Opinion | Sore Losers, in sports and politics
By Tom Fowdy
American culture is competitive to the extreme. If one thinks of the term "competition" with respect to the USA, you are immediately conjured with the imagery of brutally successful capitalist firms, or on a local level, aggressive sports teams, and your stereotypical high school jock. The idea of competitiveness is thus integral to the American psyche. Elections and politics in the United States are also fiercely competitive and brutal, which often descend into smears, personal attacks, drama, and mass hysteria between candidates. Similarly, the United States also repeatedly demonizes and induces a culture of fear pertaining to its overseas political opponents, such as China namely, in order to be competitive against them and legitimate its policy agenda.
Which of course, leads to the main topic of this article, how the United States, driven by this culture of "competition" uses fierce, dirty and malicious tactics in order to confront China and attempt to undermine it in every way possible, across the board. Hence, whenever the US decides there is a specific Chinese technology or product it does not like, it is the modus operandi of the United States to "compete dirty" to push lies, smears, and mass hysteria. Hence, numerous items and services from China have been baselessly accused of enabling espionage, a "national security threat", or when that doesn't fly, have been manufactured with "forced labor."
In other words, whenever China achieves something, the US is often waiting with a counter-narrative to try and undermine its credibility on a global scale. Hence, rocket debris from a Chinese lunar experiment is a "threat" and going to fall on you, China's vaccines "don't work" (It later came out the US military-sponsored a psychological campaign to push this narrative), its COVID-19 figures were "faked" (with emphasis placed on brutal lockdowns) and so on. Likewise, all Chinese innovations and achievements are denounced as being "fake" or obtained "by theft" and there is a false assumption pushed that China cannot under any circumstances achieve something legitimately under its own right.
In making these accusations, the emphasis is always placed on narrative, as opposed to facts or proof. Likewise, as you might expect from Americans, the spirit of good sportsmanship does not apply here, and hence at the Olympics, it has become preferential for the US to trade in smears rather than to accept defeat gratefully. Hence, as you will have no doubt heard, individuals and organizations in the US have simply adopted the narrative that if China beats them in any specific competition, it must be a product of doping or cheating. Predictably many people lap this up, even as if it is contrary to facts.
While Chinese athletes in fact undertake more anti-dumping and anti-drug tests than American ones too, naturally the US line is, as it were with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and things, to simply tarnish its credibility and claim that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has no credibility and that the institution has been "bought" by "Chinese influence" or whatever. Thus, in subsequently pushing this narrative, the US then claims that because the targeted organization "has no credibility" the procedures should be done "according to American standards" which of course present an unreasonable demand, and thus cause permanent political damage.
For example, when the US demanded repeated inquiries on "COVID origins." Of course, when that doesn't happen, the original narrative is then recycled that there is a coverup or conspiracy theory. The US regularly uses this strategy in order to attempt to undermine China's standing or influence within various institutions to try and use their concept of "rules" to isolate it and smear it. But why do this especially in the case of the Olympics? The US ultimately likes to push a comprehensive narrative that it itself "competes fairly and honorably" but that China on the other hand, is a competitor who is not in the position it is on its merits, but because it "cheats" and does not play by the rules, which itself is based on age-old Sinophobic stereotypes.
This serves to reinforce the overall US foreign policy narrative to "compete" with China. The United States of course likes to present itself as honorable and law-abiding, as if it "itself" is the national manifestation of sportsmanship. However, international politics isn't sports, that's because global order is a game of power whereby "might make right." Thus, the United States doesn't play by the rules because it is the country that makes, bends and even violates its own rules in order to see fit in conjunction with its own interests. Therefore, when they talk about "making China play by the rules" what they truly mean is, to be subjugated to American interests accordingly. America believes it is the only rightful hegemonic power in the world and will do everything it can to stifle its competitors in bad faith.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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