Opinion | 9 seconds to midnight
By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
Climate scientists warn that we are only 90 seconds away from midnight to Doomsday on our overheating planet. But another looming catastrophe poses a far greater existential threat to humanity--the inevitable collision of the US and China tectonic plates at the Pacific Rim.
One thing is certain. This conflict won't be a mere regional clash. It will engulf the earth in nuclear incineration.
Who wants war? The US, who else? America now behaves like a drug addict, hooked on its toxicity towards China. On both sides of the aisle, every ambitious politician is vying to outdo each other in acts or utterances of animosity towards China. Political parasites are attracted to the low-hanging fruit of China-bashing. First Nancy Pelosi, and now Kevin McCarthy, respectively former and current Speaker of the House, are among many trying to polish their credentials by making the biggest splash with a provocative visit to Taiwan. China ass-kicking is the in thing. It is the cheapest trick. Bad-mouthing China takes no political courage.
The US heat on China, like the over-hyped China balloon, is so much hot air.
American politicians, in the unforgettable words of former US vice-president Spiro Agnew, are "nattering nabobs of negativism"---imposing chip embargo, trade sanctions and tariffs, encircling China with a ring of hostile alliances. China's crime? Trashing the world's rule-based order, and trampling human rights in its own corner.
But where is the beef? China wants to make money, not war. It goes full throttle with its technology, infrastructure and trade. Western critics crucify China for cracking down on political protests in Hong Kong. But they forget that Occupy Central paralyzed the city for nearly 10 months. Occupy Wall Street, which inspired the Hong Kong copycats merely occupied a quiet local park for just two months, it didn't actually occupy Wall Street. US politicians are threatening to nominate six of our "freedom fighters" for the Nobel Peace Prize. Why not include the January 6 rioters as well, for they are cut from the same cloth?
I no longer buy into the so-called sanctity of free and fair elections—a voting system that elected a destructive megalomaniac like Trump is a hard sell. When rioters set fire to a rival dissident, pushing confused 12-year-olds to the barricades, their actions stink. I pity their ignorance and gullibility. As the late President Jiang Zemin said: "They are simple, sometimes naïve." What did Hong Kong get for the violent unrest? A bitterly color-divided city. I, too, lament the loss of the charming old tolerant Hong Kong. America is likewise divided.
Hong Kong enjoyed maximum freedom for 23 years post-Handover, until rioters threatened total anarchy. Beijing had to restore order. China is no Somalia, Haiti, Venezuela or North Korea. Ultra-success has made Chinese leaders ultra-rational. They go for the long haul, not the short-termism of the West where politicians' first focus is the next election cycle.
Western journalists who should have been the guardrails to restrain outsized US aggressive instinct, instead divide the world into "good guys" and "bad guys", misplacing China firmly in the latter camp. Their one-sided reportage betrays their calling. An article like this will never be published by the New York Times. Those of us who write to expose the naked truth are like voices crying in the wilderness.
The Disunited States of America, with its dangerous bigots, is lecturing the world on how to run a democracy with fake electors.
The US doesn't have a China problem. But China definitely has a US problem---America has thrown everything but the kitchen-sink at China to contain and cripple the middle kingdom. China minds its own business. It doesn't need containing. But mad-dog America does. These days, the things America does makes one feel icky. America is no longer the feel good factor. By its in-your-face provocations, America may be going to the well once too many. It may tip China over the edge. Now, US military top brass talk stealth bombers or nuclear warheads, threatening that if anyone goes to war with America, "someone else will raise your sons and daughters".
Economically, China may be a smash hit, but it is not chic. Without the penetrative soft power of Hollywood and global media domination, China doesn't make one swoon. But it is no one's enemy.
America needs detoxification. It needs to flush out the poison in its system, of being the biggest at any costs. A poor and backward China was cute and cuddly. But an up-and-coming China is another kettle of fish. What the US wants is a preemptive war to level its biggest competitor. It has just secured access to four military bases in the Philippines that are closest to Taiwan.
The clock is ticking towards nuclear doomsday. It feels like 9 seconds, rather than 90 seconds before history ends with a bang. China's mistake is in not lying low and playing dumb and staying below the US radar. Its cardinal sin is in making America uncomfortable. But that is a crazy cause for going to war. Too many insecure men want to prove their manhood by flexing their muscles, while the world teeters on a knife's edge. Forget saving the world. America must save itself first.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | No end to the tragedy in Ukraine? Try befriending China
Opinion | Unfit to lead—America as a danger to the world
Opinion | How to get Hong Kong humming again---with a single stroke
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