<
https://www.economist.com/china/2021/04/03/china-is-betting-that-the-west-is-in-irreversible-decline>
"China’s foreign ministry declares that horrors such as the Atlantic slave
trade, colonialism and the Holocaust, as well as the deaths of so many
Americans and Europeans from covid-19, should make Western governments ashamed
to question China’s record on human rights. Most recently Chinese diplomats and
propagandists have denounced as “lies and disinformation” reports that coerced
labour is used to pick or process cotton in Xinjiang. They have praised fellow
citizens for boycotting foreign brands that decline to use cotton from that
region. Still others have sought to prove their zeal by hurling Maoist-era
abuse. A Chinese consul-general tweeted that Canada’s prime minister was “a
running dog of the US”.
Such performance-nationalism is watched by Western diplomats in Beijing with
dismay. Envoys have been summoned for late-night scoldings by Chinese
officials, to be informed that this is not the China of 120 years ago when
foreign armies and gunboats forced the country’s last, tottering imperial
dynasty to open the country wider to outsiders. Some diplomats talk of living
through a turning-point in Chinese foreign policy. History buffs debate whether
the moment more closely resembles the rise of an angry, revisionist Japan in
the 1930s, or that of Germany when steely ambition led it to war in 1914. A
veteran diplomat bleakly suggests that China’s rulers view the West as
ill-disciplined, weak and venal, and are seeking to bring it to heel, like a
dog."
Via Dave Farber.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
