken America has no room to talk

People visit the 17th China Changchun International Automobile Expo in Changchun, Jilin province, on July 13. China’s vast economic wealth and rapid recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic prove how lacking in substance US critiques of China’s “bankrupt ideology” truly are. Photo: Xinhua

US-China trade war: Beijing will honour phase one deal by opening financial sector wider, its central bank chief says

US President Donald J. Trump and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He shake hands at the signing ceremony for a trade agreement at the White House in January. Photo: EPA

Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He (left) and US President Donald Trump hold up signed copies of the phase one trade deal between their countries in January. Liu is expected to hold a video conference this week with the US side to discuss the deal. Photo: DPA

Opinion


Ideologues such as Mike Pompeo know they have only a small window of opportunity to impose their views on foreign policy until the November election



Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}My Take | US ‘hawks’ target anything that sounds Chinese

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Ideologues such as Mike Pompeo know they have only a small window of opportunity to impose their views on foreign policy until the November election

My Take | US ‘hawks’ target anything that sounds Chinese

Ideologues such as Mike Pompeo know they have only a small window of opportunity to impose their views on foreign policy until the November election