(LifeSiteNews) — Last week the Chinese government published a series of papers which signal an abrupt break with the global world order. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has enjoyed a period of unchallenged worldwide supremacy, which was assumed by some to herald the final and permanent victory of consumer liberal democracy. With these statements the Chinese have made clear that they are no longer interested in playing a bit part in this Great Game.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China published several communiques that can be summarized as the replacement of the unipolar hyperpower status of the USA with a multipolar global system.
Ranging from the war in Ukraine to the U.S. domestic economy, the documents not only condemn the actions of the United States government but also represent an alternative vision of law and trade in a reimagined world.
Perhaps the most striking among them is U.S. Hegemony and its Perils, whose introduction is a resounding indictment of U.S. foreign policy:
As former US. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world.
The paper is not limited to name calling. It is intended moreover as a critique of U.S. power in practice.
…the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
This claim is difficult to contradict when the doctrine of “Liberal interventionism” is openly celebrated as the crowning virtue of the West. Whilst the Chinese are not noted for their democratic norms, it is untenable to maintain the West enjoys an unquestionable moral superiority, as it dismantles basic liberties in the pursuit of a total surveillance state.
The practices of the USA and its allies abroad do not match the rhetoric of a “rules based order.” The Chinese contend that the United States does not respect the rule of law, but instead imposes its will by force.
The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law.
The championing of democracy itself is denounced as a strategy which the Chinese claim is a form of divide and rule:
The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation.
“Democracy” is routinely invoked as the case for war with Russia in Ukraine. Yet it is difficult to defend the argument for escalation when neither Ukraine nor the United States itself have a democratic mandate for hostilities. Nor has there been any resolution from the United Nations Security Council to legitimize such actions. No one voted for the war, and no one voted for their money to be poured into the corrupt black hole of Zelensky’s undemocratic regime.
U.S. foreign policy is no longer troubled by such concerns. In a damning appraisal, the Chinese describe the global effects of U.S. economic policy as plunder.
The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price.
The Chinese are claiming that U.S. economic power is effectively firepower – a means to weaken nations through the dollar-based system.
America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon…
The Chinese regard the U.S. policy of sanctions as a perfidy whose power is receding.
So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. ‘The United States of America’ has turned itself into ‘the United States of Sanctions.’
The map above shows the shrinking of the “global community” – an imaginary entity whose name is invoked in support of U.S. policies such as the sanctions on Russia. This “global community” has shrunk to include only Europe and the Anglosphere with the United States.
There are more countries outside the “global community” than within it. Chinese rhetoric aside, this image tells its own story of the end of U.S. unipolarity. It is a hegemony which began with the promise of rising prosperity, in the Great Moderation promoted by Reagan and Thatcher.
Does the United States still treat its friends like this? It has recently blown up Germany’s main gas pipelines and its sanctions have brought economic stagnation and rising inflation to a rapidly deindustrializing Europe.
How then does the United States treat its state level friends? The Chinese are experts in the field of biometric monitoring and their social credit system presents a terrifying model of technocratic tyranny. It is remarkable that such a state can point to the monitoring of national leaders as an example of the U.S. state’s indifference to sovereignty, privacy and liberty.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as ‘Prism,’ ‘Dirtbox,’ ‘Irritant Horn’ and ‘Telescreen Operation’ are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage.
The passage ends with a mention of a man whose life has been ruined for publishing facts such as these.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said that ‘do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.’
We now live in a time when the Chinese government criticizes the United States for its suppression of free speech and for the interference of state intelligence agents in the media.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the US. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
The Chinese are no innocents themselves, yet their noting of the capture of the Western media by the U.S. National Security State is an unanswerable charge. The fact that the Twitter Files which detail this is not news shows the evident absence of a free press.
This most explosive document concludes with a verdict on the United States government as an international bully. It is difficult to gainsay, given the recklessness shown by the current administration in their relentless promotion of war.
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm.
The Chinese have made their position clear. This is a statement which deserves a far wider audience than that granted by a press dominated by the agents of the U.S. war faction. It signifies an epochal change in world affairs, being a line drawn in the sand by the Chinese and the nations it is drawing into its orbit. The United States will remain an incredibly powerful nation, but it is no longer the only game in town. This is not the New World Order the masters of the future had in mind, and it is one they are, at present, simply refusing to recognize.