By Philip Yeung
China critics unable to look past its ideological label
Visitors to China ooh and aah over its high-speed trains and eye-popping infrastructure. But there is a hard core of China critics, notably Western journalists, who stubbornly refuse to look past ideological labels and their own deep-seated biases.
A particularly spiteful Sinophobe is Philip Inman. In his latest poisoned piece in the Guardian, titled "World must be more wary than ever of China's growing economic power", this trained economist unleashed a torrent of ill-will enough to drown himself.
Getting the whole thing backwards
He accuses China of "pulling every lever at its disposal to counter Donald Trump's economic blockade". Does this make any sense? Inman sidesteps the irrefutable logic: If Trump, in his insanity, imposes an economic blockade, isn't it the right of its victim to try to break out of it? The malign actor here is Trump. Not China. What China does is legitimate self-defense for economic survival. Does he expect China to take it lying down? He has got the whole thing backwards. This piece is dripping with malice. He bemoans China's success in its Belt and Road initiative and winning a slew of cooperation agreements with Brazil. Is that the worst he can accuse China of?
China a "malign actor"? But where is the beef?
He calls China a "malign actor", without saying what exactly China is guilty of. What specifically has China done to deserve this ugly epithet? The current chaos in the world is not China's doing. It is the handiwork of three men: Trump, Netanyahu and Putin. China has never used its "economic firepower" to turn regional partners into "supplicants". Why, we wonder, is Mr. Inman in a state of agitation?
China against wars of aggression
Totally fact-free, he fingers China for aiding Russia's war effort. Yes, China is trading with Russia, refusing to be sucked into the sanctions game played by Putin's adversaries. But China is allergic to the idea of territorial integrity being compromised in any country. That is why China's trade with Russia is strictly non-military, or the war in Ukraine would have a far shorter ending. Just look at Pakistan's deployment of China's air combat technology which has surprisingly shortened its war with India. Let us not forget that Russia still occupies large chunks of Chinese territories stolen when China was a punching bag for the west in the last century and half. China would never aid and abet another country in a war of territorial expansion. That is a core creed with China.
China can never do anything right
Mr. Inman is an ignorant man. He can't think straight either. On the one hand, he talks about "keeping China at bay". In the next breath, he acknowledges that China is paying the wages of university lecturers in the UK by sending thousands of students to his country. But this doesn't stop him from falsely accusing China of putting "spies in every major university siphoning information back to Beijing". But where is the beef? Even he himself admits that it might smell like a "paranoid interpretation" of China's workings. You bet, it is.
How can a country that wipes out poverty for 800 million people be evil?
One thing Inman never accuses the Chinese of is "incompetence", contrary to his opinion about his own government which he mocks for being "barely able of boiling an egg." China is disciplined, purpose-driven and totally efficient in feeding its 1.4 billion people. How can you ever accuse a country that has lifted 800 million people out of poverty of being evil? No other country in history has achieved this miracle.
Barking up the wrong tree
Inman calls China autocratic. He is not qualified to make that judgment. He should have first asked Chinese people what they think of their own government. The simple truth is that for the Chinese, any attack on their government is treated as a personal attack on its people. China is no threat to the global order. It basically minds its own business, acting as a peacemaker when conflicts erupt. For five decades, it remains untainted by the wars that have been waged by America, Russia and other powers. America has over 750 military bases spread across more than 80 countries and territories, picking fights all over the map. I used to think that Trump's morality is barely-there. Now I think it is actively evil-seeking. Inman is barking up the wrong tree.
Inman is wrong about China on three counts:
- China is not Russia. It has no territorial ambitions. The tensions over the South China Sea, China's own backyard, are about the need to break out of US encirclement. As for Taiwan, it is strictly a domestic matter. The West should just let "sleeping dogs lie", and the crisis will resolve itself.
- The new China is not the old China. Economic success has ushered in a calm rationality in how China conducts its affairs. No longer ideologically driven, today's China is a technology-crazed, economically-obsessed, and future-ready country. Inman is woefully out of touch and his views are out of date.
- If there is anything non-negotiable, it is foreign bullying. After its "hundred-year humiliation", China is allergic to domination in any form. Inman ought to channel his moral fury against Israel's genocide in Gaza
This is pure anti-China propaganda. It is no analysis
Inman claims that China's expanding power is siphoning off the economic resources of the world. This statement is unworthy of a trained economist. Is he not aware of how intertwined the global supply chains are? After all, the world is dependent on China for critical rare earths. His antipathy towards China boils down to one word: envy. But envy is a lousy strategy for dealing with the world's second largest globalized economy. Wearing Trump's trousers, spitting Trumpian drivel and spreading fear, he should first remove his blinkers before pronouncing judgment on China. He is a propagandist. He is no analyst.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | Trump's ultimate triumph—being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a war criminal
Opinion | A tale of two systems—madness versus method—a lament for a lost America
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