International Politics
China Is Most Certainly a Threat to World Peace
A Response to Caitlin Johnstone
The documentary “The Coming War on China” by John Pilger was recommended to me by Caitlin Johnstone as a source that provides evidence for her stance that the US is trying to absorb the remaining nations not yet under its hegemony and establish an imperial world order (Check out Johnstone’s articles for more details on this).
Well, I watched the documentary, and while it does have a similar claim, I could only identify one piece of evidence it used to support its claim in the nearly two-hour run-time.
It was an interesting documentary; I learned some history that I hadn’t known about before, but it isn’t what I’d call compelling. So, in order to spare others from watching it with the same expectations I had, I thought I’d share the notes I took on it.
First, here is Pilger’s thesis statement:
“The aim of this film is to break a silence: the United States and China may well be on a path to war, and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable. In a few years China has become the world’s second-biggest economic power. The United States is the world’s biggest military power, with bases and missiles and ships covering every continent, every ocean. China is a threat to this dominance, says Washington. But who is the threat? This film is about shifting power, and great danger. It’s also a film about the human spirit, and the rise of an extraordinary resistance among people on the front line of a coming war where the words “never again” have an urgent meaning for all of us.”
From this, one would expect his documentary to provide evidence and analysis for the claim that the US and China are dangerously close to war, and perhaps also to talk about reasons for this situation. It doesn’t.
This is what it does focus on:
Bikini island bomb test
- Purposeful human tests?
- Project 4.1
Marshall islands mistreatment
Discrimination against Chinese people
- Chinese exclusion act
Opium money
- Western countries taking over Chinese cities
- Boxer rebellion
When Mau takes power, the westerners leave
- Mau being an enemy of the Capitalist West is a lie
- Mau’s pro-Capitalist and pro-America note before his revolution
- He wanted to meet with American presidents
New China has lifted its citizens out of poverty
- New Capitalism
- More rich people
But the income gap is still wide
- Poverty and mistreatment of migrant workers
Women discriminated against in the workplace
Tiananmen square massacre
Lack of freedom of expression
- Liu Xiaobo
- In prison for advocating democratic governance
Lots of protests recently
- For gov seizure of land
- More economic-based rather than political
US bases in Okinawa
- Facing protests from the people
- New governor won election on the issue of preventing a new base
- Issue went to Japanese courts
- Safety issues with American planes
Missiles on Okinawa were aimed at China during the Cold War
- Almost fired nukes at China during the Cuban missile crisis
- Major who gave the false order was court-martialed
South Korean navy built a military base for the US navy
- Protests there too
Lots of military bases mean the US is an empire
- 4000 in the US
- Almost 1000 around the world
- Maintained by independent states
- Don’t have autonomy over their foreign policy
Lilypad bases
- Small, secretive bases
- Supposedly set up to combat China’s economic influence
Obama raised nuclear spendingNow, none of this is really evidence that the US and China are on the path to war. It certainly isn’t evidence that the US is the one starting this war. And I can’t possibly conceive how this can be interpreted as evidence that the US is trying to take over the world. This is just a rambling history documentary.
The one piece of evidence I mentioned this documentary did use is a map of the many American military bases near China. Pilger analyses this to conclude that China is under threat from the US, which is an expansionary empire.
However, I don’t think this analysis holds up as US bases around the world have been built up over the past century in response to threats like the World Wars and the Cold War. They’ve also been used to subdue belligerent nations, protect allies, and gather intelligence.
China is only special to the extent that it poses a threat to the US, our allies, and world peace. Let’s imagine China was a liberal democracy; the military bases wouldn’t look like a threat anymore would they?
A counter-claim to my analysis that both Johnstone and the documentary present is that China isn’t a threat to the US, our allies, or world peace. Eric Li, a Chinese entrepreneur and social scientist, says this in an interview in the documentary:
“One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world, and it’s not. First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid. The West, with its Christian roots, are about converting other people into their beliefs. The Chinese are not about that. It’s just that — again, I’m not degrading the western culture, I’m just pointing out the inherent nature, the DNA of two different cultures. The Chinese, two thousand years ago, built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.”
While that’s a cool sounding line at the end, I don’t think one decision made two thousand years ago defines Chinese policy today.
As for the second point, that the Chinese aren’t interested in converting other people to their beliefs, I would urge everyone to look into the re-education/concentration camps the Chinese government run for a million Muslims. I would urge everyone to look into the dystopian social-credit system the Chinese government has implemented to ensure their citizens behave exactly how they want them to. And I would urge everyone to look into how the Chinese government is oppressing Hong Kong and Tibet for not falling in line.
The initial point may or may not be true. I don’t think China’s territorial disputes with Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India necessarily prove it is trying to rule the world, but they do prove, like previous examples, that China can be a threat.
All this is to say that the notion that the US is trying to start a war with China for world dominance gets the whole thing backward; the US might go to war if China tries to spread its evil policies, but defending against evil is not warmongering, and it isn’t wrong.
I, like everyone on earth, recognize that the US and China fighting could lead to the end of humanity. No one, on either side, wants war. But our options aren’t just war or appeasement; there’s lots of space in between, and condemning China falls in that region, so I’m going to keep doing it, and I hope the rest of the free world will too.
More on similar topics:
…War should be avoided as much as possible, and to do that, sometimes smaller military actions, which are not war, are needed…
…global politics is a power struggle between groups with unique ideologies trying to grow support for their beliefs…
…I don’t think we can keep saying we support freedom throughout the world when we allow China to sit on the Human Rights Council…
