TaiShang
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2014
- Messages
- 27,848
- Reaction score
- 70
- Country
- Location
The US hasn't engaged in pure realpolitik since before Woodrow Wilson, so it's unclear what you mean by "it has become reactionary"--for all intents and purposes, it always has been reactionary in the modern age. Woodrow Wilson came up with a nice justification for the US to assert itself globally, but the "values system" that under-girds the American order has always been more symbolic than cause for action. Otherwise, how could we deal with the likes of Saudi Arabia? How could we have such important economic ties to the likes of China? Our value system would reject that if it had primacy.
That's why I would say it has become reactionary. The US would be able to better deal with a multitude of parties at the same time without letting reactionary values getting in between. Hence the relationship with KSA. But, today's foreign policy that is being plundered is the by product of past decision. There is this squandering of national power.
China, on the other hand, can do business with everybody regardless. It can work with Iran and the US at the same buy. Or Sudan and Saudi Arabia. It does not matter. The US has been too much involved in this arbitrary "values" too much recently. Maybe it is because this now has the only tangible that it may utilize to run a foreign policy.
For that matter, does China not assert itself in Asia through force, intimidation, and undercover activity?
No it does not. China is basically engaged in a checkbook diplomacy (maybe except Pakistan), that is, putting business first and allowing deep political relations to develop later.
Unlike in China, the parties and the system of government are not sacred, because the source of legitimacy is the people, not the ruling party.
Interesting. Because I see the US regime to be more rigid and devoid of change, hence it is sacred. It is sacred in a sense that it rides on a whole narrative of abstract values that is taken for granted, universal and exceptional. On the other, China is an ever evolving political organism. This is the core of the Chinese model, as a matter of fact, although it is rather sensitive toward being interfered in by irrelevant outside forces. In a sense it is neither capitalist nor communist; labeling and cult-building do not work in China (unlike in the US where a cult of regime is falsely built) since it is ever-evolving. It is very hard to theorize like some did with liberalism or realism.
Anyway, these are my observations/theorizations.