Opinion | China need not fear the challenge of a racist, crumbling West
- Unless the West goes back to the racial tribalism of the last century, a unified Western strategy against China is not morally and practically sustainable
- China should continue to control its hubris as there is no reason to panic, either from a democratic alliance or an ‘Asian Nato’ meant to strangle China
Oswald Spengler, the prophet of the decline of the West, left a terrible question for the West more than a century ago. If the decline of the West is caused by its own doing, then it has no one to blame. But if the rise of non-white people causes the West to decline, should the West eliminate them?
The Yellow Peril theme was popularised by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of the 19th century. As the saying famously attributed to Karl Marx goes, history repeats itself, the first time is tragedy, the second time farce. It is farcical that China should be chosen by the West as a lead scapegoat for its own crisis.
Within the United States, the so-called bipartisan consensus against China is also fragile. Its crisis comes from demographic change as the white population loses its dominant position. The political elite try to hold onto the orthodoxy of liberal democracy, but populist leaders are striking at democratic values.
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Thus, the crisis in the West is not caused by a fight between political parties but by “two countries in one system”. The citizenry is split in two camps.