By P Kharel
World’s largest and long-time ruling superpower hegemon, the United States finds its heart burn with envy and fury that China as the oldest existing communist country is firmly in the saddle as its sharpest and nearest rival, slowly but surely inching its way to emerging as the global leader in many spheres. Which means, Beijing is unmistakenly matching steady to clip Washington’s wings left and right, or, say, North and South.
Hegemons circulate a script greased by their propaganda machinery in all walks of life that civilisation is what they define and grade. “We the West the best” is a political diet fed for far too long, little realising that the mythical diet does not drive societies far. Sooner or later, it is bound to get stale and exposed. In fact, even what might be genuinely and spontaneously accepted as congenial for a given span of time must give way to something else for good or bad. Reality is that how the world goes around. History shows us how big power players of a given time lose their colour and credibility when they refuse to change, adapt or adjust competing ideas and persistent popular demands.
CHINA CASE: Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff called Donald Trump a fascist to the core. Trump’s handbag carriers in the US or in foreign missions might seethe with anger if such remarks came from lesser people elsewhere or, say, Nepal. Thin-skinned to the core, they betray a narrow perception that misguides them to become lackeys and sidekicks instead of intelligent folks with sharp and independent minds.
A survey conducted recently revealed that Latin Americans perceive China more positively than they do with the United States. The communist country China is perceived more positively as a global influence than the United States in Latin America. The Chile-based Latinobarometro survey indicated that 65 per cent of respondents in 17 countries saw China’s influence as positive as against 57 percent who gave positive views to US.
Drugs killings and anti-migrants’ measures that the Trump administration has applied with vigour could have contributed to the declining support for the US. China does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries. This contrasts sharply with the US policy of issuing directives to other governments, engineering military coups against governments that do not toe Washington’s directives.
Beijing’s principal priority is to engage in business deals, and it refrains from any activity that might be construed as interference in the international matters of other sovereign countries, big or small, rich or developing.
That has included conducting strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the region, which rights groups have decried as extrajudicial killings, and abducting Venezuela’s then-leader Nicolas Maduro in Brazil. US President Donald Trump’s roguish behaviour with foreign leaders together with his administration’s rough dealings with even traditional allies in Europe have provided compelling lessons to the international community on creating alternatives in terms of markets, supply chains and security.
EUROPE’S SEARCH: Europe’s overdependence on the superpower has exposed before the eyes of the world their vulnerability, even as Trump supporters hail his views as “Donroe Doctrine”, which in effect is neither here nor there.
First Germany’s four-time former Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the alarm that Europe risked being exposed to serious vulnerability is it did not make brisk efforts at revamping security arrangements and alternative avenues for reliable investment opportunities, fair trade deals and cooperation for mutual benefits.
Merkel’s statement is interpreted as shedding inhibitions previously shared with the US about independent initiatives in and from the likes of China and Russia for long-term reliability. Indeed, Communist China has made several key breakthroughs in space technology, infrastructure building, foreign investments and trade expansion in the last two decades. The latest acknowledgements originating in the US positions it as the world No. 1 in technological development.
Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar the other fortnight acknowledged “the rise of China” and said, “The US has deliberately become a lonelier power.” The irony of his remark is that India finds itself lonelier than any other time since independence in 1947. All its neighbours are cool, or technically formal, less receptive or even distrustful of the world’s “largest democracy”.
INDIA OUT OF BREATH: India has missed the boat far too often and long to successfully win the neighbouring countries’ trust. It complains about the domineering attitude of Western powers, oblivious of its reputation in its neoghbourhood and nearby, including Myanmar.
Within a generation, Chinese culture and language will assume global celebrity status. To Trump goes the lion’s share of credit for hastening the process of positive China watch instead of the China worry rants that rent the Western air so thickly and loudly. It was a stupendous blunder not to weigh the consequences. The price of chronic complacency blinded the top-level powers of the richest type from seeing the emerging trend beckoning a new order.
The ever-rotating wheel of change does not stop bypassing and treating is absurd—trying to put the clock backwards. By now it must be realising the call for putting into practice what Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now in his third consecutive term, said when he was first sworn in office 12 years ago: “Neighbourhood first.”
The world’s most-populous multiparty democracy, India was never regionally isolated as it has been now. Modi should summon stamina to understand the gravity of the existing ground reality and its implications for the future. He still holds the option for course correction and shoring up the country’s international standing. For no country can earn global respect without mending fences nearer home.
Login to add a comment