Opinion | No end to the tragedy in Ukraine? Try befriending China

By Philip Yeung, university teacher

PKY480@gmail.com

Win, lose or draw, the path to peace in Ukraine, strangely, goes through China. Of this there seems little doubt. Russia has hinted darkly that if it loses this war, what awaits is the nuclear option.

Increasingly, China appears to be all that eventually stands between Armageddon and armistice. China has an iron-clad respect for the territorial integrity of other countries. It wants nothing but peace in Ukraine with whom it enjoys a constructive relationship. America, by contrast, sees China as Act 2 in its fight to keep its overlord status, if it brings Russia to its knees. Western sanctions may bite, but they haven't broken Russia. That is because its economic lifeline to China remains intact, if not stronger. Beijing alone commands the clout and credibility to talk peace to Russia.

But it doesn't take a genius to see that China is next on America's agenda, as soon as peace is sewn up in Ukraine. China is thus caught in a dilemma—peace in Ukraine means imminent war over Taiwan. America has boxed itself and China into an awkward corner. It needs China to seal the deal in Ukraine, yet its ganging up against China is giving Beijing pause.

American generals, including Mike Minihan, head of the US Air Mobility Command, are blatantly talking up a do-or-die war with China as early as 2025. It will stop at nothing to provoke China into an all-out conflict over Taiwan, and hopefully bomb China back to the stone age. That is America's sinister calculation.

To this end, America is laying a trap, first by pushing NATO into an obscene eastward expansion into Asia Pacific. NATO's geographical remit is Europe, not Asia. Even more dangerously, it is egging on Japan to tear up its peace-time constitution to bulk up its military muscle as America's paw and claw. Except for the symbolic friction over tiny Tiaoyu Island, it has otherwise no quarrel with China. Japan's increasing involvement in Taiwan, however, is touching a raw nerve in China, as Japan had forcibly occupied Taiwan for 50 years. Inviting a former aggressor to join America's fight defies all moral decency. This is how low America has sunk. You can be sure that if Japan fires a single shot over Taiwan, it will trigger a second atomic annihilation. This time, there will be nothing left to negotiate.

America's dispute with China is never about what is right and wrong. It is about who will be number one. All the nonsense about Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan are strictly China's internal affairs but somehow got twisted into a moral judgment on Beijing. They are just a giant smokescreen to hide America's true motive.

Post WWII, where there is war there is America, intoxicated by its invincibility and moral superiority, which never hides its true ugly identity as a war-monger. America's own political landscape is littered with scandals, deceptions, lies, gun violence, police brutality, and hate crimes, under the sway of a category-5 idiot Donald Trump—a deranged maniac facing multiple criminal and civil charges and pleading the 5th amendment an unbelievable 400 times to avoid self-incrimination. Moral leadership? What moral leadership?

America's is playing dirty, cynically lumping China together with ISIS, Iran, North Korea and other "rogue" regimes. This is transparently, the guilt by association tactic. But its record of spectacular achievements in poverty alleviation and human progress belie the demonization.

The world's prospects for peace are being dimmed by America's all-out attempts to contain and savage China. This peaceful power is being pushed into the embrace of the Russian bear. Can you blame China for not disowning Russia? As they say in America, "your enemy's enemy is your friend". And the US now has two of the world's most powerful enemies.

NATO might force a stalemate over Ukraine. But it is incapable of delivering peace, as a proxy party to the war. Only China has the leverage to permanently halt the hostilities. But first, America must cut China some serious slack. The way I see it, peace won't come to Ukraine until China is anointed as the trusted mediator with a hands-off clause over Taiwan.

How many millions more must die before America can feel secure in its superpower status?

America doesn't seem to understand that China doesn't hanker after the number one spot. Their long history has taught them that greedy overlords inevitably met violent premature ends. Remember Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan? Maybe there is a surgical solution to all this bloody mess---give America a brain and heart transplant and leave the rest to Confucian China and its belief in universal brotherhood.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

Read more articles by Philip Yeung:

Opinion | How to get Hong Kong humming again---with a single stroke

Opinion | Prosecute Trump—Lock Him Up

Opinion | The World Cup, and its lesson for Hong Kong schools

Opinion | Canada's copycat foreign policy—a disaster in the making