The sixth plenary session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee concluded in mid-November. Applause echoed throughout the auditorium and across the country. Meanwhile, some Western politicians were quick to vilify the meeting. The West might ponder, 100 years after the establishment of the CPC, why the lives of Chinese people have improved so much without adopting Western ideologies. Perhaps the question should be: Why, if Western-style democracy is superior and serves as a panacea, have most Western societies remained in stagnation over the last two decades?
The ultimate goal of any form of governance is to improve the lives of people. Call it materialistic — people still need a home to stay, food to eat, and medicine to heal. Beliefs and aspirations are built upon such foundations. Anything short of providing for people to survive is unacceptable, according to the United Nations. A few Western countries that happen to govern in a particular form of democracy and capitalism flourished since World War II. In the last decade, these countries have increasingly abused their influence to shove their forms of political governance down other countries’ throats. At the same time, more people in the West woke up to the shortcomings of Western capitalism. They realized this has been the source of injustice that cut across different generations and classes in society. Existing fault lines were widened — fringe beliefs fueled the splintering of society into opposing factions. Ideology took precedence even over basic human rights to live in peace.
The recent AUKUS pact has shown that the leaders of some countries are fixated on old ways that made them flourish. On one hand, they claim to champion diversity and competition; on the other hand, they coerce Asian and African countries to adopt their models of governance. Worse still, the United States has gotten used to leveraging its hegemony to sow distrust among countries far from home. Like capitalist billionaires who profiteered from rent-seeking behaviors, America is inclined to retain its vested interest in the world. It does so by setting standards for the world that reinforce its economic and military might lest emerging countries threaten its leadership. Today, Americans are calling for the government to treat internal issues that are wreaking havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the people. A few stand out in particular: A yawning wealth gap that threatens stability; stale societal progression caused by the bickering of the two political factions; and racism in the form of microaggression. And while beset by such internal turmoil, Washington politicians have chosen to stir unrest in other parts of the world to match their own chaos. If they are unaware of the deficiencies of their form of governance — such is ignorance. If they attempt to drag the world down while knowing that retrofitting their way to other countries could result in implosion, as with what happened to Afghanistan — such is vice. Either way, Washington spares no effort to stifle competitive innovation from other countries, even if that means people across the world can lead better lives.
China is in the crosshairs of Washington. Over the last few decades, the Chinese government has transformed the lives of 1.4 billion people and the land they live on. More people were lifted from poverty than in any other part of the world: A business and trade boom created upward career mobility for workers; apartments were erected for families to live in; bridges and railways were built to connect people across the vast geographies of China; military might was strengthened to defend Chinese people who yearn for peace. Gone are the days when globe-trotters urinated in grass and soil. Citizens drink clean water from lead-free pipes instead of fetching buckets of muck water from nearby rivers. Compared to the recent past, when Western countries and Japan invaded China and slaughtered our ancestors, Chinese people are much happier nowadays. The CPC has exceeded expectations in fulfilling the sine qua non of good governance — managing well the economic and social resources for development.
Recently, Washington has been playing the “Taiwan card” as part of its geopolitical strategy against China. Taiwan and its surrounding islands have been Chinese lands from time immemorial. In fact, their Han Chinese pedigree is iron-clad evidence that cross-Straits relations remain an unfinished business of the civil war. As such, the People’s Republic of China is as representative of Taiwan and Hong Kong as the United States is of Hawaii and Texas. To channel internal dismay outward, Washington is hellbent on subverting peace in Southeast Asia. It staged high-profile performances by selling military jets to Taiwan and sending high-level officials to visit the island. There has been no such overt attempt by any other country to incite secession in a foreign land since the Cold War.
Washington may have acquired a sadistic pleasure in toppling governments that rule with a different political system or ideology. Such a tendency could be the works of Pavlovian conditioning — understandably, this country, isolated between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, has yet to achieve jaw-dropping feats after dismantling the Soviet Union. Inviting Taiwan to the “democratic summit” at the same time excluding some major countries sends a lucid signal that Washington is itching to re-create similar win conditions. To uphold peace and globalization, the world must unite to fend off a bloodthirsty superpower and unilateralism while championing multilateralism.
The author is a licensed medical doctor in Hong Kong and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University in the US.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.