Thank you, Pascal, for finally articulating this viewpoint! I think you are one of a handful that have questioned the Mearsheimer narrative. I watched that episode and did not really understand why Mearsheimer describes China’s rise as not peaceful.. it’s not as if they went around the globe setting up military bases and starting wars to match their economic might. They just played the game of global free markets [established by the U.S.] and won.. why is that not peaceful?? Like you, I commend Prof Mearsheimer and read two of his books (Israel Lobby and Tragedy of Great Power Politics) but do not agree with him on his view that China needs to be contained by the U.S. I totally agree with you that he thinks the U.S. represents a universal blueprint of how all great powers have and will continue to behave, which I disagree with you.. if anything, the rise of China disputes that. I am a huge fan of your channel and expert and insightful analysis and watch every episode you put out. Thank you, sir 🙏
N.B. I also disagree with Mearsheimer about Israel being the tail that wags the dog.. I think that it’s the other way around and that Israel is an agent of the U.S. in west Asia. Maybe it’s because he has this blind spot and belief in American quintessentialism that prevents him from seeing the U.S. as holding dear all the values that the Israeli state represents - they just don’t want to be seen doing it whereas the Zionist entity is happy to be seen as immoral..
You are absolutely correct on Israel, as I keep trying to tell people, and jn fact the war in Gaza is just as much an American war - a globalist war in fact - as the war in Ukraine, and just as the Ukraine war is also a war against Europe itself, so also the Gaza war is meant to also destroy Israel. Netanyahu is loyal only to the global elite, and is in fact their new Zelensky. I have been trying to find the time to write about this whilst being a wage slave. Israelis have no more control over their politicians than we do.
Yes, the Israelis are trying desperately to get rid of Bibi (always wondered about that nickname.. is it a reference to ‘bibi brain’??) but can’t seem to do so.. and it’s not because the society in general has grown a conscience when it comes to the atrocities committed in its name against the Palestinians. That, they’re overwhelmingly on board with.. it’s just that Bibi-brain is dragging them down with all the mayhem..
Just because MSM isn’t publicising Israeli mass protests against the genocide does not mean they are not happening, and there has long been a peace movement in Israel. This is an American war which globalist Israeli politicians are going along with.
Mass protests in Israel against the genocide?? I doubt that.. they are protesting the war and not bringing back the hostages but nothing is said about the Palestinians.. the country in its entirety is psychopathic after generations of brainwashing..
No. The USA is a corrupt state that is completely bought bybthe zionist project. US citizens are being killed in palestine by the genocidal Israeli zionist regime and inside the US free speech is being shut down to enanle zionist mass murder.
The zionists even got the previous US govt to whitewash the zionist terrorists of Kahane Chai, a member of whom is now in the cabinet of the genocidal zionist regime:
I agree about the utter criminality of the Israel lobby but my point to is that congress is a ‘pay-to-play’ structure and it just so happens that the zionist lobby (like other lobbies representing pharmaceuticals) have deep pockets and are able to influence the political structure of the U.S. to their advantage (buy or threaten them). The American political structure is amenable to manipulation through ‘democratic’ channels but is no different than any undemocratic system in terms of outcomes.. just takes a different path that is supposed to hide its corruption.
Well, if the Israel lobby represents the interests of a criminal state then they’re no better.. if you don’t like ‘criminality’ I can replace it with ‘depravity’..
Does Mearsheimer also think the rise of the SE Asian tigers was because the US enabled them? I thought the US brought China into WTO to ensure the USD remained the currency of global trade. China was already growing before the entry, and the US needed them inside their trade system.
I think that fundamentally, the U.S. is victim to the law of unintended consequences.. it thinks it has more control on things than it actually has and we’ve seen this in all its decisions in the global arena (whether military adventures, economic decisions, etc). Maybe this is fueled by the American exceptionalism blind spot it has.. so now, if it thinks it can ‘contain’ China and any other rising power, well, we know it can do no such thing and the outcomes are usually not in its favour..
Great article, thanks. You're 100% correct on American Quintessentialism, great phrase btw.
I too am aware of this trend among the many American commentators I read and watch. For this reason I have stopped following most of them and I now follow Asian and African commentators as they are realistically in the real world.
Like you say, the global majority just don't care about us, they fear us, and who'd blame them for that! Like you too, I believe China will not go full blown Rambo as the west did and will stick to its Confucianism tradition as it has done for thousands of years.
Realism and long term planning is anathema to western civilisation and probably always will be. This is our greatest weakness while for the great powers of China and Russia it is their greatest strength.
Kids today from what I see on a daily basis, see China as an amazing place in comparison to Europe and America. This fact alone tells us that the future is looking good as the next generation will undoubtedly discover confucianism as they mature, and so slowly over a long time the western mindset will change for the better.
Yes the US like the resr of the self-styled "west" are a navel gazing colonial club.
But their relative decline is not the same as utter irrelevance. We've seen in the past 3 decades thst as they decline economically, their military arm NATO has become a globally weilded wrecking ball. NATO has wrecked the economic and social development of Iraq, Libya and Syria. And is threatening to do the same to Iran and Russia even.
Even if they have failed with Russia, they can still damage and bully many mid size nations with potential to be regional powrers, that would go with BRICS, such as South Africa and Nigeria and Kenya. in fact "mowing the lawn" by clipping budding regionsl powers is an explicit aspect of US "Full Spectrum doninance".
The picture shows the solar system, our solar system. This is just a tiny little detail of the universe. So, that flag is in the US mind in the entire universe, all is theirs. They are the God of the Universe, of all existence. If there are more universes: also these belong to them. Columbus came from Europe. All what is today rotten on this planet, originates from Europe. They, the collective west, all that where Europeans came and took as if all was/is theirs, still dare to name it "western civilization".
Very well put. I find the mental models of world politics in international relations and 'realist' geopolitics to be based on very limited, cherry-picked, and superseded Western history (e.g the Westphalian world order).
I would go further than you - "Mearsheimer universalised the European/US experience of world politics in the last 500 years." I would say he has generalised from a single case - a version of USA history over the last 150 years. It is not surprising then he argues China will act like the USA.
Fortunately, there is a lot of quality global/transnational history out there now that can serve as an antidote to this thinking. For example, Richard Overy's recent recent Why War? has a whole chapter dedicated to the 'security dilemma' and how the realist school fit history to their theory.
It's great you are politely and constructively criticising Mearsheimer and so-called 'realism' that is unfortunately not historically or otherwise realistic.
He doesn't argue that China will mirror USA, he argues that it makes all rational sense for China to do so to achieve and maintain hegemony within it's region, I would say.
Our intellectuals should study two things foremost:
1. Tianxia, the knowledge and understanding of the "things under one heaven", there can be only one political party, which is the realm of all political constructed dichotomies and struggles. The universe does not have an "outside".
2. Geometric language grammar in connection with geometric reasoning and logics (non-dualistic, not oriented in dialectics and dichotomies, but in the relationships of all principles and players at current time, and generally, and all the vectors or dynamic trajectories of these components, so everyone is always moving). Example: the human being is not 2 essences (body and soul), but 3: inside, outside, and depth (and almost every Asian culture has their own trinity of representing matters, very important: you | me | the environment we both depend on - this changes the conversation tremendously.)
Yes, so well put! It is frustrating to me for a long time — Prof. John Mearsheimer’s stand on China. Maybe you are right, it is the blind spot, he simply cannot overcome, despite his belief in ‘objectivity’. Thank you, Pascal.
Pascal, I agree with your views about Mearsheimer with one qualification. As someone with 30 years experience as an Electrical/Software Engineer and specifically having spent 10 of those years in Silicon Valley in the 1990s I must agree with Mearsheimer that it was indeed the USA, specifically Wall Street and Bill Clinton along with his neoliberal cronies who made China rich by enabling the flight of most manufacturering first to Mexico and then to China. Clinton was the prime mover behind China being accorded the MFNT (Most Favored Nation) treaty and it's subsequent welcome into the WTO. This was what caused the stampede of manufacturing from Mexico and also what remained in the USA to China. Yes the Chinese are clever and resourceful but unless you have technology in your hands you cannot study it or copy it. Bill Clinton and the Wall Street Banks made that possible. The USA basically and assiduously trained the Chinese as they moved manufacturing to China. China did not gave much expertise in high tech manufacturing. Wall Street sold our family jewels and hard won technology experience to the Chinese. Of course now having jumped off that spring board they have left everyone else far behind. This recalls Napolean Bonaparte's famous quip about how Bankers don't have a State or nation. They are just good at stealing everything from everyone.
Brilliant , but the last line is unfair , Once the knowledge of a particular new knowledge exists, well its effectively shared,how one goes about acquiring the processes for taking advantage of new knowledge is and has always been a battle by the have and have not and the US is not so innocent. By my measure the US and USSR did a fair share of stealing everything they could from Germany . we call that spoils of war not stealing.
You've nailed it here Pascal - China will not rise as America rose, or how Europe expanded for one reason and one reason only - they are Chinese.
I studied this in the workplace with my Master Degree over 10 years ago, in China. I found that under exactly the same set of stimulus, Chinese reactions to a situtaion would invariably be different to those of a Westerner - in my case, it was Chinese workplace psychology Vs Western Management Philosophy but the same experiences were found in the schools, where I spent 13 years teaching and in the home where I married into a Chinese family and observed how differently we behave. There's no reason to believe that wouldn't transcend to geopolitics and international diplomacy too.
When western experts get things so wrong, it's usually because they are predicting based on their own norms, Mearsheimer is no different and I hold the same view as you so that he's brilliant, he's usually right but he gets China so wrong because he thinks China will act in the same way. Graham Allison's Thucydides Trap fell into very much the same trap (excuse the pun) and Alison was supposed to be some kind of expert too - neither of them are.
I'd love to discuss this deeper with you one day if you have time, either on my channel or your show - we met online once before with Einar Tengen and Warwick Powell
Most citizens in democracies in the West will readily see their own governments for exactly what they are domestically and know they fabricate stories to make up for their incompetencies and in order to win their votes. Yet when it comes to foreign affairs then citizens will believe everything they are told without question.
Hi, it would be interesting to interview Mearshheimer on the topic. I think Mearsheimer may clarify some points.
I think the US has a great influence on international relations, trade etc. Undoubtedly it has been in a unique position of military strength (other than nuclear) for decades. In this sense the US was exceptional. And the US does tend to frame everything from a military perspective, even when there is no need.
As for China, there were emperors, who ruled austerely over their subjects. China definitely uses financial deals that for whatever reason wash completely over small pacific island nations. Some are effectively part owned by China.
Consider free solar panels in some pacific Islands - a bribe or a charitable act? Perhaps its not so different to USAID? China like the US & the EU also threatens countries with trade sanctions. However China never does officially, but this has been done many times to discipline small countries, e.g. Australia and Chinese wine exports.
You respect elephants and realise although usually gentle, they are very powerful. China is a super power, like the US.
Shame you did not invite Mearsheimer onto your channel to discuss the subject in more detail before publishing this piece. Your analysis is well thought out, but without giving Mearsheimer an opportunity to elaborate on his views in response to your particular observations, it feels incomplete.
I think you may underestimate the damage the Western Empire has wrought upon the world. The British Empire, and subsequently the American empire, dominated precisely by undermining and retarding the development of other nations thus ensuring they rule, Lets remember Empires collapse from within , external forces just help its collapse
Certainly, China has learned many lessons from the belligerence of the Europeans and their "exceptional" child, the USA. Consider the history of China and Japan: for centuries, both civilizations developed complex societies without engaging in a pattern of overseas conquest. It was the Mongols who twice attempted to invade Japan, not the Chinese.
Japan’s later invasion of China and Southeast Asia did not arise in a vacuum. It was, in large part, a reaction to the aggressive behavior of the Western powers. After being humiliated by American gunboat diplomacy and subjected to unequal treaties, Japan concluded that survival in the emerging world order required military strength and imperial expansion. The West had created a brutal system of "dominate or be dominated," and Japan, learning from the behavior of the Americans and Europeans, believed it had no choice but to join in.
Thus, Japan’s turn to militarism was not some aberration, but rather the logical outcome of the Western world’s own example. I pray China does not become the next America, those of us in Japan will be crushed first
or was Japan not always militaristic? were not all countries militaristic? 200 years ago there was no UN, if you didnt have ability to fight, your country ceased to exist.
Japan seems was conquered. Some speculate it was economic policy servitude by Japanese govt to the US that has kept Japans economy from continuing to do succeed.
How many shades of blue are there? Mankind`s entire existence could be said to be militaristic given our collective history of violence towards each other, but not all civilizations have the same depth of imperialism and conquest. You mention the UN, do you not understand it is a but a grand theater / Arena created by the West for its never ending hypocritical performances , where the cheap seat members are beaten into submission out of sight, Your history lessons were perhaps incomplete, what was the newly formed UN first action, to protect nation or partition a nation?
On the Ukraine war, incidentally, Mearsheimer said to a group of Australians who pushed back at US aggression, “Nevertheless, either you are with us or against us, and if you’re not with us then you are the enemy!” America is a nation built on fear, paranoia and delusion.
Ironically, there's a lot of eurocentrism underlying your own praise of China - after all, Karl Marx was not born in Beijing, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, anyone who hates Western values and hegemony cannot but hate communist China equally, as well as the vulgar materialism, social darwinism and malthusianism that characterizes it. But that is perhaps too much to ask of "neutralists", who just take communism as a fact of nature and fail to imagine what a traditional, authentic Chinese society could look like. A convenient blind spot, and very Western too.
It's worse than American exceptionalism, it's white exceptionalism. Only 10-12 percent of the world's human inhabitants are Caucasian, while 60% are Asian and the fastest growing bloc is African. And yet Americans view whiteness as superior and leading the world away from savagery and despotism. The reality is actually the opposite.
And as for trade, we can access the massive Asian and Eurasian markets except by boat or by sending our industries abroad. China, Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and the American Asian slave nations of Japan and South Korea once the free themselves, can use rail, highways, air, and sea to penetrate every nook and cranny of that wonderful and increasingly integrated market.
Let's face it: America is an unexceptional nation of minorities and cut off from the world.
Thank you, Pascal, for finally articulating this viewpoint! I think you are one of a handful that have questioned the Mearsheimer narrative. I watched that episode and did not really understand why Mearsheimer describes China’s rise as not peaceful.. it’s not as if they went around the globe setting up military bases and starting wars to match their economic might. They just played the game of global free markets [established by the U.S.] and won.. why is that not peaceful?? Like you, I commend Prof Mearsheimer and read two of his books (Israel Lobby and Tragedy of Great Power Politics) but do not agree with him on his view that China needs to be contained by the U.S. I totally agree with you that he thinks the U.S. represents a universal blueprint of how all great powers have and will continue to behave, which I disagree with you.. if anything, the rise of China disputes that. I am a huge fan of your channel and expert and insightful analysis and watch every episode you put out. Thank you, sir 🙏
N.B. I also disagree with Mearsheimer about Israel being the tail that wags the dog.. I think that it’s the other way around and that Israel is an agent of the U.S. in west Asia. Maybe it’s because he has this blind spot and belief in American quintessentialism that prevents him from seeing the U.S. as holding dear all the values that the Israeli state represents - they just don’t want to be seen doing it whereas the Zionist entity is happy to be seen as immoral..
You are absolutely correct on Israel, as I keep trying to tell people, and jn fact the war in Gaza is just as much an American war - a globalist war in fact - as the war in Ukraine, and just as the Ukraine war is also a war against Europe itself, so also the Gaza war is meant to also destroy Israel. Netanyahu is loyal only to the global elite, and is in fact their new Zelensky. I have been trying to find the time to write about this whilst being a wage slave. Israelis have no more control over their politicians than we do.
Yes, the Israelis are trying desperately to get rid of Bibi (always wondered about that nickname.. is it a reference to ‘bibi brain’??) but can’t seem to do so.. and it’s not because the society in general has grown a conscience when it comes to the atrocities committed in its name against the Palestinians. That, they’re overwhelmingly on board with.. it’s just that Bibi-brain is dragging them down with all the mayhem..
Just because MSM isn’t publicising Israeli mass protests against the genocide does not mean they are not happening, and there has long been a peace movement in Israel. This is an American war which globalist Israeli politicians are going along with.
Mass protests in Israel against the genocide?? I doubt that.. they are protesting the war and not bringing back the hostages but nothing is said about the Palestinians.. the country in its entirety is psychopathic after generations of brainwashing..
No. The USA is a corrupt state that is completely bought bybthe zionist project. US citizens are being killed in palestine by the genocidal Israeli zionist regime and inside the US free speech is being shut down to enanle zionist mass murder.
The zionists even got the previous US govt to whitewash the zionist terrorists of Kahane Chai, a member of whom is now in the cabinet of the genocidal zionist regime:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/brooklyn-event-with-itamar-ben-gvir-cancelled-days-before-israeli-far-right-minister-s-us-trip
I agree about the utter criminality of the Israel lobby but my point to is that congress is a ‘pay-to-play’ structure and it just so happens that the zionist lobby (like other lobbies representing pharmaceuticals) have deep pockets and are able to influence the political structure of the U.S. to their advantage (buy or threaten them). The American political structure is amenable to manipulation through ‘democratic’ channels but is no different than any undemocratic system in terms of outcomes.. just takes a different path that is supposed to hide its corruption.
i didnt say the ziinist lobby is criminal.
I say the US system of government is corrupt and bought. Zionist lobby is one of MANY interests that have bought US govt.
Whats criminal in zonism is occupation and aparthied and genocide, all of which are crimes against humanity. Also crimes in US law actually.
Well, if the Israel lobby represents the interests of a criminal state then they’re no better.. if you don’t like ‘criminality’ I can replace it with ‘depravity’..
Does Mearsheimer also think the rise of the SE Asian tigers was because the US enabled them? I thought the US brought China into WTO to ensure the USD remained the currency of global trade. China was already growing before the entry, and the US needed them inside their trade system.
I think that fundamentally, the U.S. is victim to the law of unintended consequences.. it thinks it has more control on things than it actually has and we’ve seen this in all its decisions in the global arena (whether military adventures, economic decisions, etc). Maybe this is fueled by the American exceptionalism blind spot it has.. so now, if it thinks it can ‘contain’ China and any other rising power, well, we know it can do no such thing and the outcomes are usually not in its favour..
Great article, thanks. You're 100% correct on American Quintessentialism, great phrase btw.
I too am aware of this trend among the many American commentators I read and watch. For this reason I have stopped following most of them and I now follow Asian and African commentators as they are realistically in the real world.
Like you say, the global majority just don't care about us, they fear us, and who'd blame them for that! Like you too, I believe China will not go full blown Rambo as the west did and will stick to its Confucianism tradition as it has done for thousands of years.
Realism and long term planning is anathema to western civilisation and probably always will be. This is our greatest weakness while for the great powers of China and Russia it is their greatest strength.
Kids today from what I see on a daily basis, see China as an amazing place in comparison to Europe and America. This fact alone tells us that the future is looking good as the next generation will undoubtedly discover confucianism as they mature, and so slowly over a long time the western mindset will change for the better.
Yes the US like the resr of the self-styled "west" are a navel gazing colonial club.
But their relative decline is not the same as utter irrelevance. We've seen in the past 3 decades thst as they decline economically, their military arm NATO has become a globally weilded wrecking ball. NATO has wrecked the economic and social development of Iraq, Libya and Syria. And is threatening to do the same to Iran and Russia even.
Even if they have failed with Russia, they can still damage and bully many mid size nations with potential to be regional powrers, that would go with BRICS, such as South Africa and Nigeria and Kenya. in fact "mowing the lawn" by clipping budding regionsl powers is an explicit aspect of US "Full Spectrum doninance".
These behaviors aren't in any way new, tho
The picture shows the solar system, our solar system. This is just a tiny little detail of the universe. So, that flag is in the US mind in the entire universe, all is theirs. They are the God of the Universe, of all existence. If there are more universes: also these belong to them. Columbus came from Europe. All what is today rotten on this planet, originates from Europe. They, the collective west, all that where Europeans came and took as if all was/is theirs, still dare to name it "western civilization".
Very well put. I find the mental models of world politics in international relations and 'realist' geopolitics to be based on very limited, cherry-picked, and superseded Western history (e.g the Westphalian world order).
I would go further than you - "Mearsheimer universalised the European/US experience of world politics in the last 500 years." I would say he has generalised from a single case - a version of USA history over the last 150 years. It is not surprising then he argues China will act like the USA.
Fortunately, there is a lot of quality global/transnational history out there now that can serve as an antidote to this thinking. For example, Richard Overy's recent recent Why War? has a whole chapter dedicated to the 'security dilemma' and how the realist school fit history to their theory.
It's great you are politely and constructively criticising Mearsheimer and so-called 'realism' that is unfortunately not historically or otherwise realistic.
He doesn't argue that China will mirror USA, he argues that it makes all rational sense for China to do so to achieve and maintain hegemony within it's region, I would say.
Our intellectuals should study two things foremost:
1. Tianxia, the knowledge and understanding of the "things under one heaven", there can be only one political party, which is the realm of all political constructed dichotomies and struggles. The universe does not have an "outside".
2. Geometric language grammar in connection with geometric reasoning and logics (non-dualistic, not oriented in dialectics and dichotomies, but in the relationships of all principles and players at current time, and generally, and all the vectors or dynamic trajectories of these components, so everyone is always moving). Example: the human being is not 2 essences (body and soul), but 3: inside, outside, and depth (and almost every Asian culture has their own trinity of representing matters, very important: you | me | the environment we both depend on - this changes the conversation tremendously.)
Yes, so well put! It is frustrating to me for a long time — Prof. John Mearsheimer’s stand on China. Maybe you are right, it is the blind spot, he simply cannot overcome, despite his belief in ‘objectivity’. Thank you, Pascal.
Pascal, I agree with your views about Mearsheimer with one qualification. As someone with 30 years experience as an Electrical/Software Engineer and specifically having spent 10 of those years in Silicon Valley in the 1990s I must agree with Mearsheimer that it was indeed the USA, specifically Wall Street and Bill Clinton along with his neoliberal cronies who made China rich by enabling the flight of most manufacturering first to Mexico and then to China. Clinton was the prime mover behind China being accorded the MFNT (Most Favored Nation) treaty and it's subsequent welcome into the WTO. This was what caused the stampede of manufacturing from Mexico and also what remained in the USA to China. Yes the Chinese are clever and resourceful but unless you have technology in your hands you cannot study it or copy it. Bill Clinton and the Wall Street Banks made that possible. The USA basically and assiduously trained the Chinese as they moved manufacturing to China. China did not gave much expertise in high tech manufacturing. Wall Street sold our family jewels and hard won technology experience to the Chinese. Of course now having jumped off that spring board they have left everyone else far behind. This recalls Napolean Bonaparte's famous quip about how Bankers don't have a State or nation. They are just good at stealing everything from everyone.
Brilliant , but the last line is unfair , Once the knowledge of a particular new knowledge exists, well its effectively shared,how one goes about acquiring the processes for taking advantage of new knowledge is and has always been a battle by the have and have not and the US is not so innocent. By my measure the US and USSR did a fair share of stealing everything they could from Germany . we call that spoils of war not stealing.
You've nailed it here Pascal - China will not rise as America rose, or how Europe expanded for one reason and one reason only - they are Chinese.
I studied this in the workplace with my Master Degree over 10 years ago, in China. I found that under exactly the same set of stimulus, Chinese reactions to a situtaion would invariably be different to those of a Westerner - in my case, it was Chinese workplace psychology Vs Western Management Philosophy but the same experiences were found in the schools, where I spent 13 years teaching and in the home where I married into a Chinese family and observed how differently we behave. There's no reason to believe that wouldn't transcend to geopolitics and international diplomacy too.
When western experts get things so wrong, it's usually because they are predicting based on their own norms, Mearsheimer is no different and I hold the same view as you so that he's brilliant, he's usually right but he gets China so wrong because he thinks China will act in the same way. Graham Allison's Thucydides Trap fell into very much the same trap (excuse the pun) and Alison was supposed to be some kind of expert too - neither of them are.
I'd love to discuss this deeper with you one day if you have time, either on my channel or your show - we met online once before with Einar Tengen and Warwick Powell
The day the US will understand that, outisde teh West, the rest of the world doesn't give dam', things will quickly improve.
China and Russia are the blind spots. To majority of the citizens of the west.
Believing despite criticising our own governments for its actions.It is surperior and more trustworthy than china and russia.
Most citizens in democracies in the West will readily see their own governments for exactly what they are domestically and know they fabricate stories to make up for their incompetencies and in order to win their votes. Yet when it comes to foreign affairs then citizens will believe everything they are told without question.
Hi, it would be interesting to interview Mearshheimer on the topic. I think Mearsheimer may clarify some points.
I think the US has a great influence on international relations, trade etc. Undoubtedly it has been in a unique position of military strength (other than nuclear) for decades. In this sense the US was exceptional. And the US does tend to frame everything from a military perspective, even when there is no need.
As for China, there were emperors, who ruled austerely over their subjects. China definitely uses financial deals that for whatever reason wash completely over small pacific island nations. Some are effectively part owned by China.
Whether China has intentionally taken some control of these small Islands, islands outside its territory, well I think so, possibly mainly for fishing access, but there has been a discussion of military base in Solomon Islands. <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/usa-threats-china-solomon-islands-military-b2065742.html>
Consider free solar panels in some pacific Islands - a bribe or a charitable act? Perhaps its not so different to USAID? China like the US & the EU also threatens countries with trade sanctions. However China never does officially, but this has been done many times to discipline small countries, e.g. Australia and Chinese wine exports.
You respect elephants and realise although usually gentle, they are very powerful. China is a super power, like the US.
Shame you did not invite Mearsheimer onto your channel to discuss the subject in more detail before publishing this piece. Your analysis is well thought out, but without giving Mearsheimer an opportunity to elaborate on his views in response to your particular observations, it feels incomplete.
I think you may underestimate the damage the Western Empire has wrought upon the world. The British Empire, and subsequently the American empire, dominated precisely by undermining and retarding the development of other nations thus ensuring they rule, Lets remember Empires collapse from within , external forces just help its collapse
Certainly, China has learned many lessons from the belligerence of the Europeans and their "exceptional" child, the USA. Consider the history of China and Japan: for centuries, both civilizations developed complex societies without engaging in a pattern of overseas conquest. It was the Mongols who twice attempted to invade Japan, not the Chinese.
Japan’s later invasion of China and Southeast Asia did not arise in a vacuum. It was, in large part, a reaction to the aggressive behavior of the Western powers. After being humiliated by American gunboat diplomacy and subjected to unequal treaties, Japan concluded that survival in the emerging world order required military strength and imperial expansion. The West had created a brutal system of "dominate or be dominated," and Japan, learning from the behavior of the Americans and Europeans, believed it had no choice but to join in.
Thus, Japan’s turn to militarism was not some aberration, but rather the logical outcome of the Western world’s own example. I pray China does not become the next America, those of us in Japan will be crushed first
or was Japan not always militaristic? were not all countries militaristic? 200 years ago there was no UN, if you didnt have ability to fight, your country ceased to exist.
Japan seems was conquered. Some speculate it was economic policy servitude by Japanese govt to the US that has kept Japans economy from continuing to do succeed.
How many shades of blue are there? Mankind`s entire existence could be said to be militaristic given our collective history of violence towards each other, but not all civilizations have the same depth of imperialism and conquest. You mention the UN, do you not understand it is a but a grand theater / Arena created by the West for its never ending hypocritical performances , where the cheap seat members are beaten into submission out of sight, Your history lessons were perhaps incomplete, what was the newly formed UN first action, to protect nation or partition a nation?
On the Ukraine war, incidentally, Mearsheimer said to a group of Australians who pushed back at US aggression, “Nevertheless, either you are with us or against us, and if you’re not with us then you are the enemy!” America is a nation built on fear, paranoia and delusion.
Ironically, there's a lot of eurocentrism underlying your own praise of China - after all, Karl Marx was not born in Beijing, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, anyone who hates Western values and hegemony cannot but hate communist China equally, as well as the vulgar materialism, social darwinism and malthusianism that characterizes it. But that is perhaps too much to ask of "neutralists", who just take communism as a fact of nature and fail to imagine what a traditional, authentic Chinese society could look like. A convenient blind spot, and very Western too.
It's worse than American exceptionalism, it's white exceptionalism. Only 10-12 percent of the world's human inhabitants are Caucasian, while 60% are Asian and the fastest growing bloc is African. And yet Americans view whiteness as superior and leading the world away from savagery and despotism. The reality is actually the opposite.
And as for trade, we can access the massive Asian and Eurasian markets except by boat or by sending our industries abroad. China, Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and the American Asian slave nations of Japan and South Korea once the free themselves, can use rail, highways, air, and sea to penetrate every nook and cranny of that wonderful and increasingly integrated market.
Let's face it: America is an unexceptional nation of minorities and cut off from the world.