With the UK government’s cancellation of Huawei’s 5G infrastructure projects and a recent commitment to asylum seekers from Hong Kong, it’s tempting to conclude that our relations with China are quickly deteriorating. However, just as I pointed out in a previous post, the relationship between China and the West has been remarkably stable for a number of years now.
The sad truth is that, just like a battered spouse, the West is finally beginning to realise just how lopsided and abusive our alleged partnership has been, and for how long.
To put it bluntly, the Chinese Communist Party has been helping the West to fund its own decline for many years, and that decline is carefully designed to ensure that our political, media and business leaders profit greatly from it. Because scrutiny of supply lines does not serve the interests of Western elites, our toxic culture of conspicuous consumerism built on bonded sweatshop labour goes largely unreported. Apple and Nike are two of the worst offenders when it comes to the exquisite hypocrisy of corporate virtue signalling powered by political prisoners who have suicide nets installed in their factories. Do you have suicide nets in your workplace?
I guess Chinese lives don’t matter.
Now this abusive arrangement between Western elites and the CCP has been rendered untenable by the unprecedented strain of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s taken a deadly disease and economic catastrophe to shake our policy makers out of their dangerous complacency, but at least we can take some comfort from knowing that the lives lost to Covid-19 have not been lost in vain. The Americans in particular have lost patience and finally told it like it is, with their Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China openly acknowledging that the CCP has been systematically abusing World Trade Organisation rules since 2001. That’s not news to anyone outside the Western elite bubble, but it doesn’t seem to have been a high priority for those who frame, report on and enforce our laws.
With the recent crackdown on Hong Kong’s cherished freedoms and its continued bellicosity in India and the South China Sea, the CCP has clearly realised that the game is up. It’s concluded that no further advantage can be wrung out of our gullible and hypocritical elites and thus there’s no need for it to continue hiding its true intentions. It seems that Western naiveté and corruption is a finite commodity after all. Who knew?
With India’s TikTok ban likely to be replicated in a growing number of nations, it’s clear that those charged with our safety and security are at last getting the message. This new Cold War isn’t actually new at all; it’s just that we in the West (and beyond) have finally been cornered and forced to face the uncomfortable truth.
Communist China is not our friend, and friendship was never a part of the plan.
Image courtesy of chinesposters.net
