Is China Transforming the World?

Tony Andréani, Rémy Herrera and Zhiming Long
 

In the early years of the twenty-first century, China was seen by many Western capitalists as a “new El Dorado.” In most mainstream Western media, China is now presented as a threat, a conquering “empire,” an “imperialist” power—even though the term imperialism is taboo when it is about the behaviourof global banking establishments, enterprises, or Western institutions. And this threat appears all the more serious as the Beijing “regime” is readily described as “dictatorial,” or, in diplomatic terms, “authoritarian.” Still the global hegemon, the United States is worried about the Chinese rise in strength, and their successive administrations are building the anxiety-provoking image of a China eager to supplant it and steal its leadership of the capitalist world system. Moreover, this is also the case, to some extent, albeit on a smaller scale, with the governing bodies of the European Union that realize they have become trapped in their free trade dogma.

As a matter of fact, in commercial matters, China has indeed succeeded in crushing its main capitalist competitors on their own terms—free trade. In the North, we no longer count the headlines, editorials, and articles of the mainstream press, nor the comments, debates, and radio or television broadcasts of the big establishment channels devoted to covering the “Chinese peril,” often in reference to purchases by China of various assets: land, equity investments in companies, debts, and so on—in addition to the strong presence of Chinese-made products or equipment in computer and telecommunications. Brussels, in the wake of Berlin, is alarmed by Chinese investments in the economies of Central and Eastern Europe, where everywhere one sees the hand of Beijing and its manoeuvres aimed at the division of the European Union. What could be more moving than to see Washington—after U.S. governments have subjected a good part of the Arab countries to fire and blood during the last decades, with the submissive complicity of the Europeans—worry so spontaneously about the fate of the Muslim populations of China, the Uighurs of Xinjiang in the lead? Behind it all is little serious analysis, a lot of ideological blindness, bad faith, fantasies, and a vast disinformation operation.


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