Oswald Spengler, the prophet of the decline of the West, left a terrible question for the West more than a century ago. If the decline of the West is caused by its own doing, then it has no one to blame. But if the rise of non-white people causes the West to decline, should the West eliminate them?
The crisis in the West is racial war by nature. The Western angst about China echoes the “Yellow Peril” sentiment as well. We are again living in a Spenglerian world.
The Yellow Peril theme was popularised by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of the 19th century. As the saying famously attributed to Karl Marx goes, history repeats itself, the first time is tragedy, the second time farce. It is farcical that China should be chosen by the West as a lead scapegoat for its own crisis.
This time, the Yellow Peril theme is concealed in a “democratic alliance” for a common fight against China. But this alliance is fragile, as the conclusion of the China-EU Investment Treaty testifies.
Within the United States, the so-called bipartisan consensus against China is also fragile. Its crisis comes from demographic change as the white population loses its dominant position. The political elite try to hold onto the orthodoxy of liberal democracy, but populist leaders are striking at democratic values.
Thus, the crisis in the West is not caused by a fight between political parties but by “two countries in one system”. The citizenry is split in two camps.
This crisis of legitimacy makes China and its governing system look better, as the fight against the pandemic shows. Some elite members in Beijing are even carried away by the “superiority” of authoritarianism to democracy, but most Chinese know the defects and weakness of the system.
The Chinese have contributed little to racial unrest and economic decline in the West. The ethnic Chinese living in the West are a model minority, the best being co-opted by society and are rarely troublemakers.
China plays no role in social divisions in the West but could help heal them with more jobs for the middle class.
It has no geopolitical problem with Europe. They do not share a common border and they are key economic partners. Britain and France have conducted freedom of navigation operations in the Pacific, but this is to divert attention from their domestic crisis by evoking their glorious past east of the Suez.
US President-elect Joe Biden’s top priority is to win back the middle class to defeat right-wing populism. China-bashing does not help this cause.
The decline of the middle class, which President Donald Trump has exploited skilfully, could be slowed with engagement with China. Economic decoupling makes little sense.
During the campaign, Biden refuted Trump, “The Chinese are eating our lunch? Come on!” Political expediency might now prevent him from uttering the same line.
The new cold war idea reflected by the Indo-Pacific strategy does not help Biden’s “middle-class foreign policy” either. As a report in September by Jake Sullivan and others pointed out, people in Midwestern states do not support the idea of a new cold war with China.
The “Indo-Pacific” strategy is the weirdest invention in geopolitics. It is the only concept designed to give the appearance the United States still takes allies seriously.
It also appears “inclusive” with two Caucasian members plus two honorary white powers, namely the Group of 7 member Japan, and India. Its purpose is to create an “Asian Nato” to contain China and stop the decline of the West. Thus, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is talking like Spengler almost hysterically.
In this region, no one is interested in armed conflict with China. Moreover, such a strategy is built on weak foundations.
There is neither “Indo” nor “Pacific”, for the two biggest powers, India and the United States, are not part of the regional economic game in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It only created a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which is a far cry from an Asian Nato.
The technological competition with China might be a real concern, but the current debate is going down the path of a racialist argument first promoted by Spengler 90 years ago in Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life.
Spengler vehemently argued against technological advancement because these achievements might arm the “coloured races” to destroy white civilisation.
But China is willing to engage in international rule-setting, and it works to resolve the tension of technological competition through global institutions. A hostile attitude towards China’s technological advancement only fans ultranationalism.
Unless the West decides to go back to the racial tribalism of the last century, a unified Western strategy against China is not morally and practically sustainable. China should not overreact to Western rhetoric against China, though.
At this delicate moment when the West is in real panic because white supremacy is crumbling, China should adhere to Deng Xiaoping’s admonition to control its hubris.
There is no reason to panic, either from a democratic alliance or an Asian Nato to strangle China. The “wolf warrior” rhetoric is totally unwise and ineffective.
Lanxin Xiang is a professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and chair professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law