Response to Liu Chang Xinhua News’ Call to ‘De-Americanize’ World

(Credit: Stan Honda AFP/Getty Images)

In a scathing editorial for China’s official state-run news agency Xinhua News, Liu Chang raised some American eyebrows calling for “a de-Americanized world.” Many will find it somewhat extraordinary that a libertarian-leaning, semi-neoisolationist with loyalties to realism would be so quick to defend interventionist U.S. policy, I am sure. But my grievances surrounding a flawed U.S. foreign policy, unlike China’s international hypocrisy, can be reconciled.

Chang and Xinhua News have moved far beyond the typical, run of the mill propaganda western journalists have come to expect from state-run news agencies, such as Xinhua.

First, let’s remember that no editorial or even so-called “hard news” piece is published by Xinhua without an explicit or implicit blessing from the ruling Communist Party of China. Second, particularly with controversial foreign policy editorials, there is always an unseen motive, because for the Chinese waishi wu xiaoshi, which roughly translated means for the Chinese “no foreign affairs are trivial.”

With these two considerations in mind, everything the Chinese say and do should be weighed with the understanding that — in some shape or form — it is aimed at furthering China’s ultimate goal, which is nothing short of regional hegemony.

Moving on to the actual substance, unlike Chang himself, one who is not constrained by their limited access to information outside of a state-run filter could have a field day correcting his twisted interpretation of history. In one such example, Change wrote:

Emerging from the bloodshed of the Second World War as the world’s most powerful nation, the United States has since then been trying to build a global empire by imposing a postwar world order, fueling recovery in Europe, and encouraging regime-change in nations that it deems hardly Washington-friendly.

With its seemingly unrivaled economic and military might, the United States has declared that it has vital national interests to protect in nearly every corner of the globe, and been habituated to meddling in the business of other countries and regions far away from its shores.

I especially chuckled at his attempt to appeal to Chinese nationalism, using the descriptive adjective “seemingly” for the purpose of implying China has the military and economic power to rival the United States. To outside observers, it is clear that nationalism is one of the Communist Party’s favored means of solidifying regime legitimacy.

On China’s economic power, while they have no doubt experienced tremendous economic growth that threatens to one day surpass U.S. GDP, the fundamentals of China’s economy are still very much lacking. China is a prime example of the phony promise of collectivism in any form, with a wealth gap that would give an American liberal an instant aneurism.

While economic progress in China has been something to write home to Mom about, the Communist Party has failed to institute reforms that would give widespread economic opportunity. At this point, nationalism, or even hyper nationalism, is just about the only tool save propaganda like Xinhua that the Communist Party can still rely upon.

But Chang’s interpretation of post-World War II events is flat-out ignorant. Although I personally would like to see a systematic rollback of the liberal internationalist agenda, it is dishonest to ignore pre-World War II events as an explanation for America’s expanding global role. The United States began to see their role as a keeper of global order only after the world — not once, but twice — demonstrated their inability to keep their own houses. In fact, had it not been for the United States’ intervention in the Second World War, China would not be where they are today.

Many members of China’s old-guard have yet to forgive their longtime adversary — Japan — for their aggression centuries before and between the world wars. Consequently, Liu Chang should be thanking the United States for saving their then-dysfunctional country, from falling to Japanese invaders.

The Liu Chang Xinhua editorial was an attempt at provoking two separate responses, from which the Chinese can ascertain what the best course for them moving forward will be. It would be a heavy lift to gain global favor for replacing America as the dominant stabilizing power, but as far as the Chinese are concerned qian li zhi xing shi yu jiao xia or, “a thousand-mile journey is started by taking the first step.”

Indeed, not only did the Chinese already take that first step, but they have been trotting along at a steady pace for quite some time. China is spearheading a global movement seeking to bypass trading in U.S. dollars between China and other nations, including U.S. allies, such as Australia and Obama’s buddies in Brazil. A government report, titled “Australia in the Asian Century,” discusses efforts to establish direct trading between the Australian dollar and the Chinese renminbi, also referred to as the yuan. It also pushes for increasing the prominence of China’s RMB as a global reserve currency.

Liu Chang is simply a pawn, being pushed forward on the chess board by the CPC in their effort to establish regional hegemony, and this hack piece was meant to gauge sentiment abroad before phase II, which brings us to the editorial’s next intention. As he sought to appeal to Chinese nationalism and measure sentiment abroad, so too is the editorial meant to appeal to American nationalism for the purpose of measuring pro and anti-nationalist sentiment.

If Americans were being honest with themselves, then they would openly recognize the very real and very dangerous existence of an anti-American presence coming from the political left, whom the Chinese view as potential “useful idiots” to be played using every one of the applicable Chinese stratagems.

For all of the anti-American talk from Liu Chang, the anti-American left and others who would be satisfied with China’s status as a regional hegemon, we have yet to be convinced any country would or could do any better. Chang claimed that rather than “honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status,” and that the “alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing.”

This is nothing but a good old fashion load of crap. Liu Chang goes on to talk about the need for the United Nations to play a dominant role, which “means no one has the right to wage any form of military action against others without a UN mandate.”

If Chang and China want the world to take them seriously, then they should focus more on the lack of reverence China has for a U.N. mandate before they provocatively fire over the Sino-Indian border; or, before they fire on a weaker filipino power over disputed islands; or, his own hypocrisy for ignoring the “basic principles of the international law” he claims to hold in such high regard, while his nation attacks a dozen Asian neighbors over control of an area the international law of the seas deemed outside China’s sovereign borders.

There is something terribly “hypocritical” about those who actually view themselves to be at the center of the universe eagerly criticizing American arrogance. The country who brought us the massacre at Tiananmen Square and now lectures us over drone strikes on citizens-turned-domestic terrorists is also known by its own people as Zhongguo, which literally translates to “middle kingdom” or the “center of the world.” But unlike America, for thousands of years China has not been the center of anything free, prosperous or liberating.

The anti-American arguments from proponents of the red-rising China, depicting America as a “hypocritical,” interest-driven power, conveniently omit the framework of a world with a dominate China. America is not a perfect superpower and, to be sure, even this American would like to see America focus less on foreign people who cannot govern themselves in an orderly fashion. However, at the very least, we know what an Americanized world looks like already, and it is one in which I am free to dissent from what I believe to be the wrong policy.

The same, however, cannot be said for China. If I had to pick between two opposing policies, then I would choose drone strikes on al-Awlaki over Tibetan oppression; Iraqi democratization over African imperialism; bans on late-term abortion over the state-mandated execution of babies based on sex; and, to be sure, I would rather have to beat crony progressives in a messaging war, rather than fight the almost impossible odds placed on me through economic restrictions by a government preaching a false ideology.

Perhaps, Liu Chang and Xinhua should clean their own dirty laundry before trying to air out America’s. If they need it, we can send them detergent that hasn’t been counterfeited by an organized crime syndicate. At the very least, unlike Liu Chang, Americans still have a government that understands it has a basic function that entails protecting its citizens against such lawlessness. As long as that remains the case, I’ll take the current dysfunction surrounding the debt ceiling any day, because the dysfunction stems from our freedom to disagree, which Liu Chang at Xinhua sadly knows nothing about.