America’s global standing is in decline, on the back of its single-minded pursuit of military might and consistent flouting of the rules-based order it helped create. Anti-China enthusiasts in Australia also need to view China’s record in a historical context.
There is excessive anti-China rhetoric currently in Australia and possibly insufficient realism about the mixed legacy of the United States or the dangerous situation in which current US anti-China policy places Australia. As Peter Hartcher, international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote recently: “The American ‘beacon on the hill’ is growing dim. Australia needs to light its own way.”
In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt’s America led the world in establishing the institutions that constitute what we know as the “rules-based order”. The first principle of the new order was respect for the sovereignty of individual nations.
The post-war period was supposed to be the dawn of a new age, led by a generous and prosperous America. The global leadership of the United States was unrivalled and paramount. The UN Charter was clear. Unilateral resort to war and armed intervention in sovereign countries were replaced by collective decision-making in the Security Council on behalf of all member states.
But within a few years of those heady days, the US took a different turn. It made a fateful choice to pursue global military supremacy – regardless of the limitations imposed by the rules-based order – and to sustain it long into the future.
Whether justified or not by the Cold War, the policy has now outlived its usefulness. America now deploys troops in more than 170 countries; its budget for defence and national security exceeds US$1 trillion; it spends more on defence than the next nine countries combined; it has approximately 800 overseas military bases and installations.
Successive presidents from Harry Truman onwards saw armed dominance as the only way the US could relate to the world, while paying lip service to the rules-based order – and conveniently ignoring it whenever the US deemed it necessary for its interests.
Hence the long list of interventions, wars and covert intercessions in the affairs of other sovereign nations. It started with the brazen interference in the Italian general elections of 1948, which makes anything done by Russia in the 2016 presidential election look half-hearted. The list goes on and includes Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile and many others, culminating most recently in the military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US is no longer generous and prosperous and has long since ceased to adhere to the rules. Thirty years before the South China Sea arbitration, Washington reacted to an unfavourable decision of the International Court of Justice in favour of Nicaragua by refusing to recognise the judgment and attempting to block its enforcement.
And when the court ruled in favour of a group of Mexican foreign nationals on death row, it withdrew from the protocol giving the court jurisdiction. A law professor quoted by The New York Times described it as a “sore-loser kind of move. If we can’t win, we’re not going to play”.
Washington reacted in the same way to a recent judgment obtained by Iran. And it has behaved similarly towards other collective organisations of the rules-based order, including the World Trade Organization, which it has sought to undermine by refusing to appoint appellate judges. In the dark words of US economist Jeffrey Sachs, the “United States is completing the move from post-war leader to 21st century rogue state”.
History provides a comparative yardstick. A century ago Great Britain went from being the world’s largest creditor nation at the beginning of World War I to being its largest debtor at the end of that conflict. In 1945, America was the world’s largest creditor nation and is now its largest debtor.
China has become the world’s largest creditor nation – and the only major power that has not gone to war in 40 years. Nor does China support proxy wars. In contrast, the US has been continuously at war in the same period. In the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency alone, the US dropped 26,000 bombs on seven countries.
Some anti-China enthusiasts seem to have a short memory. We may not like China’s bullying but it should not be forgotten that Britain was a bully in the 19th century and the US was a bully at the turn of the century and in the post-World-War-II era. And both supported their bullying with gunboats, troops and military interventions in sovereign countries, all of which modern China eschews.
Similarly, China’s treatment of Uygurs, Tibetans and Hongkongers may not conform to Western standards but these are complex internal issues within China. They have a long history and a unique context. Xinjiang and Tibet have been part of China since the Qing dynasty in the 18th century. And Hong Kong was occupied by British drug traders supported by the East India Company in 1839 and formally ceded to Britain in 1841.
George Kennan, the American intellectual architect of containment, once famously wrote about the dangers of morality and foreign policy. We should exercise restraint in condemning China in relation to its internal affairs, just as we exercise restraint in condemning the US for its systemic racism, its rampant inequality and its excessive gun violence.
Whatever one’s views of the ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s government has lifted many hundreds of millions of people out of poverty as part of the largest increase in human material welfare in history. And China contributes more to United Nations peacekeeping and counterterrorism than any other nation.
The greatest worry is that America’s “war” against China is being driven by a moral imperative, and that Australia is seen by Beijing to be uncritically allied to Washington’s moral crusade.
It should not be overlooked that the two most important members of the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice-President Mike Pence, are – as Jeffrey Sachs and others have pointed out – biblical literalists who believe that America’s task is to “fight God’s battles until the Rapture, when Christ’s born-again followers will be swept to Heaven at the Last Judgment”.
Australia – like other prudent countries in Asia – should keep its distance from Washington and demonstrate its own independence of national character.
Reprinted by permission from South China Morning Post.
Original story here.
Michael Pembroke is a former Supreme Court judge and the author of several books. His next is provisionally entitled SILK SILVER OPIUM – How China Shaped the World and the West Pushed Back.
Michael Pembroke’s latest book is PLAY BY THE RULES – The Short Story of America’s Leadership: From Hiroshima to COVID-19 (Hardie Grant, August 2020)
Comments
22 responses to “Why Australia must steer clear of America’s moral crusade against China (SCMP 28.10.20)”
I have never been to Tibet, but I have been to Xinjiang. To be fair, my visits to Xinjiang were both of six weeks, but in 1990 and 1992.
What I saw then was a major population shift of Han Chinese from elsewhere in China to Xinjiang using promise of work, housing, schools and a future to encourage this internal movement of people. That this migration was overwhelming the local Uighur residents and their then dominant culture cannot be denied. What also cannot be denied is that Xinjiang has been and is being developed. For example, during my visits a bus ride from Turpan to Kashgar took three days. Today it takes one day on a train, or so I have been told.
So there is that, and I can only assume this has continued.
In the news today we hear of re-education camps housing thousands of Uighurs. Whatever the truth of the size of these camps and of the conditions within them, China says it is combating local terrorist indoctrination, and this jibes with reports of Uighur terrorists being active in China and present in Syria and other places in the Middle East. China quite understandably has no wish to see those radicalized international terrorists return to China, nor to see this radicalization continue. This indoctrination is said to be being facilitated by radical Wahabi schools stemming from Saud Arabia. This also jibes with reports from other Islamic countries in the world.
So, there seem to be two issues here. China is changing the population base in Xinjiang, and China is attempting to halt the radicalization of the local Uighur population. I suggest both are internal issues for China to deal with, and that propagandistic screeching and beating on pots and pans in the international press will not change much.
To ensure peace on earth, one must not be too righteous about events that took place especially when there are controversies involved such as fake news, propaganda, and deliberate lies. It takes the wisdom of Solomon to tease facts from fiction. Unless some “atrocities’ are proven (& how it may be proven), then any negotiation for peace will be tangled up by lesser issues. “To err is human, to forgive is divine”. If there is a will to understand China, small insignificant issues can be put aside for further deliberations as later tier priority whilst the first is to avoid war, the second is to build meaningful and trusty relations, and finally, built economic prosperity for all. At the moment, the “sins” of the states are used to denigrate and demonize each other, and getting nowhere,.
I couldn’t agree more Anthony. The need to contain China and not appease China is a common thread in the narrative here in Australia. This is not 1939 as many try to assert. China has 1.3B people and as Michael points out these same people have seen their standards of living and opportunities for education soar over the past 20 years. China also, as Michael points out has not given us any indication of a desire to militarily attack or invade another country, whilst there is no doubt China has a strategy to rise in its economic power and stature internationally. Australia has an opportunity to be a respected voice for reason and coexistence, rather than an echo of voices from the USA deep state. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network is about to launch a national Inquiry into the need for us to develop Independent and Peace promoting policies and to examine the costs and consequences of the Alliance http://www.ipan.org.au
There’s much in this article to support. Certainly the case for Australia dealing with China from a more independent standpoint based on our interests is undeniable. And the points about China’s “bullying” being in line with other great powers in the past. No big power has a squeaky clean record in these matters. But where the article loses impact is its attempt to explain away China’s shocking record in Xinjiang and Tibet. To be sure, these are complex internal issues for a China but solving them by deracination policies aimed at destroying their cultures is indefensible. There’s not much other countries can do about it In the short term but let’s not delude ourselves that building a workable relationship with China means pretending that these atrocities are explainable in a historical context.
No one is pretending anything. We are calling for evidence of atrocities and what you assert is the “shocking” record in Tibet and Xinjiang. We are living in a post-weapons of mass destruction world. We have been here before.
Well, I haven’t been to Xinjiang but I have been to Tibet and seen at first hand what’s happened there and it’s not good. There’s enough evidence around to indicate that things in Xinjiang are no better.
So you support fuedalism? Presumably you are opposed to the French Revolution also.
I don’t support fuedalism, or feudalism for that matter. I’d like to comment further on your post but it is quite incomprehensible to me. What’s the French Revolution got to with it?
Sorry to be so subtle. The French Revolution was a violent overthrow of fuedalism. The National Constituent Assembly, on 4 August 1789, declared, “The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely” .No doubt they went too far. Tibet was a feudal society pre-1959 with around 98% of the population enslaved in serfdom. Nice touch on the typo though.
That really is drawing a long, long bow…making a connection between the French Revolution and China’s efforts to deracinate Tibet. The issue is not “fuedalism “ (yes, you do persist) but survival of, and respect for, a unique culture. Re the French Revolution, I’m sure you recall Premier Zhou Enlai’s (apocryphal) response, when asked by a foreign visitor what he thought of it, that it was too soon to tell. I think your referencing the French Revolution in this context shows that it’s still too early to make an assessment.
Apologies for misunderstanding your position. So by “unique culture” you mean beliefs that are viciously misogynist, belief in the perfectly rightfully Enlightened One, the Universal Monarch, the King of Gods and the King of Death. It might be too early to tell about the French Revolution but life is too short for debates with Buddhists and spell checks. All the best to you mate.
So, really it comes down to your anti-Buddhist attitude. Took us a while to get there, via the French Revolution and nonsense about “fuedalism”, but finally we made it!
So, really it comes down to your anti-Buddhist attitude. Took us a while to get there, via the French Revolution and nonsense about “fuedalism”, but finally we made it!
Yep. If you had made it clearer you were an adherent to a superstition that extracts money for heaven I wouldnt have bothered. Even without a spell check. Maybe in future you can begin your commentary with “Speaking as a Buddhist. . . “. Save everyones time.
Not just anti-Buddhist, but a bigot as well. Where do you stand on other religions?
I dont stand anywhere. Mate in future please declare your superstition in regard comments about Tibet. A bit like a health warning on a packet of fags. Saves those of us who are rational a lot of time. All the best to you in the Nirvana. I wont be there obviously.
You are right mate. I might come back as your cat. Please be kind.
Sir,
It stands to logic that a regime like China’s will not allow you to visit Tibet if things there are “not good”. You were probably there when things had improved but still “not good” by Western standards. The Tibetans, like the rest of the poorer Chinese people are being helped out of their poverty. The better comparison is to make a trip to India to see economic situation of the Tibetan community there. Again, this is like comparing apples and oranges because while one focuses on religion the other focuses on standard of living. I think visiting another country is not sufficient to derive an adequate conclusion about the place. It is at best a first impression. I have visited many parts of the world in my retirement but I am disinclined to pass any judgement on them.
Sincerely.
Teow Loon Ti
I have no doubt that Tibet’s material conditions have improved dramatically. Having lived in China at different times for 20 years, I certainly appreciate and commend what China has achieved in improving material lives throughout the country. But, in the case of Tibet, improving material conditions doesn’t mean you have to destroy a culture. The world is replete with examples of countries and regions that have combined economic growth with cultural preservation.
Basil,
Western MSM reports on China has far exceeded the breath and dimensions of WMD.
The “1 million Uyghurs” claim has been debunked by investigative journalists at the GrayZone. See link below. The source of the claim is doggy as.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/
Instead of speculating, have a listen to the eye-witness account of a British-Australian cyclist who has traveled through Xinjiang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NjDqbNNE3A
Will be great to hear your feedbacks after perusing these two link.
a little from column ‘watabout’, a little from column ‘relativism’
trying to choose the sweeter flavour of empire is an old error.
China’s treatment of Tibet? Overthrew fuedalism, liberated serfs from slavery and debt bondage and liberated women from the most vicious patriarchy in the world. In Xinjiang those oppressors of Islamic rights Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates wrote a statement supporting the PRC’s actions against islamic terrorism in Xinjiang. Maybe the dupes of the accusing nations (mostly the bombers of Iraq and Lybia) of the PRC should go to Marawi in Mindanao and discuss with the victims of US inspired islamic terrorism their views on the subject. Its time to take on this propaganda about Xinjiang.