The US and its President Biden has been looking sillier and sillier to America’s global audience the past months. Take the inane “Chinese spy balloon” hullabaloo the shadowy anti-China political-media network concocted in February, Pentagon just a few days ago, on June 30, now officially admits “did not collect intelligence while flying over the country.” Yet, that spy thriller concoction delayed Blinken’s “reconciliation” visit to China by five months, pushing through only on June 18.
Blinken’s China visit was upon the initiative of the U.S. after China cut off vital bilateral talks to protest and show its extreme opposition to the August 2022 deliberate provocation by then U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. China cut off its dialogue forums with the U.S. in military relations, anti-narcotics efforts as well as Climate Change issues, and imposed a six-day blockade of the Taiwan island when nothing could enter or exit Taiwan.
The U.S. initiated overtures to China for thawing the mini-cold war over the Pelosi visit. China had shown it would no longer tolerate provocations of the U.S. and demonstrated the consequences. Thereafter, we would read the constant repetition of China’s position of no talks without the U.S. showing sincerity, and respect for China’s core interests such as the Taiwan issue. The U.S. through Blinken, blinked. China responded graciously with President Xi Jinping personally meeting Blinken.
Depressingly, however, just one day after Blinken wrapped up his reconciliation visit to China with sighs of relief from the global community that the talks had restored some calmness to the geopolitical scene, U.S. President Biden again displays the utter inconsistency, insensitiveness and inanity of U.S. political culture by throwing Blinken’s effort and China’s graciousness “under the bus” calling President Xi Jinping a “dictator” and maligning China’s system of “democratic centralism.”
Biden was obviously catering to the American domestic audience that ignorantly likes to think of its “system” as democratic when it is actually “plutocratic,” as described by U.S. President Nixon’s political strategist and author Kevin Phillips as a “fusion of money and government.” Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote in 2011 describing U.S. democracy as “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.”
Other political scientists call it a “civil oligarchy.”
Every year I follow the Democracy Perception Index published by the Europe-based Alliance of Democracies based on its survey of 50,000 participants from 53 countries. In 2023 in the U.S. only 54% of its citizens believe its government is democratic while 73% of Chinese citizens viewed their country as a democracy, putting is another way 58% of Americans believe its government serves the few while only 10% of Chinese believe the same of their government.
President Joe Biden or who ever gets to sit as U.S. president, as well as the government that he sits atop, inevitably becomes a tool of the 1% super rich and, often, against the interest and welfare of the vast majority-of the people. China’s “democratic centralism” system ensures rule by consensus from the bottom to the top and top down in a circular feedback chain but with a clear purpose going forward of a leadership that exists ideologically to “serve the people.”
The survey I cite above is commissioned by AoD (Alliance of Democracies) led not by any leftwing ideologue but by the former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and AoD founder which receives its funding from western governments and affiliated think tanks. The report cannot be accused of bias for China and certainly not against the West and the U.S. This is a very reliable basis for judging which system and government, the U.S. or China, is closer to the ideal democracy.
The U.S. plutocratic society began with its feudal plutocracy after the British colonial period. The American land and slave-owning class ruled and wrote its original Constitution which American political science lecturer described as “… explicitly designed to check the democratic will of ordinary people and protect the plutocratic interests of the propertied elite.” It was the sheer abundance of its land that the U.S. continued to thrive over two centuries until its crisis of finance capitalism today.
Now we come to the main topic of this piece, the real reason behind Blinken’s “reconciliation” pilgrimage to China and humbling of the arrogant U.S. before its own declared rival China – to pave the way for long planned and announced visit of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to China in the next few days. Behind the noisy U.S. anti-China political and media propaganda and provocative Taiwan gunboat diplomacy Janet Yellen has been slowly building up the grounds for this other “reconciliation” trip.
As far back as January Yellen had been vowing to reduce tensions with China and in a meeting with her Chinese counterpart pledged efforts to manage differences and “prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict.” In April Yellen speaking at the John Hopkins University in Washington said the U.S. sought “constructive and fair economic relationship” with China and added later that “decoupling” would be “disastrous for both countries.”
A decoupling by the U.S. from China would really be disastrous for the U.S. but only a difficulty for China as the latter will suffer some setbacks but will continue its growth trajectory as it expands its trade with the greater part of the world. For the U.S. a full-blown decoupling from China would sink the U.S. financial system and the U.S. Dollar which is in the middle of its end-stage struggle to survive after the Biden-McCarthy deal ceiling deal kicks the U.S. Debt Bomb down the road again.
The U.S. is in its greatest debt and financial crisis in its history and Yellen will be in China to plead for help as President George W. Bush, Jr. did in the middle of the U.S. 2008 Financial Crisis asking Chinese President Hu Jintao “to buy the extra U.S. debt needed to fund the bailout.” In the light of the past half-decade of anti-China campaign of the U.S. against China the latter had already reduced in holdings of U.S. debt from $ 1.2-Trillion to the present day $ 800-Billion – half a trillion less.
Yellen is couching the purpose of her China trip in all sorts of flowery, high sounding motherhood statements such as “to deepen and increase the frequency of communication between U.S. and China”, but if that were the only purpose why would the U.S. Treasury Secretary do better than the U.S. State Secretary Blinken? That is why this sudden humility of the US is not in anyway really to improve strategic relations with China but is related to its need for financial bailouts from creditor China.
The Chinese are more forthright about the Yellen visit, as Chinese Academy of Social Sciences expert quoted by the Global Times said when queried, “Yellen’s visit is likely motivated by concerns over US debt,” and the report adds “With the US having its debt ceiling, there is need to find buyers for the debt. Additionally, there may be discussion around debt repayments for developing countries, which cannot be solved without China’s involvement.”
China has been the biggest contributor to condonation of many African nations’ debts which the U.S. and Europeans multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF. WB and western commercial banks refuse to take “haircuts” or markdowns of the debts, ride on China’s debt forgiveness and let China take the hit. China has restructured $ 4-billion of Zambia’s $ 6-billion debt, partially cancelled Ethiopia’s $ 13.7-billion debt since 2000, waived 23 interest-free loans to 17 African states.
While even the U.S. have to look forward to China’s financial help while playacting aggressively to make a show of opposing China on the geopolitical front, Filipinos are being made to swallow the American and Amboy yarn that China is an enemy of Filipinos due to the South China Sea claims and must prepare for conflict by accepting the US bases in the Philippines – just to be used by the Americans for leveraging in its leveraging with China for its favors. Wake up Philippines!
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