By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-18/Speculative-U-S-antipathies-about-China-are-losing-traction-ObLQ9FGWbe/index.html
56th Munich Security Conference (MSC) ended on Sunday without any consensus on whether the world or west itself was becoming less western, “Westlessness,” a term coined by MSC Report 2020 and theme of this year’s gathering that comprised hundreds of leaders and thinkers from politics, international organizations and civil society to discuss preeminent global crisis and future security challenges.
The primary objective of the summit, the state of the West and to forge an international “strategic community” to resolve global conflicts through peaceful means, was indeed smashed halfway into the conference once the US Secretary of States Mike Pompeo defied the motto by asserting that the West was winning and debilitated international security cooperation over his redirected focus on China.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper followed Pompeo up and munched all his time in disapproving Chinese communist party and the country’s economic and political system. So akin to his teammate partner, Esper was also preoccupied with China’s growth and its mounting rapprochement with the neighboring and worldwide nations.
American officials’ use of MSC multilateral forum– tailored to discuss the global security issues such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kashmir, Libya, Palestine, Venezuela, Ukraine and Yemen – to cast China as a rising threat, bashing Chinese ruling party and boasting of supplying medical supplies to coronavirus victims was passably dismaying and counterproductive for the participants.
The brazen and speculative US antipathies about China are therefore distinctly losing the traction by the time as the countries from North to South Pole, have spurned Washington’s hate-preach toward Beijing and reaffirmed the longing to strengthen their strategic communication and mutual trust to push their partnership with China to a new level as well as applauded Chinese role in global peace and development and its efforts to combat coronavirus epidemic.
International solidarity with Chinese people grappled with the pneumonia, the concurrence between Beijing and Berlin to jointly uphold multilateralism and speed up cooperation to promote China-EU investment, wide-ranging participation in BRI and Germany’s endorsement to one-China policy and its sovereignty and territorial integrity – are some of the many paradigm shifts in global community’s pragmatic approach to deal with China.
While the desperate diplomatic shots of the US representatives, to exploit the COVID-19 outbreak to slur Beijing and reroute the universal support in their favor by rebuking Chinese model, botched horribly – the US secretaries’ comments additionally contradicted the US President Donald Trump’s willingness to improve American relationship with China.
Of late, Trump has characterized Washington affairs with Beijing “perhaps the best relationship we have ever had with China, including with President Xi” – crowing that the landmark phase one deal will defend the US workers, protect its intellectual property, bring billions into the treasury and open new markets for the US products. He further praised China’s “counterattack on the Coronavirus” and execution of drug dealers.
Both the US officials are reluctant to embrace Trump’s convivial and pliant perception over China, which would allow the sides to sit down and have a serious dialogue in finding a conducive way for either of them in order “to live in harmony and interact in peace despite the different social systems,” to put in the words of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Bragging about providing drug provisions to China for battling out coronavirus by the US is lamentable. Beijing largely relies on its strength to tackle the epidemic, though has welcomed and thanked support of international community. So far, some 33 foreign governments and 4 international have extended medical assistance to China but it was the US that has shoot its mouth off in offering humanitarian support to the Chinese phenomena survivors.
American hostility toward China is rousing Europe to become more cynical of the US adamant attitude that has consistently forced them to completely decouple from the world’s second largest economy amid their unrelenting efforts to find a middle conduit to work between the two economic powerhouses so as to protect their economic and trade interests.
A day prior to US officials’ rhetoric, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took a jab on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “America First” campaigns and panned Europe’s “closest ally” for pursuing its own goals “at the expense of neighbors and partners” and discarding “the very concept of the international community.” German foreign minister Heiko Haas was also critical of the “uncomfortable reality of what a withdrawal of the US from military engagement and from international treaties means for us.”
After Pompeo rejected European pessimism about the US retreat from the global stage and refuted criticism on the transatlantic relationship, the French President Emmanuel Macron gainsaid him downright and warned “There is awakening of the West” and called for more German involvement. “”We cannot always go through the United States, no, we have to think in a European way a well,” the President of now the only nuclear state in Europe said.
Latest developments rediscovered Europe’s increased perception about the changing nature of the internal order and its pursuit to seek an independent foreign policy where no foreign country including the US would have the pervading clout to eclipse its economic interests with other economies of the world.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-18/Speculative-U-S-antipathies-about-China-are-losing-traction-ObLQ9FGWbe/index.html
56th Munich Security Conference (MSC) ended on Sunday without any consensus on whether the world or west itself was becoming less western, “Westlessness,” a term coined by MSC Report 2020 and theme of this year’s gathering that comprised hundreds of leaders and thinkers from politics, international organizations and civil society to discuss preeminent global crisis and future security challenges.
The primary objective of the summit, the state of the West and to forge an international “strategic community” to resolve global conflicts through peaceful means, was indeed smashed halfway into the conference once the US Secretary of States Mike Pompeo defied the motto by asserting that the West was winning and debilitated international security cooperation over his redirected focus on China.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper followed Pompeo up and munched all his time in disapproving Chinese communist party and the country’s economic and political system. So akin to his teammate partner, Esper was also preoccupied with China’s growth and its mounting rapprochement with the neighboring and worldwide nations.
American officials’ use of MSC multilateral forum– tailored to discuss the global security issues such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kashmir, Libya, Palestine, Venezuela, Ukraine and Yemen – to cast China as a rising threat, bashing Chinese ruling party and boasting of supplying medical supplies to coronavirus victims was passably dismaying and counterproductive for the participants.
The brazen and speculative US antipathies about China are therefore distinctly losing the traction by the time as the countries from North to South Pole, have spurned Washington’s hate-preach toward Beijing and reaffirmed the longing to strengthen their strategic communication and mutual trust to push their partnership with China to a new level as well as applauded Chinese role in global peace and development and its efforts to combat coronavirus epidemic.
International solidarity with Chinese people grappled with the pneumonia, the concurrence between Beijing and Berlin to jointly uphold multilateralism and speed up cooperation to promote China-EU investment, wide-ranging participation in BRI and Germany’s endorsement to one-China policy and its sovereignty and territorial integrity – are some of the many paradigm shifts in global community’s pragmatic approach to deal with China.
While the desperate diplomatic shots of the US representatives, to exploit the COVID-19 outbreak to slur Beijing and reroute the universal support in their favor by rebuking Chinese model, botched horribly – the US secretaries’ comments additionally contradicted the US President Donald Trump’s willingness to improve American relationship with China.
Of late, Trump has characterized Washington affairs with Beijing “perhaps the best relationship we have ever had with China, including with President Xi” – crowing that the landmark phase one deal will defend the US workers, protect its intellectual property, bring billions into the treasury and open new markets for the US products. He further praised China’s “counterattack on the Coronavirus” and execution of drug dealers.
Both the US officials are reluctant to embrace Trump’s convivial and pliant perception over China, which would allow the sides to sit down and have a serious dialogue in finding a conducive way for either of them in order “to live in harmony and interact in peace despite the different social systems,” to put in the words of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Bragging about providing drug provisions to China for battling out coronavirus by the US is lamentable. Beijing largely relies on its strength to tackle the epidemic, though has welcomed and thanked support of international community. So far, some 33 foreign governments and 4 international have extended medical assistance to China but it was the US that has shoot its mouth off in offering humanitarian support to the Chinese phenomena survivors.
American hostility toward China is rousing Europe to become more cynical of the US adamant attitude that has consistently forced them to completely decouple from the world’s second largest economy amid their unrelenting efforts to find a middle conduit to work between the two economic powerhouses so as to protect their economic and trade interests.
A day prior to US officials’ rhetoric, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took a jab on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “America First” campaigns and panned Europe’s “closest ally” for pursuing its own goals “at the expense of neighbors and partners” and discarding “the very concept of the international community.” German foreign minister Heiko Haas was also critical of the “uncomfortable reality of what a withdrawal of the US from military engagement and from international treaties means for us.”
After Pompeo rejected European pessimism about the US retreat from the global stage and refuted criticism on the transatlantic relationship, the French President Emmanuel Macron gainsaid him downright and warned “There is awakening of the West” and called for more German involvement. “”We cannot always go through the United States, no, we have to think in a European way a well,” the President of now the only nuclear state in Europe said.
Latest developments rediscovered Europe’s increased perception about the changing nature of the internal order and its pursuit to seek an independent foreign policy where no foreign country including the US would have the pervading clout to eclipse its economic interests with other economies of the world.