DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama
With select comments from original threads
The headline of a recent Bloomberg column by one Tyler Cowen is:
Covid Is Increasing America’s Lead Over China.
Its remarkable only for its fervent nationalistic delusion.
This paragraph stands out:
There is one other factor that people are loathe to discuss (with one exception). Yes, the U.S. has botched its response to Covid-19. At the same time, its experience shows that America as a nation can in fact tolerate casualties, too many in fact. It had long been standard Chinese doctrine that Americans are “soft” and unwilling to take on much risk. If you were a Chinese war game planner, might you now reconsider that assumption?
This comes on the same day as a similar delusional State Department policy planning paper sees the light.
The Elements of the China Challenge (pdf)
Axios calls it a "Kennan-style paper". In 1946 George Kennan, then Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to the USSR, wrote his 'Long Telegram' that defined U.S. Cold War policy towards the Soviet Union for the next decades:
Kennan described dealing with Soviet Communism as "undoubtedly greatest task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably greatest it will ever have to face". In the first two sections, he posited concepts that became the foundation of American Cold War policy:
- The Soviets perceived themselves at perpetual war with capitalism;
- The Soviets viewed left-wing, but non-communist, groups in other countries as an even worse enemy of itself than the capitalist ones;
- The Soviets would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies;
- Soviet aggression (sic) was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but rooted in historic Russian nationalism and neurosis;
- The Soviet government's structure inhibited objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality.
Kennan later said that his paper was misunderstood and that the hostile containment policies that were based on it were wrong and self defeating.
But the China paper which the State Department published is not comparable to the 'Long Telegram'. It is a propaganda piece that reflects the naive views of the outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompous.
Pompous' premise is that the Chinese people hate the Communist Party of China that runs the country and that China is not a democracy. But that is not what the people of China believe:
Charted below are the survey results from 20 countries, and they illustrate some startling beliefs — not least that 73% of Chinese consider China to be democratic, whereas only 49% of Americans believe the same about the U.S.
Read this thread to find out why that is the case:
ShanghaiPanda @thinking_panda - 9:24 UTC · Sep 15, 2020
On twitter, as a Chinese, the most frequently asked question for me is, why don't you oppose the CPC? Why don't Chinese support western style democracy? Why do Chinese people support President Xi, who has no votes? Now, I'm going to tell them why.(1/N)
Also this one.
The recommendations of the State Department paper listed by Axios are not practical steps but pure ideology:
The blueprint: The paper lays out "ten tasks" for the U.S. to accomplish.
- Promoting constitutional government and civil society at home. [Read: Maintaining order at home to better run the hegemonic empire]
- Maintaining the world's strongest military. [Read: Maintaining the hegemonic empire]
- Fortifying the rules-based international order. [Read: Maintaining the hegemonic empire]
- Reevaluating its alliance system. [Read: Maintaining the hegemonic empire]
- Strengthening its alliance system and creating new international organizations to promote democracy and human rights. [Read: Maintaining the hegemonic empire]
- Cooperating with China when possible and constraining Beijing when appropriate. [Read: Maintaining the hegemonic empire]
- Educating Americans about the China challenge.
- Train a new generation of public servants who understand great-power competition with China.
- Reforming the U.S. education system to help students understand the responsibility of citizenship in a complex information age.
- Championing the principles of freedom in word and in deed.
Note especially the points 7 to 10.
(TGP Editor's note: 6 out of 10 points refer to the ruling class' preoccupation with maintaining US world supremacy. —PG)
They have nothing to do with China. They call for domestic propaganda, more domestic propaganda and even more domestic propaganda.
How brainwashing and stupidifying one's own people is supposed to challenge China is beyond me.
Posted by b on November 18, 2020 at 19:30 UTC | Permalink
Below Select Comments from original thread(s)
it's so interesting when people pretend to be ignorant when it is useful to them. I thought that was a specific American trait. So let's give the answer to the author asking the question:
Once the Americans are indoctrinated into hating China, they will be willing to go to war with China and will be willing to accept wha the government will do in the name of "fighting China". Same how the Americans were indoctrinated into hating Soviet Union and Communism during the 50s and 60s and 70s. The government then can throw as much money into the military in the name of "fighting China" and the Americans will be fine with it.
Posted by: Hoyeru | Nov 18 2020 19:52 utc | 2
b's 5 bullet points covering Keenan presumptions lends itself to substitution of Soviet / communism w/ Global Corporatist Oligarchy ... not aligned with wishes of citizenry, not democratic, not aligned with reality, etc.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Nov 18 2020 19:53 utc | 3
during an earlier bout of hong kong protests years ago jackie chan got in (western) hot water for saying that "some people have to much freedom". classic "say the soft part loud" yet many people in china agreed.
the chinese still have an actual society and many realize that one major job of governments is to protect people from other goddamn people. it wasn't the jack mas or the jeff bezoses of the world who helped pull them out of third world conditions into a growing middle class; it was CP policies (for better or worse). this is why ma's latest (and supposedly record breaking) IPO got kiboshed. regulators there sometimes regulate and they put the brakes on his "payday lending 2.0" scam before it screwed potentially millions of people.
in the united states of ayn that's blasphemy against the temple priests of capitalism. there's a veryfine line between ann coulter's "invade them with tanks and convert them to christianity" and plumpguido's "invade them with finance and convert them to materialism fundamentalists".
as far as "we have guts" i'm pretty sure NONE of the people who have died planned it and the same amount would have chosen otherwise if they'd had the chance. this jackass thinks people are voluntary cannon fodder in some imaginary war and is thus a f_cking lunatic. so...typical yuppie media.
Posted by: the pair | Nov 18 2020 19:53 utc | 4
Pompeo, if not shamed out of politics soon, will be as bad or worse than Trump, because besides being nuts is a fanatic, crackpot ‘Christian’.
Posted by: TominAZ | Nov 18 2020 19:54 utc | 5
7-10 each sound fine but given the record of recent US leaders I wouldn't expect them to be implemented with the good of mankind in mind.
Posted by: Dave | Nov 18 2020 19:56 utc | 6
I posted this to the Biden thread, but it belongs here.
RTop/ed analysis of Pompeo's China containment policy plan, "The Elements of the China Challenge”:
"Although it is hardly atypical of the President Trump administration, the document is significant because it represents yet another attempt by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to immortalize his Cold War confrontation between the US and China, bind the succeeding administration to it and most strikingly, institutionalize anti-Beijing ideas into American bureaucracy.
"The push against China by the Trump White House is not designed to be a passing phase, but a permanent and defining change of direction, for which this entire term in office has sought to prepare. This document aims to be a blueprint for long-term ideological struggle and a series of aspirations for maintaining hegemony, an affirmation of priority and a statement that things cannot “go back to normal”. But it makes no guarantee that the US can ever adequately understand China, or that it will succeed in its aims.
"The reference to George F. Kennan in pitching this document is appealing given the historical parallels, but it is not an exact fit and this, in turn, helps shine a light on Pompeo’s own ignorance of China. It might be described in one simple sentence: China is not the Soviet Union and the ideological stakes are not quite the same." [Emphasis Original]
While I'd agree that differences in ideology exist between China and the Outlaw US Empire, it is the Empire that's constructed upon and is living the Big Lie inherent within Neoliberalism, while China continues to perfect its already very efficient system of Collective Libertarianism through its revamped Democratic Centralism. The really big fundamental difference is that China has absolutely no need to lie to its people, whereas the exact opposite's true within the Neoliberal West. After a lengthy period of public input, the government meets and eventually publishes its 5-year plan of development, which is contained within an even larger plan that's also been devised with public input and once put together is also published for public consumption. And since 2010, all plans have existed within China's UN 2030 Development plan, which is also available to the public. In a great many respects. China is a more open society than the Outlaw US Empire. Why? Because it doesn't need to lie to its citizens because it fights against the corruption that provides the reason for such lies--China has no Financial Parasitism it must mask from its citizens whereas the Outlaw US Empire is drowning in a massive sea of corruption that is killing it. Clearly, Pompeo wants that to continue.
Governments are "tools" to accomplish things. The totalitarian Han Communist Party runs the PRC in a way that the Democratic/Republican Party does not run the United States. Totalitarians recognize no inherent limit on their 'authority' to act. Non-totalitarians do. A totalitarian government is a better 'tool' to command lock step obedience to a central authority because most of the population at large and ALL of the political population knows what happens should the central command total authority be disobeyed or be seen to be disobeyed. So in a plague, war maybe, flooding, famine, fires, the totalitarians will be more effective. So what? In ordinary times I'd rather live under non-totalitarians because incarceration for thought crime is vastly less frequent. Totalitarianism is a 'good tool' for exceptional matters requiring "uniform and disciplined" response. Under normal times its just another Third Reich. Ask any Han who wishes to state a non-approved opinion; any Tibetan wishing to display a photo of the Dalai Lama and any Muslim wishing to be orthodox. Why is it that you don't see people illegally entering totalitarian Han Communist China? well except from an even worse place North Korea. While millions want to "be" in the US? People vote with their feet. They flee from the Totalitarians. They flee toward the US. Power to people feet.
Posted by: Stephen Laudig | Nov 18 2020 20:03 utc | 8
thanks b... i am reminded of the 7-10 bullet points and how they are already being implemented here in canada... see this article from yesterday as an example..
As Conservatives call for crackdown, O'Toole calls Chinese influence a grave 'threat' to Canada
i suspect UK-USA and the other 5 eyes countries are grovelling in the ditch at the moment working out all the details of the plan.. instead of working together they are thinking of a way to have an upper hand in the changes the world is seeing... using propaganda on their own public seems to be the main approach they hope to profit from... i can't see it myself... but i don't want to underestimate the stupidity of people either..
Posted by: james | Nov 18 2020 20:06 utc | 9
I do agree that Kennan's "long telegram" was misconstrued by the NatSec loons of the time to justify what they wanted to do. But that is no surprise, that is how US politics works. It's has always been a racket.
Posted by: Bemildred | Nov 18 2020 20:09 utc | 10
Jack Ma is not creating an out of public control exploitative financial behemoth with the Ant IPO, Jack Ma is cashing in on an already existing enterprise. In some respects Ant is a Ponzi scheme, but in a sense so are most (fundamentally, all?) pure finance firms committed to speculation and indifferent to material production. Expropriating Ant would be socialist policy. Even splitting up Ant and devising regulations for "fair competition" would be more of an actual move against Ant-style end runs over Chinese government control over the capital markets, a merely liberal, petty bourgeois reformist policy a Republican or Democrat from the nineteenth century, or even some from the Thirties, could have endorsed. Further, Ma isn't done yet. If he makes nice the right way with Xi, who knows? The basic principle that Xi lives for, increased market control of investment, is what Ma stands for too.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Nov 18 2020 20:09 utc | 11
@ 8 stephen laudig.. i guess that is why so many people have been leaving the usa the past number of years... i heard the numbers leaving new york city via covid are in huge as well.. while that is not the same, i have witnessed in my lifetime a number of americans voting with their feet from the war in vietnam forward.. i do agree with you in this regard... at the same time there will always be people who wish to live in a world where politics doesn't trump everything.. unfortunately that world is no longer the us of a.. the usa is becoming a banana republic...
Posted by: james | Nov 18 2020 20:10 utc | 12
Here's China's unofficial response via this Global Times editorial. I wish I could reproduce the art at the editorial's header as it's very spot-on:
"There is no new wording in the report, which can be seen as a collection of malicious remarks from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other anti-China US politicians and senators. Right now, only a little more than 60 days are left for the current US administration. An official from the State Department explained that the report is not meant to constrain the next US administration. But the fact is the Department of State fears that the Biden administration will adjust US-China relations, and the release of the report is part of their efforts to consolidate the current extreme anti-China path.
"But most Chinese scholars who have read the report believe it is an insult to Kennan by labeling the report as Kennan-style. Kennan, then US charge d'affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union. At least, there was no special political motive in Kennan's report. But the latest report is trying to leave a legacy for the extreme anti-China policy adopted by the Trump administration and fawning on Pompeo, which is evil in essence.
"The impulsive and capricious governing style of Donald Trump leaves sufficient room for politicians like Pompeo to give free play to their ambitions. The Department of State has become the governmental organ that has the most serious clashes with China, outperforming the CIA and the Department of Defense.
"Diplomats are supposed to be communicators, but Pompeo and his team have chilled the communication atmosphere with China. In the China direction, today's US Department of State can close its door.
"Surrounded by such deep hostility and prejudice toward China and the wild ambition of the secretary of state, how could the Department of State's Office of Policy Planning make out anything objective about China? Their observation ability, cautious attitude toward research, and sense of responsibility for history have been severely squeezed. They are just currying favor from their seniors and manipulating extreme paths, pretending to be 'thoughtful....'
"Chinese diplomatic and academic circles look down upon the Pompeo team, which lacks professionalism, and acts like a group of gangsters suddenly taking official positions. They not only have messed things up, but also hope to build their nonsense as legacy. Pompeo's choice of opportunists like Miles Yu as advisor in particular has increased Chinese people's doubts over the 'amateurism' and 'immorality' of the Pompeo team's China policy....
"The US' China policy is very much like 'drunk driving' internally while on the international stage it's like sailing against the current." [My Emphasis]
There's not much more to add aside for asking barflies to read the entire editorial.
[premium_newsticker id="213661"]
"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor. This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community. Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Yep and China works for years on huge trade with neighbors leaving Amerika in the dust. Amerika how's that trade war working out?
Posted by: jo6pac | Nov 18 2020 19:34 utc | 1