China’s Xi Jinping, a man with a view.
Ed.: 1030917 – Words: 816 – Audio: N/A
This gawd-awful Trump World has in fact done a pretty good job sending the message to the rest of the world that “the U.S. isn’t going to take it anymore” regarding all these alleged bad trade deals, “fake” global warming science, our nation’s (financial) support of defense organizations, re-neging on working treaties, the administration’s apparent disregard of anything negative about Russia’s intentions, the diplomatic verbal buffoonery with North Korea, and our complete domestic divisiveness fomented and encouraged by a bravado spewing, lying President.. all this, is making America great again. The world is taking notice of our floundering cultural and political identity. Mostly the world sees a huge American inability to establish a working foreign policy toward international diplomacy, military intervention, trade and globalism, and promoting democracy.
Here’s the sobering take-away from all this. While here in America time is comparatively standing still, the world is moving ahead in spite of us, and doesn’t give a tinker’s damn what Trump says or does. Of 37 countries polled in a recent Pew Research study there is a 14{0ab7dfbf012a810114ec5acf7807847dfa23e59660bbc397f14557f2fcacba41} drop in overall favorable perceptions of America. (Read HERE if you wish).
The up & comer in world respect and influence is China. Australia, Netherlands, and our buddies to the north, Canada, all have more favorable views of China than the U.S. under Trump. In the meantime here in the States, the Conservative right Trumpian base is lavishing in this domestic idea that they finally have an outspoken political ignoramus to drain swamps and verbally give the middle finger to the rest of the world. Who cares what China does!
Yeah, well… someone better care. While we are devouring each other domestically China’s chocolate cake-loving, Xi Jinping, has been ramping up his country’s long-term objectives to his people in a recent speech to the party Communists. Not only is he consolidating his own political power but he has reached a level of internal control to establish these goals as part of the domestic constitution. It’s nothing about old-style Communist domination of the world (China was never all that anyway). It’s a stance to be included in international diplomacy and cooperate with certain world initiatives, like environmental treaties and trade agreements. China has little interest in being contrary just to be contrary. They are falling in line with international order. Foreign aid from China has increased dramatically and it sees itself as the economic juggernaut alternative to the U.S. Heck, it’s common knowledge China owns much of our debt.
When we act surprised at China turning a pile of coral into a military installation in the South China Sea, or that they now have an aircraft carrier… just look into the mirror to see who is ultimately responsible for that outcome. Also… it helps to keep into balance that China’s increase in defense spending has a LONG way to go to even get close to our military prowess; we should NOT focus on that. Honestly, we should be making more trade deals with China… even so much as joining with them in establishing new markets in the Third World, like Africa. A few joint scientific research treaties would be a good idea; that might help us get out of this stupid denial of scientific study when it doesn’t favor someone’s bastardized political ideology. That simply hearkens to the days of nazi science and the ignorant religious Dark Ages denial of science in the Middle Ages. I’m not just referring to global warming; that denial has set a trend into other studies.
I’ll finish this with a quote from Fareed Zakaria’s recent article in the Washington Post…
“Meanwhile, consider how the United States must look now to the rest of the world. It is politically paralyzed, unable to make major decisions. Amidst a ballooning debt, its investments in education, infrastructure, and science and technology are seriously lacking. Politics has become a branch of reality TV, with daily insults, comebacks and color commentary. America’s historical leadership role in the world has been replaced by a narrow and cramped ideology. Foreign policy has become a partisan game, with Washington breaking agreements, shifting course and reversing policy almost entirely to score political points at home.
The shift in reputation that we are witnessing around the world is not so much about the rise of China but rather the decline of the United States.”
Maybe Trump (and the base that worships him) hasn’t been paying attention to current events, but this is the perfect recipe for making America irrelevant… not great, like it used to be before Trump.
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China has been on the rise for decades, but the US always kept one (or two) jumps ahead. Isolation might diminish the view of America in the wider world, but I actually think it will be better for the ‘average American’ in the long term. On our news today, there was an interesting feature on how well the US economy is doing, since Trump was elected. The pundit said that everyone overlooked this remarkable financial success, because they were too obsessed with slagging off Trump for his personality, and his antics. Maybe withdrawal from the world scene is the real answer to a more prosperous America? But what do I know, I’m a foreigner…
(By the way, have I told you lately how much I wish you would go back to your previous format? No? )
Best wishes, Pete.
Well, you are echoing exactly what the Trumpsters over here want everyone to believe regarding how well America is doing economically since Trump took over. I know you are “over there”.. so I can’t blame what you are watching on your news. There’s enough evidence online (in fact, try Politifact.com.. if you really wish to look into this) that the economic improvement has originated during the Obama years and has simply continued into the Trump years. The fact of the matter is, the recovery started during the globalization of the previous administrations… and while Trump is not a globalization guy, he’s not yet been able to change all that thus far, hence the continued growth. There’s no zillions of jobs coming back to the U.S. because the reason for that segment of unemployment was due to market-based changes and NOT because of business flight overseas. There’s not loads of coal miners going back to work simply because coal has not been the business-sense way to go, and has nothing to due with Trump rescinding Obama environmental controls. If there’s any single thing to blame it’s automation to contain operating costs.
(I am definitely leaning toward re-doing this blog to a more “friendlier” theme given this all seems to be some theme conflict with Jetpack. Just to make this reply to you I will have to moderate myself. So I hear ya, buddy. We’re getting there… and I know it’s not fast enough for you. 🙂 Thanks for sticking around and being patient.)
Good Post Doug. China is expanding the world over …..making in roads in Africa and the Middle East….Watch them in Afghanistan…they could control those rare earth minerals that the world needs dearly these days… they are up and coming and silently taking our place in the world while Trumpites worry about statues and assorted bullshit. chuq
Thanks, chuq. Yes, very good.. Afghanistan.. although I am going to guess they are going to have no better success dealing with those tribal guys than us or the Russkies did. For sure the central government isn’t anything at the moment. Someone has to show them there’s more bucks to be had in minerals than in poppies.
Sorry this one is a little late….been moving kinda slowly lately….LOL
http://time.com/5007097/china-winning-5-facts/
It’s a stance to be included in international diplomacy and cooperate with certain world initiatives, like environmental treaties and trade agreements.”
Good grief, Doug….This reads like something out of the Onion.
You know that China is the world’s largest polluter? The air is so laden with contaminants from their factories, people living in the cities often have to wear masks. It’s horrible. 1/5th of their rice is contaminated with metal impurities to dangerous levels of toxicity. They’re strip mining the sea.
Of course they signed on to the Kyoto protocol. Environmental agreements are cash cows for them. They don’t have to abide by emissions standards and they raking it in with carbon credits via “cap and trade” allowances. This is a huge tariff on non-“developing countries”. So, yeah, headline news might say, “China encourages US to conform to Kyoto protocols” holds the same level of significance as the statement, “Zales encourages people to buy diamonds”.
China has little interest in being contrary just to be contrary. They are falling in line with international order.
Aside from perhaps the DPRK, no country has an interest in being contrary “just to be contrary”. They all have their own self-serving agendas. It just happens that China’s agenda is contrary to ours (and most of the rest of the world, those opinion polls only illustrate the vast ignorance of the public…think another pew poll a few years back indicated university students generally liked the DPRK dictator than president Bush).
“Foreign aid from China has increased dramatically”
Indeed. Russia is its largest benefactor.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/11/russia-is-the-biggest-recipient-of-chinese-foreign-aid-north-korea/
Actually you are correct in China being an environmental mess. I failed to qualify my thought about China showing a bit more cooperation on treaties and agreements with the idea that meant they were appearing on the surface to suggest they are cooperating with the “concept” knowing full well they’d fail in practice down the line. Having said that, environmental agreements are not the only initiatives and treaties they get into. I like your reply.