How did China outmanoeuvre us and the rest of the world?

Although there have been, and continue to be, significant human rights and fairness problems with it, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI - see also here) has been a major win for China - even if it goes no further, it has already opened up economic markets, created military opportunities (bases, especially [1] ), and, above all else, contributed to changing the mindset around China - which has been happening, it should be said, since Mao Tsê-Tung was eventually - unofficially - succeeded by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.

One of the things that has particularly struck me in the last few weeks is the gains China appears to be making in the Pacific - notably, the island nations which have switched allegiance from Taiwan to mainland China - although I don't think that is part of the BRI so much as China's new foreign policy.

In any case, how did all this come about?

Well, in my opinion, there were two causes.

The main one, from the perspective of my nation (Australia), is, in my opinion, a resentment of "foreign aid" that has equated that spending with "spending on dole bludgers" [2], which is a bad-will view of social security that blames the victims of unemployment for being unemployed, and - in my experience - seems to be most widespread amongst those who are struggling to make what they would consider an adequate income. Following the recession in the 90s, that resentment seemed quite pronounced in blue collar workers, but it has gradually spread up into the middle class, as the elite's resentment of paying taxes became more ubiquitous (partly in response to the elites' strategy to cause that, and partly because of neoliberal incompetence on enabling workers to survive well).

Some of this was lack of awareness of the situation of those receiving aid - the same sort of blindness that assumed there were plenty of jobs and no discrimination or other problems, and that those receiving social security were therefore bludgers.

That's not true, of course: foreign aid is about (a) fairness, and (b) investing in everyone's future.

The positive aspects of investing in everyone's future are probably best shown by the Marshall Plan.

The negative aspects of (failing to) invest in everyone's future are probably best shown in recent years by the refugee crisis, caused by many things, and exacerbated by resentment and indifference on the part of a significant portion of voters.

Going back a few decades to World War (part) Two, when Japan was tearing down through South East Asia and through the Pacific in late 1941 and early 1942, one of the minor factors contributing to their success was the welcome they received (initially, before they showed their true  imperial colours) from those wanting to throw off the repressive yoke of colonialism that they were existing under.

Coming back to the present, Australia seems to have been going through the isolationist  approaches of the USA after World War (part) One, a withdrawal that was so devastating to the world when it doomed the League of Nations to inevitable failure (the events of the 30s that are often described as "why the League of Nations failed": however, they were not inevitable - had the USA chosen to be part of the League, it would have been closer to what the UN has been). Nowadays, we haven't been actively oppressing our Pacific neighbours (not since we gave PNG her freedom in the 1970s), but we haven't, as our neighbours go through their devastating existential crisis under the climate crisis, been friends, either.

And as the great Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

We appear to have left a vacuum - in reality, we haven't completely [3], as aid has continued, albeit at a reduced rate, but the lack of publicity, and cut-backs in aid and diplomacy, combined with the misguided resentment of any aid that has been apparent in some sectors of Australia and the stupidity around the climate crisis of Australia's current denialist neoliberal government, has certainly created a sense in the minds of the desperate, under-existential-threat nations of the Pacific that we have - and into that apparent vacuum steps China.

China's offerings to the Pacific nations have been criticised for a number of reasons, financial impact being the one that sticks in my mind, but desperate people make desperate choices (think "pay day lenders"), and so too do desperate nations

I consider the claims by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that this is not a Cold War type situation to be disingenuous: true, they don't have the ideological commitment to making the world communist that the USSR seemed to have, but they do have a resurgent nationalism, a desire to "make China great again", and there are particular threats that could escalate into war - Taiwan and South and East China Seas, threats that most of the world and the foreign affairs experts have - rightly - focused on.

So China's territorial claims have had a side-benefit, one that I don't consider China planned, but which she did capitalise on: distraction.

And while the world was distracted, China used her soft power and backroom diplomacy to set up the BRI - incrementally, a little like slowly bringing water to the boil slowly, so those in it don't realise what is going on, perhaps even enjoy the warmth initially, until it is too late - much as the welcome shown to Japan in 1941/42 was, after a few years, shown to be misguided.

If I was to try to summarise this ramble, my two main points on how China outmanoeuvred us all would be:

1. By China taking advantage of the opportunity created by the distraction of the experts; and 
2. The small-mindedness of voters, particularly on the topic of giving aid to our neighbours.

On that last point, I've often heard people comment about Sun Tzu having written that wars are won and lost before the contest, "in the temples", which is an argument about motivation.

In this instance, China's increased world influence was - in part - allowed by the indifference, suspicion and small-mindedness bred in Australia's pubs [4].



Notes

1. On the geopolitics aspect, I sometimes think of some of the geopolitics around Mackinder's Eurasian "heartland" thinking, and how a string of bases around the outside of the "heartland" was one response. I haven't been able to find the source for that comment, but there's a review of a book on this which is worth reading at https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/07/19/the-idea-of-eurasia-is-once-again-the-subject-of-geopolitics. 
2. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
3. See https://power.lowyinstitute.org/.  
4. One of the aspects of the so-called "pub test" (see here, here, and here), is that it depends on what pub you're talking about: blue collar pubs have different views than middle class pubs, let alone pubs in progressive suburbs or near Parliaments . . . (see here and here!)
   There are cures for that: apart from what I've argued elsewhere, I consider better education of people generally would help. I started a series of articles some time ago which came out of thinking what would make the "gay press" something I would read (the answer was "more on foreign affairs - well, anything on foreign affairs, really, beyond homophobia"). I only wrote one of my initial planned series, and need to find the time and energy to do more - and possibly one on the effects of POTUS45's possible impeachment on those who are for and "agin" him . . .