Daniel Drezner, who seems to be my favorite straw man/straight man, and maybe even tin man, has a long post up at Reason, “There Is No China Crisis”, which is absolutely gold. As Dan points out, in a thoroughly researched and most convincing manner, the very many sins and crimes of the Chinese government doesn’t detract in the slightest from the fact that China isn’t going anywhere, that it constitutes all by itself over 20% of the world’s population, and that its economy, with all its faults and weaknesses, is absolutely vital to the world’s economy, which, shockingly enough, is absolutely vital to the U.S. economy. The United States needs a healthy, growing, expanding Chinese economy, even though China’s government will almost surely remain corrupt and oppressive for the foreseeable future.
I dragged poor old Ronald Reagan into my head to remind “conservatives”, aka Trumpian ditto heads, who surely aren’t listening, and who couldn’t comprehend my gist if they were, that the sainted Ronnie sold first six, and then nine million tons of grain annually to the “Evil Empire”/Soviet Union during his administrations, despite the protests of the real hard-liners like “Cap” Weinberger.
For decades, neocons like Bill Kristol and all the rest played the xenophobia card like it would never go out of style. The UN sucks! And our “allies”! Those faggy French! Ooh la la! Goddamn cheese-eating surrender monkeys! Damn, that’s funny! I gotta say it again! Goddamn cheese-eating surrender monkeys! And how about those Germans and their goddamn holier than thou pacifism? Where are the Nazis when you need them?
At the same time, of course, the neo-cons knew we needed our allies. All that puffed-chest talk was mere boob-bumping, as H. L. Mencken liked to call it, for domestic consumption only. During the Obama administration, the Washington Post never saw an enemy of freedom it didn’t want to “sanction”, whipping itself into a frenzy when the president lifted some, and only some, of the restrictions on U.S. trade with Cuba, despite the fact that said restrictions had had no impact whatsoever on the behavior of the Cuban government for fifty years. In fact, as I observed at the time, the Post was also demanding that we “get tough” with Syria, China, North Korea, and Russia. Because toughness always wins! And if it doesn’t, well, it feels good!
Fortunately—though this is very small comfort indeed—the election of Donald Trump has allowed some, though only some, neocons to walk away from their more strident stupidities. The Post, to its credit, has changed its tune remarkably, warning, for example, in “Trump and Biden alike have stooped to demagoguery about China”, against playing the xenophobia card, which was once no more than a reflex action at the Post.
As Dan, to get back to him, points out, we cooperated with the Soviet Union on a number of issues, even though the Soviets had an enormous military aimed right at us, thousands of nuclear-tipped ICBMs compared to the several hundred possessed by China today, and was aggressively financing revolutionary movements all around the world. The Soviet leadership justified its grip on power on the need for total control in order to achieve the most glorious event in human history, the world-wide overthrow of the oppressors and the establishment of the perfect communist society. The Chinese communist leadership justifies its totalitarian rule on the promise of Gucci handbags for all, as long as you’re Chinese. There is a difference.
There is a difference, but Donald Trump, of course, doesn’t care. All he wants is combat! Give me an enemy! And China makes a most excellent punching bag, as long as you can’t see past tomorrow’s “Fox & Friends”. And Trump can’t.
Afterwords
I’m not running any posts about the coronavirus because I don’t know anything about it, and nobody else does either. I could make fun of the dumb things people say, but when you’re speaking from ignorance, as we all are, it’s impossible not to say dumb things. Trump is in a class by himself, of course, as he always is. I am a congenital optimist, which always works until it doesn’t. The brave only taste of death but once, and so do us fools. I wear a mask when I go outside, but I really can’t imagine that I’ll catch the virus. There’s so much that will probably change in a year that, well, since I’m an optimist, I’d rather not go into details. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof is going to last me until I keel over. At least, that’s my game plan.
