Growing inequality, corruption and the monopolisation of power by a “rich-get-richer” self-serving elite have revealed democracy to be a sham. Meanwhile, China exports its vaccine to 27 overwhelmingly developing nations. From Covid to climate change to international trade and globalisation, Xi Jinping is trying to present China as a responsible global power.
So, Xi Jinping has eradicated poverty. The Chinese President has declared “complete victory”, in what the Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times has called “the great miracle”.
It is easy to scoff at this as a piece of propaganda, but it is not to be underestimated. China’s poverty reduction is remarkable.
In three decades, the lives of nearly 1.4 billion people have been transformed, as a country that could not feed itself has become the world’s engine of economic growth, and stands on the cusp of usurping the United States as the most powerful economy humanity has ever known.
How we got here
The span of Xi Jinping’s life tells this story. He was born in 1953 just a few years after the victorious Communist revolution. By the late 1950s China was plunged into famine, which would ultimately kill as many as 40 million people.
From the mid-1960s, his life was turned upside down by the tumult of the Cultural Revolution.
What Communist revolutionary hero Mao Zedong started, Deng Xiaoping, as China’s leader, built on, by opening China to the world and kickstarting its economy. Xi Jinping now aims to finish the work of rejuvenating the nation.
He is a brutal authoritarian, locking up rivals and crushing dissent, yet he has delivered on empowering the nation and is now extending its global reach.
Keeping faith with the poor is critical; it is the source of the Party’s legitimacy. The party will make the people wealthy but will not set them free.
Xi is breaking the rules, turning the international order on its head: China has embraced market reforms but rejected political liberalism and democracy. And he is winning.
Democracy is on the back foot. It has been declining globally for more than a decade. Democracies have been hijacked by demagogues and populists; the people have lost faith in the institutions of government. Growing inequality, corruption and the monopolisation of power by a “rich-get-richer” self-serving elite have revealed democracy to be a sham.
In a head-to-head match up with the United States — a country devastated by COVID-19, racially divided, opioid-addicted, ravaged by gun crime, with a seething, disenfranchised underclass, and reeling from the Trump years — Xi Jinping’s China appears more stable and more secure.
America is a warning for the West
As goes America, so goes what we call “the West”. Just 20 per cent of the world’s population has dominated the global political order: it has done so by colonising and dispossessing other peoples, exporting its own tyranny and, yes, making the world richer.
But it was never sustainable and we are paying the price: with environmental degradation, alienation, hollowed-out communities, disillusioned and unemployed youth, a lack of vision.
What leaders like US President Joe Biden offer is just more empty talk of unity and hope. It belies reality and the people no longer believe it.
The West is failing its own test of moral leadership.
Philosopher Herbert Marcuse saw this coming. More than 50 years ago he warned that the West had become “obscene”:
“…obscene in producing and indecently exposing a stifling abundance of wares while depriving its victims abroad of the necessities of life; obscene in stuffing itself and its garbage cans while poisoning and burning the scarce foodstuffs in the fields of its aggression; obscene in the words and smiles of its politicians and entertainers; in its prayers, in its ignorance, and the wisdom of its kept intellectuals.”
A ‘diabolical moral failure’
Look around the world today and try to deny Marcuse was wrong. We are living through a diabolical moral failure. In a world with enough food to feed everyone, the UN warns that the world is on the brink of mass starvation and famine.
More than 700 million people do not have enough to eat. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has called hunger an “outrage … a gaping hole in the heart of a society”.
The World Food Program executive director, David Beasley, has warned that if we don’t act “we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions”.
Which countries are most at risk? They are not in the West. They are Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti.
While the West throws away food as others go hungry, it is also hoarding vaccine for the other world crisis: Covid-19.
Just 16 per cent of the world’s population has bought up more than 60 per cent of the world’s supply of vaccine.
Antonio Guterres says this vaccine nationalism is “wildly unfair”. He calls this the “biggest moral test before the global community”.
But it isn’t a test of the “global community”, it is a test of the rich West, and it is a test the West is failing: looking after itself while poor nations suffer.
Vaccine diplomacy
Xi Jinping has sensed an opening. China is now exporting its vaccine to 27 countries: overwhelmingly developing nations. It represents a soft-power coup for Xi, extending China’s influence, but it is also doing something good for the world.
From Covid to climate change to international trade and globalisation, Xi Jinping is trying to present China as a responsible global power. Of course he bends and breaks the rules to suit himself and abuses human rights in his own country — particularly what has been described as genocide or ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims — but criticism of Xi by the West is tainted by its own hypocrisy.
Herbert Marcuse said that corporate capitalism makes individuals complicit in their own misery. They are trapped in a system that offers them happiness in return for their own obedience and conformity, and at the expense of others.
“The happiness of the ones must coexist with the suffering of others,” he wrote.
The answer, he said, was for people to “think free”; “they will not have redeemed the crimes against humanity, but will have become free to stop them”.
Rethinking Australia’s Covid vaccine rollout: beware a two-tier system. Part 1
For liberalism and democracy to survive, the West needs to confront its history — its assumptions of universalism, the dangers of exceptionalism, and its own moral and political failure.
In the meantime, Xi Jinping declares victory over poverty, doubles down on his tyranny and exports China’s growing power in a world that increasingly does not believe in the best of the West.
If China does usurp the Western global order, it won’t necessarily be because China is better — it will be because the West is tied to its worst.
This article was published by the ABC on the 28th of February, 2021.
Comments
37 responses to “China stands ready as the West fails its own test of moral leadership”
How did I not guess, without looking, that this was written, not by the “ABC” but rather by an individual ABC contributor, one of the ABC’s most predictable China commentators: Stan Grant?
Stan conflates what I see as his personal and abiding (and, in my mind, completely justified) anger at Australia’s racism at our apparent refusal to accept what he asserts as the ‘moral competitiveness’ of China v. “the West”.
He’s careful, he’s intelligent enough to not trip himself up with the details.
Stan commits two fundamental epistemological mistakes. The first is to posit that economic justice is as important as political justice. The second is to imply that China’s political leadership is at least as morally desirable as those of the West. He’s simply wrong – on each count.
Stan’s first mistake deprecates human dignity. In effect, Stan says that, if you bribe humans sufficiently, they will surrender their personal sacredness for their social utility. Humans are the merest subjects of the State. Their primary obligation is their citizenry – to maintain the values of the State in which they live as opposed to valuing themselves as individuals who are precious, delightful and contenting. To me, that is the residue – the essence – of ‘Communism’.
Stan’s second mistake is to obviate the constitutional importance of the decision of the Chinese Communist Party to enable Xi Jinping to remain ‘President for Life’. The closest parallel: Hitler in 1933. Given Stan’s prioritising of the greater importance of sociological factors over and above individuatable factors, Stan contradicts himself! I cannot believe that a person as intelligent, sensitive and astute as Stan Grant – a latter-day Professor, no less – is advocating that dictatorship is preferable to democracy. But that is what I have recently and consistently reading him to be implying – if not outrightly saying.
Stan Grant needs to be interviewed by Waleed Ali and Scott Stevens on ABC RN’s “The Minefield”. He will find himself trumped, intellectually and philosophically pummelled and deeply critiqued if he were foolish enough to accept their invitation.
This report from the ABC is deeply unsatisfying. While acknowledging the Chinese miracle, it maintains a relentless resentment, claiming in the end it is not Chinese virtue that is the cause of its success , but the failure of the west to maintain ‘democratic’ mores. I have issues with both propositions, but I wont go into them at this time. Instead, I’d like to point out that while we in the west argy bargy back and forth about the truth or otherwise of the anti-Chinese propaganda in our media, the Chinese government itself knows the truth about these things, and has accordingly formed its impressions about who we are and what we are doing. Beijing has been quite up front about it’s objections to rampant sinophobia in our media, and the government’s support, both economic and ideological, for the malign output coming from ASPI. It’s one of the reasons the Chinese government wont talk to us.
It is easy to read Stan Grant’s article and pick out the MSM-mandatory anti-China phrases and qualifications; but more constructive to digest the many ‘unthinkables/unmentionables’ that are clearly set down in black and white on the ABC news site. Such a departure from the usual ASPI and Clive Hamilton (see 4 Corners of 1/3/21) contributions. Here are some of the clear-eyed observations of our present global predicament –by a journalist with a substantial global CV:
“China’s poverty reduction is remarkable.
Keeping faith with the poor is critical; it is the source of the Party’s legitimacy.
Democracy is on the back foot. It has been declining globally for more than a decade. ……… Growing inequality, corruption and the monopolisation of power by a “rich-get-richer” self-serving elite have revealed democracy to be a sham.
…… the United States – a country devastated by COVID-19, racially divided, opioid-addicted, ravaged by gun crime, with a seething, disenfranchised underclass, and reeling from the Trump years – …..
Just 20 per cent of the world’s population has dominated the global political order: it has done so by colonising and dispossessing other peoples, exporting its own tyranny and, yes, making the world richer.
What leaders like US President Joe Biden offer is just more empty talk of unity and hope. It belies reality and the people no longer believe it.
While the West throws away food as others go hungry, it is also hoarding vaccine for the other world crisis: Covid-19.
China is now exporting its vaccine to 27 countries: overwhelmingly developing nations. It represents a soft-power coup for Xi, extending China’s influence, but it is also doing something good for the world.
If the China does usurp the Western global order …….. it will be because the West is tied to its worst .”
Modest editing could have improved this article by 100% – but would it then have passed the gate-keepers?
I commend your comment. I had been wondering much the same.
Great points Colin. Western Civilization is facing a moment of truth. The civilization we confront today, the Chinese civilization has been intact since the time of the Ancient Egyptians. Same language; written and spoken. China has been humiliated by incursions of many barbarians from the north, south and from the west, Having survived for some 4000 years, never again will it be humiliated! We must accept that our civilization, western civilization is aggressive, Aggressive to our fellow man and greedy in the use of the earth’s resources. These resources belong to all, not just the rich and powerful..
My advice to my grandchildren is to learn mandarin, be respectful to all your fellow citizens and care for our planet. It belongs to all, not just a privileged few! .
Thanks for the comment, and good points.
I’m a little surprised by the negative comments (in P&I) to this article. Perhaps because I’ve been so conditioned to expect Sinophibia from the ABC, that any relatively more balanced article is gratefully welcomed! (Ha ha.)
It’s very hard for any of us to overcome our prior prejudices, so good on the author of this article (Stan?) for thinking independently and scrutinising existing prejudices.
Thanks Kien – I share your surprise. Were the any comments about the 4Corners program of the preceding Monday? I ask because I had read Stan Grant’s article on the ABC News article earlier and it seemed to be timed and aimed to be a lead in to the TV program – so I was looking forward to a stimulating program. I was however disappointed for it lacked Stan’s breadth and ‘heresies’ comprising mostly of speakers from the extremities – Clive Hamilton and a Chinese Professor and close admirer of Xi (whose name I did not record, unfortunately.) That was much like the standard fare that we are fed by the MSM – and worthy of many criticisms by P&I readers.
I find this article full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. For one, it says, “… for a country that cannot feed itself….” China has always been able to feed itself. The one time that it was not able to feed itself was during the Great Leap Forward when Mao’s attempt to accelerate industrialisation of China failed. They neglected their agriculture in favour of for small scale industrial production as a way to industrialisation. Many people starved and died (that must be the 40 million people referred to above). Even then, Chinese people did not put their hands out to the rest of the world for aid. Most times when things were bad, they put up with less or even very little. Many individuals did write to their relatives living overseas for help (something that I can personally attest to). The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s mistake and they paid for it. This should not lead to the sweeping statement that the Chinese could not feed themselves.
The other thing that surprises me is that for an articles that reeks of right-wing points of view, the author chooses to quote Herbert Marcus. Herbert Marcus was a member of the Frankfurt School of thought which gave rise to “Critical Theory”, a left wing concept very popular among academics in the 80s and 90s and perhaps even today. The article is confusing in that it gives grudging credit to what is undeniable while seeking desperately to criticise. One of the easiest way to be unfairly critical is to be speculative about intent. For example, giving a gift to someone who needs it can be seen as generosity or a bribe. Stan Grant, if he is indeed the author, chooses to see it, and sell it, as a bribe.
Over the past 2,000 years, China has suffered almost one famine every year. The 1927 famine
killed as many as 6 million people. There were significant famines in 1929,
1939, and 1942. The 40 million figure is absurdly high and is not based on the latest data of what was terrible event in China’s history. The 1958-61 event was the last famine in China’s tragic history.
The piece, as many including myself have observed, is a strange mixture of fact and fiction. But Stan is a man speaking from within the belly of the beast, and he is one of the very few journalists who persistently makes positive comments about China, even though these are always couched inside the propaganda narrative. This has always bothered me, but a comment earlier in this now long thread, suggests that Stan has to include the negative in order to be allowed to include the positive. And I have to acknowledge that in my experience of him, the positives have always outnumbered the negatives. Which has always felt strange. And from his possie in the ABC, it may be the only way we get to hear his voice. I have friends entrenched in the ABC, and they are rabidly anti-Putin and anti-Xi, and enthusiastic about it to boot. So, Stan may be being braver than you think, and what looks like moral cowardice to you or to me, may look more like strategic craft from where he is.
Thanks Paul for pointing out the incidences of famine. I found the statement that the Chinese cannot feed themselves offensive. It is like saying that they can’t even take care of themselves. Perhaps I should have said that barring natural disasters and war, they took care of themselves.
I think that should read “try to deny that Marcuse was right”.
Even if we were not witnessing the decline of democratic values and trust in public institutions the West would still be mired in increasing inequality. Democracy, as John Dewey argued, is dependent on an educated electorate. It takes good reason, highly valued, to see through the undemocratic interest service of main stream media and unrestrained capital.
One of the ironies of China’s rise is that so many Western corporations grew fatter once they moved so much of their production to China.
India is a country with cheap labour and where US multinationals invest. In 1980 India and China’s GDP were about the same. Today PRC has a GDP five times that of India. So the explanation for PRC spectacular growth and elimination of poverty is not investment by multinationals. Its is China’s socialist system and leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. A conclusion not allowed on the Australian state broadcaster. Instead we have Marcuse dished up.
When did the ABC becomes an echo chamber for the Murdoch press? This article is is a cunningly layered sandwich, one layer on a light critixcsm of teh democracy, the next layer a dominizing account of Xi; continues on for a few layers. It showed a lack of working knowledge of Xi and his CCP. ABC should give up this propanganda role and broadcast more shows from former PM Kevin Rudd, who possess a more deeper and profound understanding of the Chinese socialist system and President Xi. Only through an understanding of the politics of China can we gauge how to approach them with pragmatism and diplomacy. From Kevin Kevin’s video in youtube, I learned how Xi reasons for maintaining power and long term plans for Chinese economy where there is still a tug of war between private enterprise and government enterprise, the expansion of domestic markets to stabilise the economy. When Kevin presents his findings, any critism of the Chinese government is no longer propaganda but facts.
Strategies dealing with China based on created scenarios may win votes at home, but it does not help to get to know the Chinese government or her actions. In the end, we fool our people and ourselves.
Rudd is a product of our (rotten) political system: one in which people cover up their own failures by lashing out at others; one in which people are afraid to diverge too far from popular opinion, no matter how wrong it is, because personal status and popularity are bound permanently together. Rudd is well educated on China, but not the kind of person who tells it as it is, if doing so threatens his career prospects. I have no doubt that there are more people telling it as it is behind the closed doors of Chinese Communist Party meetings than there are in the West. I see no other explanation for China’s success and our failure.
Unlike say Bob Hawke or George H Bush, Kevin Rudd failed to evolve as an ‘old friend of China’. Rudd’s command of the Chinese language is very impressive, so is his knowledge of Chinese history.
But it takes more than knowledge or language to establish a good relationship with China. He was never warmly received by Chinese leaders when he was the PM of Australia.
https://chinachannel.org/2018/04/27/zhengyou/
Kevin is labouring under the misapprehension that markets are inherently capitalist. He has never grasped the concept of market socialism. He lacks humility to learn from the Chinese communists. He regards them like a biologist would study a dangerous strange species. No wonder they didnt like him.
You seem to well understand Skilts that Stan is one of “our” ABC’s leading guiding Sinophobes – perhaps not at the most extreme end (eg Senator Abetz, Professor Hamilton?), but a Sinophobe nonetheless.
Perhaps Stan, as an indigenous person, also needs to establish his cred amongst the movers and shakers of the establishment who are by default these days rabid anti-China operatives. Otherwise it’s hard to understand why Stan, who was based in Asia for a few years, can’t see through the blatant lies about Xinjiang.
Sinophobe Lite.
A fair and very apt descriptor Skilts.
With all due respect Stan, much of what you say is still driven by views of China (and CCP) seen through the Western lens only, although you are correct about the dismal state of democracy which cannot be separated from predatory capitalism, greed and corruption. I also agree about China’s willingness to help third word and developing nations win-win. Often touted by the West as debt trap diplomacy with no evidence, it is nothing like the World Bank and IMF have been up to for years.
No other country understands what this takes in terms of poorer country development because China actually succeeded in doing it itself. While the West responds by trying to stifle China’s economic rise and use ‘yellow peril” and ongoing vilification to get there, they are just rubbing salt in the wounds of every poorer country out there in the world that is aware of its past experience of Western colonialist-imperialist exploitation. The tables are turning, and I cannot blame them for it. It is not the first time in the world China becomes the world’s largest economy, like India did too – it used to be the richest country in the world pre-Western imperialism. But China has recovered far better than India ever could. It’s still playing the white man’s game too.
I’m surprised you fall for the genocide line on Xinjiang, Pompeo is not a man to be believed and neither is the source of such exaggerated twaddle who is nothing but a right wing religious nutter called Adrian Zenz. They seek to get rid of China because all Chinese are non-Christian sinners. That’s what they believe, I kid you not. Even the US State Department ruled it was not genocide, but that didn’t deter Trump or Pompeo spreading the usual “we lie, we cheat, we steal”. (Pompeo’s own words about the CIA)
These belligerent clowns know full well that the US’s Rand Corporation told them that the US needs 10 years to equip itself to win a war against China, if it wanted to even have a chance to win a war. But they don’t care, it’s all part of the Rapture and American exceptionalism fantasy.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-genocide-relied-on-fraudulent-far-right-researcher/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/
America’s ability to defend itself? Well worth listening to the discussion linked below given our big-mouthed prime minister, who doubles as an American carpet ready to be walked on at their whim.
http://untoldpacific.com/the-1-focus-of-the-u-s-national-security-state-is-war-with-china/
There’s a standing invitation from China to the EU for them to visit Xinjiang to see the situation for themselves. This invite was repeated in recent days from the Chinese Foreign Affairs people.
The EU and/or America are just too scared that they may get to see the truth! Similar to the coronavirus investigation- the truth was too much for the State Department to stomach.
Meanwhile the UK government continues its anti-Russia dirty work using the BBC & Reuters & Bellingcat, etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQthwrWhqI
Even the earlier UN Report was done without a visit to the region. If they are going to make all sorts of politically motivated claims, they should at least go and see for themselves. The UK has had hundred of years of promoting racist sentiments over both China and Russia, they are world leaders on that. They were even at it more than a hundred years before communism came to Russia or China. Marx wasn’t even born and they were at it. All part of the cover up of their own actions and prejudices. Of course the US has joined in with the only way it knows how and that is to bomb first and ask questions later.
Adrian Zenz’ recent claim is that there are 1000 of these ‘concentration’ camps in Xinjiang Province. One might imagine with that number they would be easy to find, and be obvious on the landscape. I have watched and read at least a dozen reports from various tourists who have gone to Xinjiang and been able to find none. This story sounds increasingly like the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was hiding from the west, although none of the inspectors were able to find any. Of course, as we all know, the US declared war on Iraq despite having no real grounds for doing so. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and the the US has not apologised to anyone, neither the Iraqis nor the allies who followed them into Iraq.
Thanks for the Porter link. Ripper mate.
Stan is an establishment/corporate tool and will only write what he knows will keep him employed by said actors!
Nonsense. If its brutal authoritarians you want, look for a nation whose leaders have the sole power to:
* Declare war. Frequently.
* Issue 300,000 national security letters (administrative subpoenas with gag orders that enjoin recipients from ever divulging they’ve been served);
* Control information at all times under his National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.
* Torture, kidnap and kill anyone, anywhere, at will.
* Secretly ban 50,000 citizens from flying–and refusing to explain why.
* Imprison 2,000,000 citizens without trial.
* Execute 1,000 citizens each year prior to arrest.
* Kill 1,000 foreign civilians every day since 1951
* Massacre its own men, women and children for their beliefs
* Assassinate its own citizens abroad, for their beliefs.
* Bomb (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/mar/02/duncancampbell) and kill minority citizens from the air. Repeatedly
That’s not Xi.
Stan Grant where to start? 40 million dead, vaccine diplomacy, Xi running the joint. But his biggest crime is resurrecting Marcuse. Stan managed to write a piece on the achievements of the PRC without mentioning socialism. Still it’s the ABC.
So is the takeaway line socialism bad, captitalism good? And the ABC should always sing from the captalist songsheet?
With full respect to you Chek Ling, I think Skilts means the opposite to what you are interpreting he is saying. He’s just being satirical about the ABC’s position here so it is easy to confuse, but it is in a similar way to how I say that Grant is falling for some of the Western-eyed nonsense on these matters.
Cheers George.
No worries, I have read enough of your comments to know where you stand. So I realised it was just a misunderstanding.
Thanks Geroge.
Thanks for taking it so well. I cannot hope for more than helping to bring people together here. Especially if it is just over misunderstanding which is where most things go wrong.
Sorry Chek i was unclear. In my defense i am just getting tired of the garbage dished up in the MSM about the PRC. I am also disgusted by the siniohobia and racism i encounter every day. Australia i regard as a disgraceful satellite of the US. I will take your down vote on the chin mate as a penalty for a lazy unclear post.
Thanks Skilts. Hope I do not miss the irony in future. sorry about the mark down. My tin ear.