A new kind of madness is seeping into global political discourse, a poisonous fog that suffocates reason. This fog, which has long marinated in the old, ugly ideas of white supremacy and Western superiority, is clouding our ideas of humanity. The general malady provoked by the fog is deep suspicion and hatred of China, not just of the government or its leadership or even the political system, but hatred of the country and of Chinese civilisation, hatred of just about anything to do with China.
This madness has made it impossible to have an adult conversation about China. Words and phrases are thrown around, such as “authoritarian” and “genocide” with no care to ascertain facts. China is a country of 1.4-billion people, an ancient civilisation that suffered — as much of the global South did — a century of humiliation from the British-inflicted Opium Wars (which began in 1839) until the 1949 Chinese Revolution, when its leader Mao Zedong announced — deliberately — that the Chinese people had stood up.
Since 1949, Chinese society has been deeply transformed by the utilisation of its social wealth to address the ancient problems of hunger and illiteracy, despondency and patriarchy. As with all social experiments, there have been problems, but these are to be expected from any collective human action. But rather than see China for its many problems and contradictions, this madness of our times seeks to reduce it to a caricature — an authoritarian state with a genocidal agenda that seeks global domination.
This madness has a definite point of origin. It comes largely from the US, whose ruling elites are threatened by the advances of the Chinese people — particularly by their technological developments in robotics, telecoms, high-speed rail and computer technology. These advances pose an existential threat to the advantages long enjoyed by Western corporations which have benefited from centuries of colonialism and from the straitjacket of intellectual property laws. Fear of its own fragility and of the integration of Europe into Eurasian economic developments has led the West to launch an information war against China. This ideological tidal wave is overwhelming our ability to have serious, balanced conversations about China’s role in the world.
Western countries, with a long history of brutal colonialism in Africa, for instance, now regularly decry “Chinese colonialism in Africa” without any acknowledgment of their own past, or of the entrenched French and US military presence across the continent. Accusations of “genocide” are always directed at the darker peoples of the world — in Darfur or in Xinjiang — but never at the US, whose illegal war on Iraq resulted in the death of more than 1-million people. The International Criminal Court, steeped in Eurocentrism, indicts one African leader after another for genocide crimes or crimes against humanity but has never indicted a Western leader for their endless wars of aggression.
DIALOGUE ACROSS CIVILISATIONS
The fog of this new Cold War is enveloping us today. Recently, in Daily Maverick and in the Mail & Guardian, I have been accused of promoting “Chinese and Russian propaganda” and of having close links to the “Chinese party-state”. What is the basis of these claims?
First, there is an attempt by elements in Western intelligence to brand any dissent against the Western assault on China as disinformation and propaganda. For instance, my December 2021 report from Uganda broke down the false claim that a Chinese loan to the country sought to take over its only international airport and was part of a malicious debt trap project — a narrative that has been repeatedly debunked by leading US scholars. Through conversation with Ugandan government officials (and public statements by minister of finance Matia Kasaija), I found the deal was poorly understood by the ministry of finance but that there was no question of the seizure of Entebbe International Airport.
Western countries, with a long history of brutal colonialism in Africa, for instance, now regularly decry 'Chinese colonialism in Africa' without any acknowledgment of their own past, or of the entrenched French and US military presence across the continent
The second claim, about links to the Chinese party and state, are based on the fact that I engage with Chinese intellectuals and have an unpaid post at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a prominent think-tank in Beijing. Many of the publications in SA that have made these outrageous claims against me are principally funded by the Open Society Foundations of George Soros. Soros took the name of his foundation from Karl Popper’s book, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), in which Popper developed the principle of “unlimited tolerance”. Popper argued for maximum dialogue, and that opinions that are against one’s own should be countered “by rational argument”. Where are the rational arguments here, in a smear campaign that says dialogue with Chinese intellectuals is somehow off limits, but conversation with US government officials is perfectly acceptable? What level of civilisational apartheid is being produced here, where liberals in SA are promoting a “clash of civilisations” rather than a “dialogue between civilisations”?
Countries in the global outh can learn a great deal from China’s experiments with socialism. The abolition of absolute poverty during the pandemic — a feat celebrated by the UN — can teach us how to tackle similar obstinate facts in our own countries. No country in the world is perfect and none is above criticism. But to develop a paranoid attitude towards one country and to attempt to isolate it behind an American wall is socially dangerous. Walls need to be knocked down, not built up. The US is provoking a conflict due to its own anxieties about China’s economic advances: we should not be drawn in as useful idiots. We need to have an adult conversation about China, not one imposed on us by powerful interests that are not our own.
• Prashad is director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. His most recent books are Washington Bullets (Inkani Books, 2022) and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power (New Press, 2022).
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