You will see it appearing so often in the news that it becomes a cliché. A person who has lost a loved one starts a campaign against diseases, crimes or public safety hazards of their loved ones. The campaign has been set up. Donations are rolling in. What motivates them to work hard is a sincere desire to save others from the same grief. However, the same is true for a deep spiritual need to regain control. After completing and taking action in a capricious world, the agent’s feeling, no matter how short-lived, will soothe them.

The country also has losses to deal with. Regardless of whether China has ever surpassed it, the United States has lost the unipolarity of the 1990s. It responds to trauma by focusing on what can be done.If there is no China Waved The World Trade Organization before December 20. It would be nice if all previous White Houses had not been so credulous in their dealings with Beijing. These accusations can be traced back to 1949, when, as some Republicans still imagined, the United States “lost” China to communism.

On the surface, this self-blame seems brave and honest. In fact, this is the easiest way. Another option is to admit that once this larger and older country begins to open up, it is destined to (again) world-famous. Deng Xiaoping In the 1970s. The West may delay its reaching the top position at a cost. It has never been its power to stop it completely.

Acknowledging impotence is more painful than guilt. Other countries in the democratic world find that this is no easier than the United States. “How the West invites China to lunch”, sensational and false Mandarin with the headline of Fox News.It is actually a BBC One, Since last week. Consider its two implications. First, in 2001, the WTO may blacklist one-fifth of human beings who have just experienced a generation of market-friendly reforms.Secondly, doing so will only hinder China to some extent, not the West, even if the United States and other companies gobble up Low-wage labor Since then.

If this is only an academic error, it does not need to detain us. But this illusion will have political consequences. One of the themes of Donald Trump ascending to the White House is that the American elite has been ignored or even complicit in the rise of China. President Bill Clinton, George W. Bush And Barack Obama is still considered to have been sold out of Industrial America (but not attributable to the cheap consumer goods that flowed into many of the same households from trade China).A strong China is a prerequisite for some kind of abnormality, not just a return to the historical average, it supports a lot of American populism.

Progressive people have their own views on this solipsism.One Vicious civil war In the Arabian Peninsula? Blame it on Western arms sales. Poverty in Africa? Washington consensus. The Afghanistan crisis?How dare we Give it upEven liberals or neutrals convinced themselves that Russia is authoritarian, because pro-Kremlin tycoons were allowed to buy Mayfair. According to this worldview, nothing bad will happen anywhere that does not trace its roots back to the West. This is a sting to global consciousness, no matter how narrow it is, it can’t be narrow anymore. This is a humble disguise, actually the most fanciful claim to omnipotence.

The West always faces a harsh “truth” (how guilty we are) to avoid the harsher “truth” (how marginal we are). In 1949, it was strange enough to deny that the rest of the world had its own thoughts and wills, when the United States accounted for a large enough share of global output, at least eager to shape distant events.Keep it in This century It is living in self-praised delirium.

It also caused discordant intellectual contradictions in Washington. The Chinese hawks accuse one or two generations of American leadership of supporting its rise. During Mike Pompeo’s tenure as Secretary of State, Seems to want to know If even the “red” countries recognized by Richard Nixon in 1972 are naive. The problem with this apparent toughness is that it shows that China is not capable of achieving prosperity on its own. If so, why be tough? Why is eternal vigilance and military generosity? China cannot suddenly become an awesome century-long competitor and an unconscious free trade liberal created without knowing it.

The fact is that no one takes China more seriously than those who admit that China is too large and ambitious, and that it will not be able to contain China in the long term regardless of whether it joins the WTO or not. The true hawks are fatalists.

[email protected]