By Marcus Breen
As with music, there are many movements of action and counteraction experienced by the peace community. One of the most pressing for followers of China is the pressure from the United States to stop China’s rise. This is a matter of U.S. Federal Government policy, as laid out in several United States Grand Strategy documents since the end of World War 2. The main thrust of the strategies varies, although there is a consistent thread, as R.D. Hooker argued in Charting a Course for U.S. Grand Strategy:
Broadly speaking, vital or core national interests remain remarkably consistent. These include the defense of U.S. territory and its citizens and that of our allies, supporting and defending our constitutional values and forms of government, and promoting and securing the U.S. economy and standard of living. Virtually every strategic dynamic and dimension are encompassed in these.
To accomplish these goals, the United States has established that China is the principle threat to “core national interests,” a phrase that means “the liberal international order.” The “order” that the United States prefers has given way to one that is being redefined by China and its allies. Its characteristics have a cultural component that run counter to the US win at all costs ideology, namely win-win or “peace and cooperation.” Where liberal democratic US ideology prefers winners and losers, billionaires as heroes and abject poverty and economic distress within its borders and among its allies, China proposes that everyone wins, perhaps unrealistically wishing that its socialism would be tolerated.
Indeed, China’s rise is the result of an indigenous method of development, most commonly referred to as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” This phrase is a descriptor of the pragmatic theories put into practice as Sinicizing Marxism, an approach established by the Communist Party of China, articulated by Mao Zedong, then Premier Deng Xiaoping and reiterated in a fresh form by President Xi Jinping after 2017. Its success produces reactions at the technological and economic and financial level.
For example, as the following chart from the Financial Times (July 9, 2024) illustrates, until 2050, China will provide more goods and services (PPP) for its people while the US offers fewer. Fundamentally, this projection may well be the cause for US aggression against China, as US capitalism returns fewer benefits for the US population while socialism offers betterment.
Here is another reaction generated by US “overreach” not identified by Scott Lawless in American Grand Strategy for an Emerging World Order: As the US and its allies push at China with increasing belligerence, the reaction is increasing explorations of “Actually Existing Socialism” among young people who are responding to the US Government’s propensity to lie and go to war against systems that do not sustain its preferred “order.”
Evidence of US cynicism informs this counterpoint, with emerging interest in socialism, rising among Democrats from 50 percent in 2010 to 65 percent in 2021: another by-product of anti-Chinese mainstream media propaganda that is not believed, especially by social media savvy young people. That the US will not sacrifice its own sons and daughters to war, while cheering on its proxies, is also not lost on the younger generation.
Peace is low in US Government calculations, as support for Israel against the Palestinians and escalating support for Ukraine against Russia, has shown. Meanwhile, breaks in academic support for US liberalism are expanding, utilizing social media, such as Critical Theory Workshop, and social movement groups such as Party for Socialism and Liberation, joining the established US Communist Party as peace advocates.
Meanwhile, the peace dividend shrinks across Asia as NATO expands anti-China rhetoric and action in the Indo-Pacific. The 75th anniversary of NATO held in Washington DC on July 10 was an opportunity for the US to consolidate its leadership of the recently expanded NATO to 32 countries. Of more relevance was the observer status of non-European Pacific region nations, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Expanding NATO is strongly opposed by China. “Without any evidence, NATO continues to spread falsehoods fabricated by the US, openly smearing China, sowing discord between China and Europe, and undermining China-European co-operation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.
NATO, continued Lin, “keeps playing up the interlink between Europe’s security and the security in Asia-Pacific.?.?.?We urge [it] to stay within its role as a regional defensive organization in the north Atlantic.”
“NATO should not become the disrupter of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific or a tool used by certain great powers to maintain hegemony.”
In their July 10 Statement, NATO made one anti-China claim: “The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values.”
China’s opposition to NATO is a reaction to US military expansion, which was conceived during the Clinton Administration for the Community of Democracies with the “principal aim of strengthening democratic institutions, norms, and values around the world.” The NATO agglomeration celebrating its expansionist posture in Washington D.C. in the “Concert of Democracies” sounded more like a bad riff from Richard Wagner’s War of the Valkyries.
Negative blathering about the rise of non-western, non-democratic China are already at fever pitch, with NATO adding screeching strings to the out-of-tune war orchestra. As Colonel Jonathan B. Warr told Security Nexus, late in 2023, China’s “anti-access / area denial (A2/AD)” approach to military defense resulted in a variety of efforts: “To help meet the Army’s contribution to the Joint Force in the theater, multiple operational concept proposals have emerged over the last five years to overcome these challenges…” In his presentation, Warr offered a chilling list of deterrence efforts, adding another tuneless set of instruments to the NATO orchestra.
Against defense, aggression. Consider this stupidity from Air Mobility Command boss General Mike Minihan in January 2023: “COMMANDER’S INTENT. Go faster. Drive readiness, integration, and agility for ourselves and the Joint Force to deter, and if required, defeat China.” Reluctant as I am to quote Donald Trump: “Low IQ.”
The peace movement will have its hands full in making the beautiful sound of peace heard against the orchestrated calls for NATO expansion and a discordant war against China.
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Dr Marcus Breen was born in Melbourne, Australia and educated at The University of Queensland, The Australian National University and Victoria University, Melbourne. Since 2014 he has been a full-time faculty member of the Communication Department at Boston College, where he was Director of the Media Lab until 2023. He has also taught communication, culture and media with a political economy focus at The University of Melbourne, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Northeastern University, and Bond University, Australia.
After specializing in music journalism in print and radio, Dr Breen became a researcher for the Center for International Research on Communication Technologies (CIRCIT) Melbourne, before developing then implementing as a consultant the Digital Technology Strategy for the State Government of Victoria. He was also instrumental in assisting the Federal Government of Australia develop its popular music support services and education programs for music export. His consultancy work for Gartner during the liberalization push of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), supported new entrants in the Mexican, Caribbean and South American telecommunication sector, assisting regulatory agencies as well as creating programs extending regulations for global, national and regional services. He is a member of MAPA’s No Cold War and is currently writing a book about China.
