My Take | We are all our own worst enemy
- In America, the corruption of institutions and erosion of societal norms have led to extreme tribalism. In China, authoritarianism has caused the rise of ultranationalism. Taken to extremes, such ‘isms’ will be self-defeating
Americans and Chinese increasingly view each other in a negative light. More and more of them consider the other’s country as the enemy. Those are the trends confirmed repeatedly in recent surveys.
It’s true that Chinese-American ties are the most important bilateral relations in the world today and that their hostilities threaten world peace, not just world trade.
On the other hand, I don’t think in the end, one is likely to be the cause of the other’s downfall or ruination of the other’s national project. I take the adage, perhaps on a more spiritual than political plane, that we are our own worst enemy.
That is true as much of the Chinese as Americans. The two countries are “great” enough, or rather, powerful enough that only they can do themselves in.
02:34
Australia, Britain, Canada join US diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights
I fully subscribe to the well-known observation, which I have quoted in this space several times, of British historian Arnold Toynbee that great nations and civilisations die by suicide, not murder.
On the other hand, it’s perfectly possible that in a kind of negative historical-dialectical death spiral, the decline of one great power will drag down the other, simply because both countries are so tied up to the world economy and with each other, notwithstanding “decoupling”.