Misreading China and Muslim World’s intentions

It would be such a strange thing for me to do – compare Chinese history with that of our own because the Chinese civilisation is spread over a period of 2,000 years while our own is a dogged history conditioned over a period of just seven decades. So, I will not go into that comparison but just dig out a few facts about China that can help us draw some pertinent lessons.

History tells us that for the past 2,000 years the Chinese people had to struggle a lot to live and survive and the big change that we see in the lives of the Chinese people today is relatively a new phenomenon and a matter of just past three decades. In 1981, about 50% of Chinese lived in extreme poverty but today that number has lessened to just 5%. History proves that only when political systems enable the formulation of vibrant middle class that the aristocratic and feudal cultures are smashed and destroyed. Chinese did exactly the same and in last 30 years created in their country the world’s largest middle class. In year 2000, only 4% of Chinese households were in the middle class but by year 2012 that figure had raised to over 65%.

There may be some truth in the Western narrative of the Chinese people not enjoying individual rights but when one looks at the ‘social harmony’ and the ‘social well-being’ of the Chinese society and people, one is tempted to question the very concept of the well-being of the people and what drives that. Should you compare yourself with other societies or with what your conditions were in the past? Many Western media outlets that are hostile towards China keep describing the rule of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) in China as despotic and oppressive yet the statistics speak otherwise. In the Edelman Trust Barometer Report -2018, China topped the list of the most trusted government by the people securing a percentage of 84% as against the US which was ranked 15th with a score of 33%. The figures have fluctuated in 2019 and 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic with over 2 million lives lost around the world, economic depression and joblessness but China still leads the US in the assessment. In yet another proof of satisfaction, over 134 million Chinese go abroad for vacations annually and the similar number return home. If these people didn’t believe in the government-driven social mobility, economic growth and their better living conditions, why would they return home? If the people of China are prepared to accept a social contract with their government which is bettering their lives then what is this Western propaganda all about? Let’s take an example from American history itself.

Like America, China too had its own ‘melting pot’. All European states, including Britain, France and Spain, that tried to colonise America returned but those that stayed had to drop their ethnic and national identities to become one nation. The melting pot that the US later became melted multiple identities and erased history. America became great because it became one great nation with one identity. What about China?

To talk of outsiders invading China, I will not quote here the Mongol invasion of China spread over six decades in the 13h century, but will talk about how Japanese inflicted humiliation after humiliation on China. Japanese annexed Taiwan when they defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. Their occupation of China from 1937 to 1945 in the Second World War was even more brutal. According to an estimate 14 million Chinese lost their lives in the Japanese occupation of China in the Second World War. There was also this opium war (1839-1842) between the Western powers and China and the subsequent humiliation which China suffered and which is referred to as the ‘century of humiliation’. Chinese melting pot for the Chinese leaders meant that they are to become, like America, one great Chinese nation with a proud civilisation. It is in this context that America should focus more on Chinese part of the CCP than the communist part because China is not fighting any ideological battle with the US for the spread of communism but a battle to preserve its own ‘Chinese character’ and the great civilisation. So given these facts is how West treats China correct?

West accuses China of incarcerating thousands of Muslims in its Xinjiang province in reeducation camps with no legal rights to challenge their detention. Those that spread terrorism are terrorists no matter they belong to the US, China, Pakistan or India. The moral dilemma is that big powers and democracies like the US and India are least held accountable for whatever they may do to the people domestically or internationally but whatever countries like China or Pakistan may do to improve their security situation is reflected in the Western media as violation of human rights.

If terrorists recruited from Xinjiang killed 31 people in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, in May 2014 and knife-wielding attackers killed 29 people and injured over a 100 at a train station in Kunming then China had to do something against this upsurge in the domestic terrorist violence.

Isn’t reeducating the people who have lost their way not much better than torturing and killing them? Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have died at the hands of the Western powers since 9/11. By executing the policy of rendition, the US sent hundreds of Muslim prisoners to countries like Syria, Jordan and Egypt where they were tortured, interrogated and even killed. American forces would remember well what they did in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan as well as in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Drones also played a big role in the American targeted assassinations of the ‘declared terrorists’. in his book, The Great Delusion, American international relations scholar John Mearsheimer describes how “President Obama had a kill list known as the ‘disposition matrix’, and every Tuesday there was a meeting in the White House – it was called ‘Terrorist Tuesday’ – where the next victims were selected”. So, the big question here is that whatever the US and its defence and strategic partner India do to combat terrorism is right but whatever China and Pakistan may do is wrong. America needs to overcome its fixation with the Chinese and the Muslim world. Any strategic thinker will agree that disputes are best resolved through negotiations. America showcases the largest strategic thinking industry in the world and no country spends as much on strategic thinking and creating and running think tanks as America does. Yet so far the American strategies to deal with both China and the Muslim world have only backfired. Isn’t it a classic case of a military industry complex ‘overstating foreign dangers’ to get more resources?

If the US under the current Biden administration wants to continue to rule the world with its liberal international order then it must focus on how this order can be sustained. Preserving and sustaining it will require an effort and a change in strategic direction. The big component of that will be how the US is prepared to treat both China as well as the Muslim world.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2021.

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