May 6, 2020 - 7:00am
Gideon Rachman is the “chief foreign affairs commentator” of the Financial Times. His words are read around the world by an elite audience in business and government. Which is why his latest column — an absolute shocker — does actually matter.
There is, buried within it, a fair point: which is that without an independent international investigation into the origins of the pandemic “the blame game between the US and China is likely to escalate and become more dangerous.” Unfortunately, Rachman presents that “blame game” as if the rival super-powers were on a remotely similar level — “all these angry emotions on both sides”. The reality is that America — and the wider world — has every reason to be angry with the Chinese government.
Rachman thinks he’s being even-handed (as symbolised by the accompanying cartoon, which depicts Donald Trump and Xi Jinping as fingers jabbing at one another), but the equivalence is grotesquely inappropriate. Consider the opening paragraph:
In fact, the American presence in the region is at the invitation of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc., which for decades have relied on the US to protect them against hostile neighbours. China, meanwhile, has propped-up North Korea, laid claim to international waters and built its bases on islands over which Chinese sovereignty is disputed by the rest of the world. That is more than a challenge to American power — it’s expansionism. As for the recent trade war, it was not “initiated” by the Americans, but rather, they finally lost patience with China’s blatant mercantilism.
The lopsided juxtapositions continue throughout the article. Yes, Donald Trump has handled the Covid-crisis with all the grace and good sense we’ve come to expect from him (i.e. very little), but his absurd public statements, while unbefitting of his office, are trivial compared to what the Chinese government has done to obscure the truth about the epidemic.
Then there’s the matter of what Rachman calls “xenophobia”, where the ultra-nationalistic propaganda campaigns of a totalitarian state (that’s the PRC, by the way) is set alongside the bigoted words and actions of a small number of American individuals.
If you don’t understand the world of difference here — then ask the Tibetans, or the Uighurs, or the people of Hong Kong, or China’s brave independent journalists.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeWhat else would you expect from the FT? I saw through it many years ago. It is a vile, globalist entity that exists to serve the EUrocrats, big finance and so many of the other malign actors that scar this world.
A splendid exposure of both the sainted FT and Rachman.(presumably no relation to Peter?).
In fact one would be forgiven for thinking that Gideon Rachman was a fully paid up Apparatachik of the CCP.
The sadness is, that so many frankly feeble US Presidents have simply avoided the China problem. So much so, that if it comes to war, whilst the CONUS will remain inviolate, the ‘theatre allies’, Taiwan,Japan, S Korea etc will be devastated.
It should never have come this.
The supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting (Sun Tzu)
That will be very difficult this time,I fear.
some sense in this article, but I didn’t like the use of the word “totalitarian”. Obviously, the PRC is a vile tyranny. However many commentators use the word “totalitarian” as a subliminal suggestion that the PRC is in some way socialist. It is not, and never has been. The PRC is a capitalist economy which is administered by a political system which can only be described as a bureaucratic dictatorship. In its early years, its government frequently suppressed private businesses in the interest of greater centralised state control, but this has nothing to do with socialism. Yes, this is a bit complicated, but the use of ambiguous terms like “totalitarian” over-simplifies the discussion.
S/he who pays the piper picks the tune. The FT like most other papers is a commercial operation and its articles will reflect the interests and prejudices of readers, advertisers and owners. Its readership consists largely of the people that have transferred industry to China and left us dependent on the fascist state for basic medicines and PPE.
The FT has also been notoriously uncritical of Saudi Arabia. The US has the Wall Street Journal and so readership of the FT is lower than in Europe and Asia.
Squirm! Squirm! Squirm! Unherd is having a tough time ‘proving’ that China is evil. Hence wet-dishcloth hit pieces like this.
As for US military presence by invitation: Didn’t the US go ballistic, literally, when Cuba invited in the Russians to defend them? Sauce for the goose etc….
Still censoring hostile comments? What a bunch of snowflakes!
China has many reasons to be at loggerheads with the US. The latter’s parking of tanks on the former’s lawn dates from the late 19th Century, when it was in the company of European powers doing the same. The Far East position of those powers collapsed in the Second World War, that of the US expanded. ‘Invitation’ is a somewhat pale expression of the hopeless position of defeated and/or occupied powers. Its determination to maintain this position was underlined by the amount of blood and gold expended in Vietnam. The US’s presence in East Asia is thus part of its post war hegemonic role, now in retreat. China’s return to a simulacrum of Imperial behaviour is predictable. Does that mean we are fated to continue to adhere to a bifurcated view of international affairs?
The use of “invitation” of the US into Asia is fully appropriate, Japan and Taiwan in particular have much to fear from an expansionist China. The Asian countries bordering the South China Sea and those being threatened and subjugated with China’s predatory debt and overt (and covert) financial and political and military pressure are deeply concerned.
Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka as well as the Island nations of the South Pacific are seriously vulnerable without a counter to a rampant imperialist China.
Their fears are a perfectly reasonable reaction to the situation they are confronted with now. The 19th century and the second world war have nothing to do with it.
Ah, a bit of history…but perhaps you need to look at ALL the history, and not just pick out those bits that concur with your assertions.
Like the bit about China becoming a communist state, developing a nuclear capability, starving 40 million people etc…If I was Taiwan, Japan or South Korea I think I would be inviting anyone who would help to prevent Chinese expansionist plans that include being annexed and coming under Chinese rule. See Hong Kong for recent developments in Chinese expansionism….