As a EU citizen, it always stuns me to know your country continues this barbaric tradition of death penalty, and that your newly elected president has decided to enforce it even further. Like China?
Bloomberg has this very particular quality that it gives the opportunity to contact directly a columnist. I am quite sure these kind of correspondances end up in the e-trash. But reading this article of someone who is a « Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies » (To recall, Henry Kissinger was behind the coup in Chile, a supporter of the war in Vietnam and behind the bombing of Cambodia… among other crimes), I decided to write to Hal Brands, Bloomberg Columnist, about his « threat of China » because this Pravda Style article was such a joke…
Here is a direct link to this article.
Hal Brands calls China « a threat ». OK, he has a perfect right to do so, but as much as this thinking has become mainstream lately, I am still not that convinced, mostly because what I hear is « a truth » backed by very poor evidence from a country, the USA, that has been responsible for almost all wars, invasions and coup d’état in the last 70 years. Counting in millions of deaths.
I am not denying the fact that China poses a lot of problem for the political stability in Asia, and I would never advocate for that kind of authoritarian regime either. But at a time the USA elected a president decided to govern on his own by executive order, without even a vote from his parliament, or annex a sovereign nation and a sovereign territory « even by force », I believe there is something quite ironical.
The USA made China, and Henry Kissinger took an active part in it, followed by conservatives Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who saw China as the « factory of the world », helping capitalists to delocalize all production in due course to boost dividends while getting rid of workers unions, pushing the stock market to the highs we know.
It’s quite interesting to see those same free market advocates who forced all countries to go into the Uruguay Round and join the OMC after getting rid of all tarifs on imports saying that China is now a threat to our economies.
Those greedy « genius » were blinded by the poverty of China (due to a century old colonization by the West) as well as a racist bias toward Asians, ignoring the fact that China was a 5000 year civilization and that it would not take long before it would come back, stronger.
It was actually the central idea of an essay by French politician Alain Peyrefitte in 1973.
My central belief is that we should not confront China. As we like it or not, we have to deal with it, which is very different. We have to deal with China with all the respect due to a sovereign state which accomplished an incredible job in such a short period of time despite OUR incredible crimes committed in the 19th century (the opium war decimated the population, destructured society and erased the refinement of this civilization).
We have to deal with China in the same way we have to deal with the USA, a country which uses the rules it promotes to ban others without even binding to them.
It’s called fairness. And fairness should be at the heart of any diplomacy…
Now, here is my email to Hal Brands, Bloomberg Columnist, about his « threat of China ». It was fun to write, actually. But I would never have written if he had not implied we should be ready use the atomic bomb, implying having Taiwan nuked was better than letting China annexing it.
Just to be clear, I do not believe Taiwan is Chinese as it has never been in history (while Hong Kong has always belonged to China and has a special status due to British inference) and I would be very pleased to see it becoming The Democratic Republic of Taïwan. But not at the cost of seeing it destroyed so the USA would still control maritime routes (let’s be honest, the USA do not care about democracy, as if so, they would immediately break all ties with Saoudi Arabia…).
It was a pleasure to reply to Hal Brands Pravda style propaganda… But it was so easy as he just relies on « truths » laid down as evidence without even giving one actual evidence…
Enjoy!
Bonjour,
You say in your article China poses a threat. I hear this very often but what is posed as a truth can’t be seen as such until proven or at least until the party declaring so shows its difference.
As a EU citizen, I know the NSA is spying on us, spying even our democratically elected head of states, despite being NATO allies. Is china doing the same?
As a EU citizen, I know the CIA has used facilities in Europe to arrest, detain and torture people without any judicial authority. Is china doing the same?
As a EU citizen, I have seen many illegal wars causing millions of deaths around the world. When has china caused such wars and violation of sovereignty? Actually, the only country in the world which used the atomic bomb was not China, but the US. Your article suggests it should be ready to do it one more time, in Asia of course. You reveal here a typical part of the US culture as I am not so sure you would like those bombs to hit your soil…
As a EU citizen, what was my surprise when I heard that prisoners were employed to help extinguish the fire in California for a salary of around USD 5,50/h, helping them paying for food or shampoo in their private owned prison where more than a million people are jailed, making the US the number one country in the world for people in jail, china coming far behind, even with the Ouïgour population (and we all know about their horrible condition).
As a EU citizen, it always stuns me to know your country continues this barbaric tradition of death penalty, and that your newly elected president has decided to enforce it even further. Like China?
As a EU citizen, I don’t get your paragraph about the need to defend Taiwan at any cost when your newly elected president proposed to take Greenland, a Danish territory since the vikings maybe, as well a annex Canada – even by force. Do you mean that when china wants a territory, it’s bad, but when it’s the US, it’s good?
As a EU citizen, I know Facebook used my data for political and mercantile purpose and that GAFAM comply with any NSA requests. Isn’t it what you suspect China to do? How is it better and different when the US use people data?
As a EU citizen, I could continue the long list of things where I see many similarities between China and the US (cost of education and healthcare, the fusion between the economic and the political oligarchy, this ability to create financial bubbles which enrich the rich and ruin so many), and after reading you I can but only think how poor education has become to produce such an inconsistent article, as ridiculous as those Cold War era articles, of those “duck and cover” style which make us laugh knowing they were just lies their authors ended up believing in. Try better, next time, you can write about China developing telepathy to spy on us. Children who will have survived your nuclear winter dream will at least have a good laugh.
Cordially yours,
Madjid Ben Chikh, Tokyo
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