Chinese Spy Balloons

Recently, Mike Pompeo was on Fox News claiming that by 2025, America would be at war with China.

His appearance on the show was to lay the groundwork for this, and his rant contained words designed to scare the pathetically uninformed American public with words like socialism and communism. Sadly, most Americans would need help to offer coherent definitions of these terms that are often so carelessly tossed around. On the other hand, they could likely recall the stats of the stars of their favorite sports teams with great aplomb. This weekend, every US news organization reported on a balloon that they claim is a “spy balloon” from China. News anchors and their guests from the cable news networks kept referring to China as “America’s worst adversary” on the world stage. A U. S. fighter jet shot down the suspected spy balloon, and the world awaits the finding of ongoing investigations into the incident.

On the other hand, these news organizations did not mention that in 2022, the USA imported more goods from China than any previous year. It was a record year for US/ China trade. Also, they should have mentioned that America received 190 billion dollars from China from January 2005 to December 2022. That does not sound very “adversarial” to me. When reflecting on the United States’ policy towards China over the last 50 years, it is clear that American politicians have led us down a dangerous path. As John Mearsheimer argued, it has been a colossal strategic mistake, and “there is no comparable example of a great power actively fostering the rise of a peer competitor, and it is now too late to do much about it.” Washington promoted investment in China and welcomed the country into the global trading system, thinking it would become a peace-loving democracy and a responsible stakeholder in a U. S led international order. China had revisionist goals that opposed this order, and the mistake was allowing it to become powerful enough to act on them.”

When Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger established relations with China, their main concern was providing American business people with cheap labor to undermine American workers. It is that simple. After 50 years of empowering them, Washington politicians suddenly worry about China. As an American who watched it happen in real-time, their sudden concern repulses me. Of course, the major mistake in the United States’ strategy towards China was not to make China’s integration into the liberal capitalist system more conditional. More conditional means demanding a transition towards a Western-style liberal democratic structure before anything else. In their effort to secure the United States’ place as the world’s dominant superpower, the neocon nutcases in Washington that advise President Biden have risked nuclear war with Russia and are doing the same with China. Today, my social media feed contained silly memes that were blatantly prejudiced. These memes, ranging from a balloon at a high altitude carrying a cardboard container of Chinese takeout to a girl named Fang Fang professing her love to her Valentine, depict just how pathetic America has become. Rather than make jokes at the expense of others, Americans should focus on how their government creates the pretext for war by manufacturing events that lead us into needless wars of profit. Whether we speak of the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, or the Iraq War, the paradigm does not change. Our government creates a false narrative about a particular country designed for consumption by a woefully uneducated American public. Hysterical politicians and media lackeys from liberal and conservative cable news networks amplify this narrative. A manufactured “event”/false flag operation develops amid the hysteria generated around the narrative, as American actions around the world that anger other world leaders and nations are minimized. Finally, wars ensue, people die, senators and members of Congress with ties to defense contractors profit, and the cycle continue ad infinitum. I am positive that we will never know the true story of that errant Chinese balloon. Sketchy details will pave the way to more military spending and inflammatory rhetoric as the case for war will be made. Other world leaders will use the blueprint the United States has established to wage their destructive wars; it is already happening.

On the other hand, one thing is sure. The world is more dangerous because of America’s foreign policy decisions. We must be united in preventing nuclear wars with Russia and China.