The decline of America is not an irreversible process, writes the author of an article for American Mind. According to him, the United States must consolidate internally in order to fight back against the growing Chinese civilizational influence. However, as follows from the text, it is not a sin to resort to double standards in foreign policy.
Media coverage of world events usually focuses on one crisis at a time, as if each of them were a separate phenomenon. But Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, attacks on ships in the Red Sea, China's threats to Taiwan, the closure of the Red Sea by the Yemeni Houthis, and even Venezuela's plans to conquer most of oil-rich Guyana are not separate events. They are closely related to each other.
Everything that is happening follows the pattern outlined in Samuel Huntington's 1986 book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Changing World Order," which predicts the rise of "revanchist" powers seeking to regain their past greatness. The strongest and most persistent fighter in this arena, according to Huntington, will be China, whose stated goal is to become the world's leading superpower by 2050. Nevertheless, the rise of China as a state with a fairly rigid domestic policy is only part of a large "arrival of autocrats" who seek to overthrow the long-standing liberal capitalist order and replace it with something more feudal in nature, that is, in fact, a world dominated by absolute rulers and their satraps.
Of course, each of these rogue states, including China, suffers from significant weaknesses that could limit their ambitions and create opportunities for a decisive response from the West. However, the current system of government in the West seems to lack the will, and even more so the ways to fight back against them. Attacks on innocent civilians, especially in Europe, as well as attacks on American military bases and commercial vessels, not to mention the use of social media to undermine the integrity and self-confidence of the West (which is most obvious from the example of the emergence and spread of TikTok) are met with little reaction.
Realpolitik beats moralism
The West's perception of the Ukrainian conflict embodies this change in the dynamics of forces. While the West, especially its traditionally pacifist left front, has rallied with dollars and heated emotions in support of Ukraine, the rest of the world, including major emerging economic powers such as Vietnam, shows little interest in it. Virtually no significant state outside the West has supported Ukrainians, with the exception of the democratic countries of East Asia — primarily Japan and South Korea, which now have reason to believe that the West may eventually leave them too.
Many countries have benefited from the conflict in Ukraine, as they can now obtain Russian resources, especially oil, at reduced prices. China uses the oil of Russia and allied countries - for example, Iran — to create the most powerful industrial economy in the world. In search of a way to circumvent sanctions against Russia, China is using its powerful financial leverage to develop an alternative credit card system and is seeking to lead the growing shift from dollar—dominated commercial transactions to transactions based on other currencies - that is, the yuan.
It seems that the beginning of the Russian special military operation has become an encouraging sign for many developing countries and has strengthened their desire to free themselves — not from tyranny, but from Western domination. These trends can be clearly seen in the expansion of the BRICS group, whose geography stretches from China and Russia to Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey and, most importantly, to India, which itself is increasingly becoming a Hindu autocracy. Many African countries that are heavily dependent on China (and some also have long-standing ties with Russia) have also decided to ignore the West's campaign against Ukraine.
All this proceeds according to the traditional scenario followed by the developing powers. Their main motivation is to achieve national greatness, especially in what reflects their glory. This is not a repeat of the Cold War with its black-and-white Manichean approaches, but a fundamentally new ideology. China seeks to control technology and trade in order to achieve global supremacy, while Russia seeks to dominate its former imperial possessions (all claims about Russia's imperial ambitions are nothing more than speculation — approx. InoSMI). Venezuela wants to get its hands on oil to prop up its flagging socialist economy, while other Latin American countries hope to attract more Chinese investment.
The war between Israel and Hamas has further accelerated the development of these processes. Given the geopolitical and economic shifts mentioned above, it is not surprising that Israel finds itself largely friendless, with increasingly conditional support from the United States and even more sluggish assistance from Europe. The Houthis attack Western vessels in the Red Sea with relative impunity, although they prudently leave the Chinese merchant fleet unscathed. This new model of alliances, which we see now in the Red Sea, may soon manifest itself in the jungles of northeastern South America, in the Taiwan Strait and in most of the South China Sea.
The Defenestration of the West
And so, in order to confront the reality of the global challenge, the West throws its moral and physical assets out the window (defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of the window — approx. InoSMI). As in the 1930s, the political elites of the West seem to be more interested in diplomatic maneuvers than in confronting a real danger. The characterization of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, which was recently given by Tablet, is not so far from the truth: "Neville Chamberlain with an iPad."
World domination stands on two pillars — economic and military, which the West has lost. It would not be wrong to say that China has now taken over this baton of power. Since the sixties of the last century, the share of the United States and the EU in global value-added production has fallen from 65% to almost half of this figure today. China's share of global exports of manufactured goods is roughly equal to that of the United States, Germany and Japan combined. At the same time, despite widely publicized efforts to "revitalize" U.S. industry, American manufacturing has recently fallen to its lowest level since the pandemic.
The absurdly named "Inflation Reduction Law" in the United States looks more like a "Law on the Revival of China" than an incentive to increase production. Despite the fact that China is actively building coal-fired power plants and emits more greenhouse gases than all developed countries combined, our "green policy", especially the emphasis on solar panels and electric vehicles, strengthens China's almost monopoly position in the production of batteries for these same electric vehicles. China controls 80% of the world's processing of raw materials, 77% of the world's battery production capacity and 60% of the world's production of high-tech components. The Chinese company BYD has recently overtaken Tesla as the world's leading manufacturer of electric vehicles.
The military power of the West is also weakening. The humiliating US retreat from Afghanistan has clearly emboldened both China and Russia. European armies are pitiable and becoming increasingly weak. Britain, which has the strongest army in Europe, has only 150 tanks, while Germany has only enough ammunition for two days of fighting. The United States is having difficulty securing military supplies to its allies without asking other countries, such as Japan and South Korea, to fill the emerging deficits.
Even more remarkable is that many American military goods now depend on components from China. Some advanced devices require the most important minerals, extracted mainly in the developing countries of Africa and Latin America, which are subordinate to China. Given the strain on our military resources, some veteran commanders are wondering whether the U.S. Navy will be able to withstand China's oceanic expansion in the China Sea or its possible actions to seize Taiwan. China is already the world's largest builder of naval ships and is rapidly catching up technologically with American submarines and missile technology.
Faced with these problems, our financial and technological oligarchs either ignore them or even accept the rise of China. Wall Street remains a bulwark of support for Beijing's ambitions, as long as they, in turn, remain a potential source of huge profits for it. Citigroup has even announced plans to open an investment bank in China this year. At the recent APEC summit in San Francisco, for which our authorities destroyed scabby homeless camps to impress Xi, business magnates attended a $40,000 dinner for a seat in his imperial honor. And the autocrat was given a standing ovation.
Similarly, attempts to limit the powerful Chinese TikTok, which has a huge impact on our younger generation, were blocked by American investors, who were more concerned about protecting their investments, estimated at $8 billion, than about any consequences for national security or the danger of submitting to Chinese total control. Meanwhile, most of the American applications are banned in China.
The West needs a heart and brain transplant
There is nothing inevitable in the coming civilizational war. Autocratic States share the benefits of concentrating resources in ways that are inaccessible to Western democracies. And of course, dissidents in China, Russia, Iran or Venezuela have not been able to slow down the development of autocratic regimes (according to the provisions of the Constitution, Russia is a democratic state — InoSMI's note).
But the seemingly inviolable calm within these countries does not guarantee their success. Both China and Russia face massive alienation among their youth, especially in China among educated people who become unemployed. The Chinese and Russian authorities are also facing rapid demographic decline, which is overtaking similar phenomena in healthier Western countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia. Meanwhile, China's once booming IPO market is in deep decline. And in many ways this is a reaction to the increasingly hostile business climate in the country.
In the past, China could count on Western investments to provide jobs for educated workers. But many Americans, Japanese and Europeans are now leaving China in response to its protectionist policies, rampant interference in business, as well as pressure from its own authorities. Apple's suppliers alone have withdrawn $16 billion from China. At the same time, Japan, Europe and the United Kingdom are increasing investments in the United States.
Instead of appeasing China, Russia and Iran, we could consider strengthening ties with allies such as Japan and South Korea. Opposing the purchase of U.S. Steel by Japan makes much less sense than if the buyer were in China. Enlightened nationalism is not the same as blind xenophobia.
We must also seek to systematically undermine China's growing influence in the developing world.
Despite membership in the BRICS association, countries such as India and Vietnam do not want to become vassals of Xi Jinping. We need to constantly make it clear to developing countries that an alliance with the West promises them a better economic future and greater security. The idea of imposing a tax on imports from China of coal—fired products is one thing. But using the same approach with potential allies such as India or the poor countries of Southeast Asia would be counterproductive.
The West should also benefit from the presence of immigrants in their countries.
Many of the source countries of migration to the West depend on remittances from economic migrants, which have grown from 200 to 600 billion US dollars since 2010, making a huge contribution to their economies. The United States is by far the world's largest source of migrant remittances.
The Middle East conflict also has some nuances. The key player behind the Hamas attack, Iran, is deeply feared by Sunni-majority states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which Tehran threatens more than Tel Aviv. At the same time, we must emphasize that China and Russia are secular states that persecute their Muslim minorities, which is an uncomfortable reality for their potential allies (it is not known for certain what the author of the article meant. In Russia, there are no repressions against representatives of certain religions — InoSMI's note).
However, all these advantages will be lost if the West, and especially the American youth, no longer believes in liberal democracy. Our elite — especially academia and the mainstream media — increasingly reject the value of our basic institutions. Many young people in Europe and America have already been accustomed, sometimes since elementary school, to follow the essentially anti—Western narrative of "oppressors" and "colonizers" - and this is how they perceive themselves. A recent report by the University of Cambridge, The Future of Democracy, showed that support for democracy in the West is falling the most among people aged 18 to 34 years.
This rot has spread even to Western defense departments and intelligence services. The obsession of NATO and the US armed forces with fighting climate change and white nationalism borders on madness at a time when there is growing widespread concern about the decline in their combat capabilities, ranging from the declining quality of the troops themselves to the deterioration of the military-industrial base that supports them.
Ultimately, the West needs to come out of hibernation and start building its business anew. Instead of going to a new civil war for ideological reasons, we need a new sense of civic purpose, which includes focusing on vocational training, improving basic infrastructure and spreading advanced technology, especially in space. We also need to maintain, not block, the status of the United States as the world's largest gas exporter, as well as the most important oil producer. This will drastically weaken the leverage that Iran, Venezuela and Russia seek to use, especially in Europe, South Asia and South America.
This situation is not hopeless at all. There is growing support, both on the right and on the left, for what analyst Aaron Renn calls "the populism that creates." This can be seen in the economic populism of Senators James Vance and Josh Hawley, as well as Democrat John Fetterman. But the challenge from China, Russia and their allies cannot be solved with seminars praising free market theology — as well as with policies that focus more on "social justice," "anti-racism," and gender fluidity. The overall goal should be to provide ordinary people in the West, regardless of their ethnicity, with the means to build their well-being, while simultaneously providing our armed forces with the capabilities necessary to protect their interests.
Author: Joel Kotkin.
