Opinion | Wake up, world, before it's too late

By Philip Yeung, A university teacher

The world needs a full-time ghostbuster, to exorcise the evil spirit conjured by America to organize hatred against China.

Mike Pence, former US vice president, calls China an Evil Empire in the making. He is either ignorant or jealous, or both. In amplifying Trump's drumbeat of demonization against China, he is not alone.

Mike Pompeo, America's sorry excuse for a secretary of state, is one of the crudest China haters who refers to it dismissively as "the Chinese Communist Party", a loaded phrase calculated to smear.

These labels mask and reveal a fear of a country that is moving at the speed of light.

They typify a static view of an ever-evolving country. China today is a different country from its Cultural Revolution days, having utterly transformed itself, lifting 800 million people out of grinding poverty, putting astronauts in space and digital payment systems in the hands of a billion consumers, plus building breathtaking infrastructure.

In doing so, it has invented a unique form of governance. Should one day America destroy the world in a fit of nuclear rage, and Jeff Bezos is able to get us to another planet, they will never again find a country like China. Not in a thousand years.

China is no fire-breathing monster. It's the world's only "Millennial Country"; it thinks in decades, or centuries and is guided by the perspective of eternity. Western democracies, by contrast, lurch from one election cycle to the next, jerked by partisan politics. They trumpet populist freedom. But freedom to do what? To rage and rampage, as Trump's followers did to the US Capitol, or as lawless rioters did to Hong Kong. This illusion of choice has brought nothing but chaos and suffering.

China's leaders call its system "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This characterization leaves much unsaid. Modern-day China began ideologically with Marxism, but has moved beyond it. It copies capitalism, but retains state control in vital economic areas. It has returned to its Confucian roots. In state planning, it thinks and acts like a cool-headed corporation.

It is the world's first "4-C state", part Communist, part Capitalist, part Confucian and part Corporatist. It represents the triumph of "long-termism" versus the "short-termism" of the West and the chaos and corruption of India. To label China as purely communist is to miss its magical uniqueness.

The Chinese are like lambs when respected, like tigers when provoked. They are good friends but bad enemies. They traffic in respect and reciprocity. With its iron discipline, "impossible" does not exist in China's dictionary.

China boasts something else: unity. For Americans, their world is binary: Democrat or Republican, white or colored. In UK, Brexit has split the country into Leavers and Remainers. For the Chinese, there is only one identity and loyalty. When natural disasters strike, China responds massively and immediately. Its powers of mobilization are titanic. Its sport glorifies the nation, not the individual athletes.

Are there chinks in China's armor? Definitely. Its Achilles' heel is their clumsiness in communicating with the West. It may speak the language of science and technology, but it has yet to master the art of explaining itself in the court of public opinion. A nation run by engineers and scientists, it needs liberal arts education to produce persuasive communicators. Significantly, India, a poorer nation, produces far more CEO's in Fortune 500 companies.

A wise Scottish scholar suggests that China should make communism look "sexy". China needs a fundamental rethink of how it presents itself to an increasingly hostile Western world. The "wolf warrior" hard sell in diplomacy has its obvious shortcomings. A hard Image has economic and existential consequences. In the conflict with India, Modi was able to exploit China's image problem to falsely paint his northern neighbor as the aggressor.

China has two domestic vulnerabilities. First, the ancient Chinese tradition of the justice-seeking petitioners should be strengthened. A vast country is bound to have bad apples in its system. Aggrieved petitioners are sometimes punished as trouble-makers by wayward officials. These channels for redress are society's safety valves to right wrongs and cement social stability. It's a time-honored mechanism for good governance.

Another weakness is a tendency towards formalism. Administrators in education and government are quick to embrace new policies but often indulge in formalistic and fossilized practices which stifle creativity and dampen productivity. The only area that America now outperforms China is in the freewheeling innovation in its universities.

Mike Pence accuses China of threatening America's prosperity, security and values. But China is America's sugar daddy, buying up over a trillion dollars' worth of US treasury bonds, and keeping its cost of living low with quality cheap products. As for security, I challenge him to name one incident in which it was compromised by China. This ludicrous accusation is just Republican dog whistle.

Threatening American values? Don't make me laugh. The US has long ago lost its pulpit to preach to the world. Its illegal war in Iraq was mocked as "Vietnam without the mosquitoes", claiming a million innocent Iraqi lives. America is a country in turmoil, with daily mass shootings, crime-infested inner cities, a worsening wealth gap and brutality against blacks. It is now just a fear-mongering and war-mongering bully with a toxic zero-sum mentality. For America to succeed, China must fail. When a rival is faultless, you can only attack its "values".

History records former super-powers like Germany, Japan, Britain or America, all claiming exceptionalism and seeking to dominate the world. But China is a rare exception. Its long history supports Benjamin Franklin's belief that "There never was a good war or a bad peace." However, its Hundred Years of Humiliation has made China determined never to be humiliated again. It wants respect, not domination. Don't mistake its anti-bullying posture as aggression. But America is too blind to buy its "peaceful rise" message.

China is a leapfrog nation. Costly foreign wars have sapped America's vigor, while China has reaped the peace dividends. Modern China began by imitating America, but America may end up imitating China.

How do you judge if a form of government is good? By the support of its people and its accomplishments. On both metrics, the Chinese model is vastly superior to America's. The US wants to keep China down, but must the rest of the world pay for its hurt pride?

Gullible leaders in Australia, Britain and Canada are little people incapable of independent thinking, swallowing America's China lies whole and becoming its docile co-conspirators, sacrificing their national interests in the process. Just ask Australia.

A thousand years from now, China will still be here, stronger and smarter than ever. Confucius can finally rest undisturbed in his eternal slumber.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.