Outside In | Why China does not share the US preoccupation with war in Ukraine, or elsewhere
- China has a radically different world view that the US, critically, fails to recognise. Its prioritisation of trade and its economy belies any offensive military intent – and its non-interference policy is painfully informed by its history of being invaded
Nothing provides clearer evidence of how the US and China see the world through entirely different prisms with entirely different priorities, and how Washington’s failure to recognise this, is critically linked to poor and dangerously deteriorating relations.
To get to the heart of the differences, think of the world maps on the classroom walls in China and the US – or even in Britain when I was a schoolboy.
My classroom map had London at the centre, a large but distant US west across a yawning Atlantic Ocean, and Asia an indistinct muddle far to the east. Africa loomed huge to the south, a foundation for Europe and the Mediterranean to sit upon.
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Blinken discusses South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and regional alliances during Indonesia visit
US schoolchildren grew up with a different map, with North and South America elegantly at the centre, and sprawling oceans providing insulation to the east and west. Distant Europe sat to the east, unconnected to most of Asia, placed to America’s west, fingers touching across Alaska to Russia’s far east.