Blame US China Hawks for the Ukraine War
America’s China Hawks bear some responsibility for the catastrophic Ukraine War.
The China Hawks did not start the Ukraine War . However, the China Hawks made it easier for Russian President Vladimir Putin to go to war by destroying America’s successful relationship with China.
To explain, I think Putin only attacked Ukraine because the Russian leader thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping gave him the green light. For example, Xi and Putin held a Summit at the recent Olympics. At the 4 February 2022, Summit Xi and Putin formed what Al Jazeera calls a “united front.”
The united front was possible because no Americans were there. US President Joe Biden (D-Delaware) ordered a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. Hence, Biden, or another US leader, was not in Beijing to make Xi a better offer than Putin.
Worst of all, the US imposed sanctions on China over “human rights concerns” in 2020. I think those sanctions are creating a human rights catastrophe in Ukraine by giving Chinese leaders a reason to snub American.
Biden does not Care About Human Rights
Biden ordered the boycott to appease American China Hawks, not to protect human rights he claims. Hence, US China Hawks helped make war possible.
Disgustingly, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the boycott was to protest “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” USA Today reports.
That statement is partially false. Yes, the Chinese government is committing “rights abuses” against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang but there is no genocide. To elaborate, the classic definition of genocide coined by Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 is the systematic murder of a group of people. The Chinese Communist Party is denying the Uyghurs’ basic rights and committing terrible crimes against them, but it is not trying to exterminate the Uyghurs. I think genocide is extermination.
Unfortunately, Biden and others have concocted a new definition of genocide to justify their China Hawkery. Disgustingly, Biden’s concern for the Uyghurs does not motivate Biden’s China policy. Instead, the president and his administration are trying to appease an influential minority of American China Hawks.
For example, Biden’s Olympic boycott and sanctions did not free a single Uyghur from a concentration camp. Yet that boycott led straight to a far worse human rights catastrophe in Ukraine.
Hence, the Biden administration does not care about human rights. Notably, the Biden administration approved weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, a nation with a worse human rights record than China. Hypocritically, Biden administration officials lie about the situation in Xinjiang and use those lies as the basis for US policy.
The Chinese crimes in Xinjiang resemble the Israeli persecution of Palestinians more than classic genocide. Amnesty International calls labels Israel’s actions against the Palestinians “apartheid, a cruel system of domination, and a crime against humanity.” Yet the United States government gave Israel $38 billion in military aid between 2017 and 2020, The New York Times estimates.
Aiding Israel while sanctioning China is hypocrisy, and it is harming America. Notably, one reason the US State Department sanctioned China was repression of minorities (mostly Uygurs), The South China Morning Post reports. Yet the US supports Israel’s repression of Palestinians, another Muslim minority.
Thus hypocrisy is at the center of the China Hawks’ sick world view, which uses “human rights” to justify American imperialism.
Meet the China Hawks
Putin is free to wage war on Ukraine because a dangerous minority of China Hawks controls US foreign policy. These hawks are a small cadre of elitist intellectuals who want conflict with China to protect America’s Empire and “Western Civilization.”
An ugly mix of racism, hysteria, misplaced idealism, delusions of moral superiority, American exceptionalism, nationalism, xenophobia, and nostalgia for America’s 1990s hegemony as the “world’s only superpower” motivates the China Hawks. Economic interest, in the form of America’s bloated defense budget, helps drive China Hawkery.
Disgustingly, one reason the China Hawks hate China is that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) does not buy American weapons. If the PLA started placing big orders for American military equipment, many China Hawks would begin loving China and promoting Beijing’s party line.
Frighteningly, the China Hawks include US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, America’s top diplomat. The China Hawks’ project is to create a conflict between the US and China. The Hawks believe America will win the conflict and become more powerful.
Ominously, the China Hawks give no thought to the effects of their policies. For example, the rise of a dangerous Chinese-Russian alliance and the possibility that America could lose their new Cold War.
Instead, they believe America will win, but do nothing that will actually help the US win a conflict with China. Such as rebuilding America’s industry, education system, transportation infrastructure, or social programs.
The Hypocrisy of the China Hawks
China Hawkery is popular in America because of the growing deindustrialization of the United States. In popular speech, dindustrialization the widespread export of American jobs to China through free trade.
Many ordinary Americans are angry because of the widespread loss of manufacturing jobs. For example, the US lost over 91,000 factories and almost five million manufacturing jobs between 1997 and 2021, the Economic Policy Institute estimates.
Free trade policies and cheap Chinese imports are partially responsible for this job loss. However, many of the China Hawks, including President Joe Biden (D-Delaware), were strong backers of those free-trade policies. So some of the China Hawks are partially responsible for the crisis that drives anti-Chinese sentiment.
Today, however, Biden is following former President Donald J. Trump’s (R-Florida) idiotic trade polices and anti-China rhetoric because they are popular. Yet Trump did not try to restore US manufacturing. The Economic Policy Institute estimates almost 1,800 US factories closed during Trump’s presidency.
Another reason for China Hawkery’s popularity is that other factors, including technology, drive deindustrialization. Those factors are hard to explain and difficult for ordinary people to grasp. Blame China is simple and easy to understand, so politicians run with it.
Restoring US manufacturing is vital to America’s future. However, restoring manufacturing will require years of work and many billions of tax dollars. Additionally, a strong manufacturing sector requires robust vocational training and apprenticeship programs and modern transpiration infrastructure, both of which are lacking in America.
Neither the Trump nor Biden administrations have taken any steps to strengthen vocational training or apprenticeship. Plus, efforts to rebuild and modernize American transportation and other infrastructure are limited and haphazard. In particular, I consider Biden’s Build Back Better legislation a grim joke.
There is no button the President can push to restore manufacturing jobs overnight. Hence, politicians will not try to restore manufacturing.
Instead, they look for scapegoats such as China. China is a popular scapegoat because China does not vote in US elections.
Thus, America is in a terrible situation in which politicians allow America’s manufacturing sector to die while attacking China. Worse, those politicians now make hatred of China the basis of US foreign policy.
The China Hawks do not Care About Jobs or Ordinary Americans
In the past few years, the China Hawks have destroyed America’s relationship with China.
Until 2017, America had a strong relationship with China, dating back to President Richard M. Nixon’s (R-California) 1972 summit with Mao Zedong. Over the past five years, Trump and Biden have destroyed that relationship.
Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to preserve that relationship. For example, Xi visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in April 2017. Unfortunately, Trump listened to China Hawks, and began imposing tariffs on products that sparked a trade war in 2018. Biden is continuing the Trump tariffs and the Trump Trade War.
Disgustingly, that trade war has destroyed 245,000 American jobs, the US-China Business Council claims. Yet the China Hawks’ claim they are fighting for American jobs.
Therefore, the China Hawks do not care about jobs or ordinary Americans. Instead, all the Hawks care about is hurting China and increasing what they see as American power.
How the China Hawks made War possible
The China Hawks would rather see Ukraine in flames, thousands dead in a needless war, and hundreds of thousands of Americans unemployed than allow America to have a constructive relationship with China.
I think a strong U- China relationship is the only hope for a peaceful resolution for the Ukraine-Russian conflict. To explain, I think the Chinese could put enough economic pressure on Russia to force Putin to behave himself. However, Xi has no incentive to take such action.
Indeed, the US has given Xi every incentive to encourage Russian aggression. To elaborate, I suspect, Xi and his advisors think they can force Biden to end the trade war by making tariff removal a condition for negotiating a Ukraine peace deal. If Biden refuses to go along, the war continues and people die.
Past American leaders such as presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Kansas), John F. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Richard M. Nixon (R-California), and Ronald Reagan (R-California) understood that close relationships with foreign rulers, even tyrants such as Mao or Mikhail Gorbachev, were vital to maintaining peace.
Biden and the China Hawks cannot grasp that truth. Instead, they allow delusions of moral superiority and American Exceptionalism to override national interest and sacrifice peace (and human rights) on the altar of human rights.
There is no hope for peace in Ukraine or the restoration of US industry as long as the China Hawks are in charge of America’s foreign policy.
