The West is giving China the rope with which it will hang him: the WSJ on the Anchorage defeat
Let's go back to talking about it today, in Atlantico Quotidiano , with the splendid article , really to be kept, by Rob Piccoli: how to cancel culture , the so-called wokism – extreme forms of self-hatred of the West, unfortunately almost official ideology today in America, cleared by the Democratic Party that is in power in both the White House and Congress – are making the United States weaker in the face of its external enemies.
We were not the only ones to interpret the verbal confrontation in favor of cameras that took place last week in Anchorage, Alaska, between the Chinese and American delegations with this interpretation . Beijing representatives have launched a harsh indictment of the United States, using the same arguments as US progressivism to try to unseat them from their pedestal, question their moral authority and credibility as a beacon of democracy and human rights. .
We are in fact in very authoritative company (at least overseas): yesterday the Wall Street Journal hosted a comment by its former editor, Gerard Baker, with the icastic title: "The cultural elites of the West are giving away Lenin's rope". The reference is to a famous prophecy attributed to Lenin: "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them". And it was a reminder of the unshakeable conviction of the Soviet Communists to the last that the contradictions within capitalism would inevitably lead to the collapse (always considered imminent) of the West. As you know, the Soviet Union and the entire Communist bloc collapsed in the meantime.
Today, however, we risk selling the rope, or rather giving it away, not to the Soviet Communists, but to Xi Jinping, to the Chinese Communists. And it is not a question of the internal contradictions of an economic system, the capitalist one, but of an ideological and cultural weakness self-inflicted by our elites. Baker writes:
"It has been evident from the moment the two sides sat down that an encouraged Chinese leadership is aware that the greatest ideological weapon it now holds in its increasingly existential struggle with America is the joyful enthusiasm for self-destruction that characterizes much of the elite in the United States ”.
When Chinese Communist Party foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi, as we reported in our article , took the liberty of lecturing US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about Americans' "low confidence" in US democracy, the " deep human rights problems ", the discriminatory treatment of minorities and the innate injustice of the system," everything he said – Baker observes – could have been copied directly from the pages of the Democratic Party platform for the presidential election, extracted from Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper articles, or annotated in a student's notes at lectures held daily in the best American universities ”.
Extremely vivid images are those portrayed by Baker, who comes to our own conclusions: "How can a nation prevail in an ideological battle when its leaders believe that its values are evil?"
As we have written, self-confidence, the awareness of the goals of one's own civilization, is a strategic resource in international relations.
An editorial in the Global Times , a newspaper of the Beijing regime, according to which even "the talks in Alaska will be remembered as a milestone in history", directly accuses the US of white supremacism:
“Washington has always distorted the facts. She bragged about her allies. While undermining the rules, it also shamelessly promotes a so-called rules-based international order. Everything Washington talks about is centered on the United States and white supremacy ”.
Nor can it be said that what happened in Anchorage was a coincidence. We have listened to the kind of answer given by Blinken to Yang, when the Chinese diplomat accused the United States of being a racist country that violates human rights ("but we admit our mistakes and we are improving"), we have listened again as the the next day, in New York, at the UN headquarters, by the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during another tough exchange with the Chinese counterpart, Deputy Ambassador Dai Bing.
Thomas-Greenfield, a black woman, pretended to accuse China of racism by recalling the racism she faced throughout her life in the United States. “I know the ugly face of racism. I have experienced racism, I have experienced racism and I have survived racism, ”she said. “Racism is the racist's problem. And it is the problem of the society that produces the racist. And in today's world it belongs to every society, ”he continued. “Racism was and continues to be a daily challenge wherever we are. And for millions of people it's more than a challenge. It is deadly ”.
After a premise that sounds like an indictment to his own country and to all countries, Thomas-Greenfield pointed the finger at China for crimes against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, obviously hearing a response from the Chinese ambassador – if the problem is with “all societies” and she has experienced it for herself – to look into her own home instead of giving lessons. Although "he has exceptionally admitted his country's disgraceful human rights record, this does not give his country the right to step onto the pedestal and tell other countries what to do".
"If the United States – Dai raged – really cared about human rights, they would have to face the deep problems of racial discrimination, social injustice and police brutality, on their own territory". From a dialectical point of view, an unexceptionable response and, as you can see, all the themes of woke USA progressivism return, which have now entered the agenda and language of the Democrats: police brutality, systemic racism, social injustice.
If the response of the Chinese ambassador was in line with that of Yang Jiechi in Anchorage, the counter-reply from Thomas-Greenfield also followed the script of Blinken, the secretary of state: “We have flaws. Deep and severe defects. But let's talk about it. We work to face them ".
But this is how the same representatives of the United States postulate the moral equivalence between American democracy and authoritarian regimes (or at least offer their side to their adversaries).
The post The West is giving China the rope with which it will hang him: the WSJ on the defeat of Anchorage appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/loccidente-sta-regalando-alla-cina-la-corda-con-cui-lo-impicchera-il-wsj-sulla-disfatta-di-anchorage/ on Wed, 24 Mar 2021 04:59:00 +0000.