Page 53 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

Bajrektarevic, 2021

destruction, divinized trade and immigration as destroyers of jobs and communities. Its
political system is unable to decouple and deconcentrate wealth and power which suffocates
the very social fabrics.

Hence, Americans are not fixing the world anymore. They are only managing its decline. Look
at their footprint in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Georgia, Libya, Syria,
Ukraine or Yemen – to mention but a few. Violence as a source of social cohesion is dying out.

When the Soviets lost their own indigenous ideological matrix and maverick confrontational
stance, and when the US dominated West missed to triumph although winning the Cold War,
how to expect from the imitator to score the lasting moral or even a temporary economic
victory?

Dislike the relationship with the Soviets Union which was on one clear confrontational
acceptance line from a start until its very last day, Americans performed three very different
policies on the People’s Republic: From a total negation (and the Mao-time mutual annihilation
assurances), to Nixon’s sudden cohabitation. (Withdrawal of recognition from Formosa to
Beijing formally opened relations between the two on 1 January 1979. On a celebratory tour to
America later that very month, Deng Xiaoping recommended that China and the US were ‘duty
bound to work together [and unite] to place curbs on the polar bear’).

Finally, a Copernican-turn: the US spotted no real ideological differences between them and
the post-Deng China. This signalled a ‘new opening’ – China’s coastal areas to become West’s
industrial suburbia. Soon after, both countries easily agreed on interdependence: Americans
pleased their corporate (machine and tech) sector and unrestrained its greed, while Chinese in
return offered a cheap labour, no environmental considerations and submissiveness in
imitation. However, for both it was far more than economy lubricated by sanctified free trade,
it was a policy – Washington read it as interdependence for transformative containment and
Beijing sow it as interdependence for (global) penetration. American were left in a growing
illusion that the Sino growth is on terms defined by them, and Chinese – on their side – grew
confident that these terms of economic growth are only accepted by them.

The so-called Financial crisis 2008/09 (or better to say the peak time of Casino economy)
undermined positions of the largest consumer of Chinese goods (US), and simultaneously
boosted confidence of the biggest manufacturer of American products (PRC). Consequently,
soon after; by 2012, Beijing got the first out-of-Deng’s-line leadership. (One of the famous
Asia’s Bismarck dictatums was ‘hide the capabilities, bide your time’ – a pure Bismarckian
wisdom to deter any domestic imperialism in hurry.)

However, in the process of past few decades, Chinese acquired more sophisticated technology,
and the American Big tech sophisticated itself in digital authoritarianism.

But, as America (suddenly) returns home, the honeymoon seems over now.
Why does it come now? Washington is not any more able to afford treating China as just
another trading partner. Also, the US is not well situated to capitalize on Beijing’s eventual
belligerence (especially with Russia closer to China than it was ever before).
The typical line of western neo-narrative goes as: ‘The CCP exploited the openness of liberal
societies and particularly its freedom of speech as to plunder, penetrate and divert’. And;
‘Beijing has to bear the reputational costs of its exploitative practices’.

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