Last week, the diplomatic conflict between the US and China reached a breaking point. If this happens, damage will be inevitable for the two countries, which have been greatly enriched by the partnership initiated when Nixon decided to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet border conflict to get closer to the Chinese.
The birth, growth and maturity of what Professor Niall Ferguson called Chimerica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerica took place during the decline of the USSR. In the latest documentary in the series “The Rise of Money” (2008) he unraveled this phenomenon and warned that divorce might not be friendly.
Donald Trump was also quite hostile to China. But what in his case was just verbal excess (probably aiming to win better terms for a deal), in Joe Biden's case seems to be turning into something deeper and obviously dangerous. Americans don't want to give up a position they've already lost. And the Chinese will obviously not fail to draw a red line whose violation will mean the replacement of diplomacy with the use of military force.
It is not by chance that the rupture of Chimerica can be compared to what happened between Germany and England just before World War II. Some analysts also liken Washington-Beijing relations to the conflict that ravaged Greek civilization and led to the decline of city-states. I am obviously referring to the Peloponnesian War.
Thucydides claims that Sparta attacked Athens because it began to fear the growth of Athenian power. The Americans no longer hide their fear in the face of the economic, diplomatic and, eventually, military colossus that they themselves helped to build because they wanted to overwhelm the USSR.
Despite its economic weakness, Russia has re-established its ability to project military power and has used Chimerica's aporias to consolidate itself as a player in the international arena. The Kremlin had been trying to oscillate between China and the US, but it got closer and closer to the Chinese.
The Americans have been moving troops and new military equipment to Europe, something that bothers Russia a lot. They have also continually provoked Beijing in the China Sea. But it's hard to say whether the US could really take on China and Russia militarily at the same time. In this case, the theater of operations would be in Asia, Europe, but also in the oceans and eventually in the American territory itself. Brazil's mission in case of war could only be to maintain neutrality. But that's not what I intend to talk about here.
What caught my attention was the fact that the Chinese said that Joe Biden uses China to create a kind of sense of purpose among Americans. Before entering World War I, the purpose of American civilization was to devote itself only to business. This explains the strength of isolationism. The purpose of the US entering World War II was to come out of it as an undisputed world power. This indeed happened, but to the surprise of the Americans, the USSR was not totally destroyed by the Nazi war machine (something that happened to Europe).
The exhaustion of British imperialism and French, partly resulting from the economic damage caused by the war in Europe, the United States raised to the West leading condition (whatever the meaning of it). Success in World War II and the subsequent diplomatic/ideological conflict with the USSR provided Americans with greater social cohesion and a sense of national purpose that dissolved with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.
The predominance of business as usual was greatly shaken by the 2008 crisis, whose social effects are still being felt in the US. Elevating China to the status of archenemy is tempting, but the result may not be exactly what Americans want. After all, the Chinese have something the Russians didn't: great economic dynamism and a deep sense of cultural identity.
In addition to targeting China on Earth, the White House appears to have returned to treating space as a last frontier. This took place in the 1960s, but within an entirely different context. At that time, the US government's space program aimed, among other things, to develop new missiles capable of transporting nuclear warheads to the USSR. Currently, the space is seen as an opportunity for new businesses and the White House is just following an objective that had already been established by businessmen.
In this sense, it is never enough to mention here what was said by an American author in the 1970s.
“If the United States is currently involved in a war to remake our domestic society, then the prerequisites for its successful conduct are the definition of the purpose of the struggle, and the establishment of goals and criteria for measuring victory. When such a political or ideological framework is in place, business can work efficiently within it. But for unelected businessmen to suppose that they can erect such a framework suggests anarchy. They have neither the right nor the competence to do so.” (The New American Ideology, George C. Lodge, Alfred A Knopf Inc., New York, 1975, p. 190)
Will space be able to mobilize the hearts and minds of unemployed, hungry, and hopeless Americans to find good new jobs in a job market that is shrinking as automation grows in every sector of the US economy? On the other hand, the invasion of the US Congress by trumpist hordes, which triggered a political earthquake in Washington, cannot be credited to China. What happened can be considered the symptom of a society that reached its zenith and went into decline.
Is the US becoming a country unable to regain a sense of unity and purpose in the coming decades? Answering this question is not an easy task. Every political-ideological device finds its limits in reality. On the other hand, as George C. Lodge said, businessmen are not in a position to do what only statesmen are competent to do.
The central issue, however, may be different. The problem is that neoliberalism, to which Joe Biden is quickly surrendering, does not allow the state to regain control of the economy and, above all, of politics. So, in this game of poker on a planetary scale, China has the best hand. And it will continue to have the best hand as long as the Chinese don't make the mistake of believing that military solutions are better than just distributing money among their allies in the US. For now, the White House is bound to continue bluffing.
Corporations run USA and if they lose money they will abandon USA. The crony capitalism money lining western "elected" officials will dry up. Pass the popcorn