Howard French's masterful, Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power, digs deep into China's history to understand their self-conception as a people and civilization.
For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the three areas most relevant for our dealings with China today: The principle of tian xia, the historical record of China's encounters with the West, and Chinese ambitions in the era of Xi Jinping.
For starters, the regime defends its claims in the South China Sea by invoking time immemorial or "Ancient times," in the words of Xi Jinping, as their justification for "Ownership" of island chains like the Paracels & Spratlys and building artificial islands/ military bases at places like Fiery Cross or Johnson Reef, the latter having been "Seized from the Vietnamese in the 1988 turkey shoot." A similar logic applies when considering China's contested claims to the Senkaku Islands in its longtime dispute with Japan.
What concern is it to the United States if a great power like China wants to establish primacy in the Western Pacific, essentially a Chinese version of our Monroe Doctrine? As Pat Buchan put it succinctly in TAC, "There is no U.S. vital interest at risk in these islands to justify an eternal war guarantee or treaty commitment to fight Beijing over rocks and reefs in the South China Sea.".
French would agree, "A country of China's size cannot be contained, and any effort to do so would be counterproductivethe most salient U.S. goalis thickening the web among China's wary neighbors, who have a shared interest in keeping China from using force to upend the existing order."
As French later notes, it would be a mistake to look at Chinese expansionism in the narrow context of "The hard elements of the power balance." China's "One Belt, One Road," initiative uses technology, infrastructure, and trade, to establish a new Silk Road that "Would encompass '4.4 billion people, 64 countries, and a combined economic output of $21 trillion, or 29% of global GDP.'" Kowtowing to Chinese interests will be the cost of doing business for the countries along this new trading route spanning from China thru Central Asia to Eastern Europe.
Combined with attempts to dominate the global telecom market by expanding Huawei contracts for 5G into Western Europe and strategic efforts to undermine American culture through its influence over mainstream media, Big Business, and American universities, there's no question that China ambition's extend beyond the Pacific to encompass the globe.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-does-china-want/
For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the three areas most relevant for our dealings with China today: The principle of tian xia, the historical record of China's encounters with the West, and Chinese ambitions in the era of Xi Jinping.
For starters, the regime defends its claims in the South China Sea by invoking time immemorial or "Ancient times," in the words of Xi Jinping, as their justification for "Ownership" of island chains like the Paracels & Spratlys and building artificial islands/ military bases at places like Fiery Cross or Johnson Reef, the latter having been "Seized from the Vietnamese in the 1988 turkey shoot." A similar logic applies when considering China's contested claims to the Senkaku Islands in its longtime dispute with Japan.
What concern is it to the United States if a great power like China wants to establish primacy in the Western Pacific, essentially a Chinese version of our Monroe Doctrine? As Pat Buchan put it succinctly in TAC, "There is no U.S. vital interest at risk in these islands to justify an eternal war guarantee or treaty commitment to fight Beijing over rocks and reefs in the South China Sea.".
French would agree, "A country of China's size cannot be contained, and any effort to do so would be counterproductivethe most salient U.S. goalis thickening the web among China's wary neighbors, who have a shared interest in keeping China from using force to upend the existing order."
As French later notes, it would be a mistake to look at Chinese expansionism in the narrow context of "The hard elements of the power balance." China's "One Belt, One Road," initiative uses technology, infrastructure, and trade, to establish a new Silk Road that "Would encompass '4.4 billion people, 64 countries, and a combined economic output of $21 trillion, or 29% of global GDP.'" Kowtowing to Chinese interests will be the cost of doing business for the countries along this new trading route spanning from China thru Central Asia to Eastern Europe.
Combined with attempts to dominate the global telecom market by expanding Huawei contracts for 5G into Western Europe and strategic efforts to undermine American culture through its influence over mainstream media, Big Business, and American universities, there's no question that China ambition's extend beyond the Pacific to encompass the globe.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-does-china-want/
No comments:
Post a Comment