Our ancestors set sail to conquer the world; their ancestors built a wall.
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks.
That means of course we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say, “Well actually China is actually quite bad, actually” in response.
Western liberals who fancy themselves enlightened and critical of power tend to get very squirmy and uncomfortable in their skin when they hear people saying positive things about the PRC, and love nothing more than to tell you that China is just as evil and tyrannical as the western power alliance, if not worse.
This is objectively, measurably false. China hasn’t spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression.
China isn’t circling the planet with hundreds of military bases while working to destroy any nation or group anywhere in the world who disobeys it.
China isn’t strangling nations around the globe with starvation sanctions for refusing to bow to its dictates.
China didn’t just spend 15 months lighting the middle east on fire and backing a live-streamed genocide.
China hasn’t spent the last three years endangering the world in frequently terrifying acts of nuclear brinkmanship with a rival nuclear superpower.
Only the U.S.-centralized empire has done this.
Whenever I point this out I get empire apologists going “Well yeah, SO FAR! We haven’t seen China doing all that evil foreign policy shit YET because they’re still not powerful enough!”
Which is just silly. China absolutely is powerful enough to be a whole lot more abusive and murderous abroad, and it simply isn’t.
Westerners love to claim that China has secret agendas to conquer the world someday (hilariously implying that these hypothetical future abuses make China morally comparable to the U.S. empire’s current known abuses), but if you actually dig into the evidence for these claims what you’ll find every time is that all they provide evidence for is China’s openly stated goal of a multi-polar world that isn’t ruled by Washington.
Our ancestors set sail to conquer the world; their ancestors built a wall.
This notion that China has an interest in ruling over a bunch of white foreigners has as much rational basis as old racist superstitions that black and brown people wanted equal rights so that they could come and steal white men’s wives and have sex with their daughters.
They’re just a better civilization than ours — not because theirs is miraculous or perfect, but because ours is just that murderous and dystopian.
They simply do the normal thing while we do the freakish thing: they make the lives of their citizens better and better and avoid unnecessary wars, while western governments make the lives of their citizens worse and worse while plunging into new acts of mass military slaughter every few years.
Any criticisms you could level at China — that their domestic policy is more authoritarian than ours, that their culture is more conservative, etc. — are eclipsed in moral terms by the depravity of our own western governments by orders of magnitude.
And why would you even level such criticisms while living under the single most bloodthirsty and tyrannical power structure on earth? That would be like a German living under the Third Reich looking overseas and bitching about Brazil.
I find nothing more pathetic than a westerner who lives under the shadow of the U.S. empire spending their time and energy criticizing the abuses of nations who lie outside that power structure.
It’s an embarrassing, bootlicking way to live. Focus on criticizing the far greater abuses of the far greater evil that you actually live under, loser.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Just food for thought .
We seemed to break down barriers during covid
We do work together at times of mutual interest .
Do a google search for IGY (International Geophysical Year)
Science related and benefitted mankind
Not everyone’s cup of tea but we can exist together for common goals and scientific advancement .
China opted out of protest of Taiwan ?
Humanity loses when we war .
It is interesting and wanted to share .
Very well put. Great stuff especially the last sentence. Wholesome advice.
A good friend of mine gifted me Sun – tzu – The Art OF War – New Translation by Ralph D. Sawyer – Copyright 1994 by Ralph Sawyer – by MetroBooks, an imprint of Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, by arrangement with Westview Press. 2001 MetroBooks.
Americans might benefit greatly by learning more about the military history of People’s Republic of China before deciding out of irrational fear of the unknown China is a threat to anyone.
A great first step would be getting the book and exploring it. One very important issue would be the thoughts of Sub – tzu. On making war on the other. Why, how and when it should happen.
I am greatly more concerned about the behavior of the radically reactionary neocon than I am about China.
The recent U.S. history of U.S. wars reveals how little U.S. officials understand various cultures world wide, especially China. Despite the early warnings of Gen. Abizaid the U.S. ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from being ill prepared to deal with the blowback from the initial U.S. “Shock and Awe”. All to prosecute a war with no justifiable reason.
I’m of the very strong opinion, antagonizing China is something the U.S. should be wary of.
Wake up America and re-examine our governments many recent errors in judgement as well as those mistakes of “self proclaimed” exceptional Americans.
See my comment left at Patrick Lawrence’s Where have all the Liberals Gone.
I apologize for the over lap however this stuff is very important.
Thanks for the article, and I agree with almost all of it. A couple of points:
– Richard Nixon, whatever people may think of him, noted that pretending the PRC, (1/4 of the planet’s population at the time) made no sense. He also noted that the Chinese were interested mainly in two things, security and philosophy, but always defaulted to security. Security does not mean expansion by military means.
“Our ancestors set sail to conquer the world:”
– I suppose that depends on how one defines “our ancestors”. While Europeans explored widely, it was primarily, at first, for trade in most cases. The conquest part came later. There are those, such as Captain Archibald Maule Ramsay, who have written books on whom he believes are the ones truly seeking world conquest.
Fantastic job again by Caitlin Johnstone.
I have some advice for the inquiring minds here.
Not long before I retired a good friend gifted me Ralph D. Sawyer’s New Translation of The Art of War originally by Sun-tzu.
Copyright 1994 – This edition published by MetroBooks, an imprint of Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, by an arrangement with Westview Press. The topic is complicated and nuances many. The volume requires one’s attention, while very easy to understand.
This gift of knowledge has rewarded me repeatedly.
This volume advises the reader when, why and how to bring war to the other. Likely what many don’t realize is the volume also advises the reader when not to bring war to the other. Why and how to avoid the pitfall of engaging in war when the act is an error.
In our current world, my opinion is, the number of Chinese who currently exist they will out perform other societies in the tech world simply because the have the greater number of individuals to do the work. Think about that.
This is my opinion based more on common sense than any proof I have of this statement. So be it my opinion.
The giant is not sleeping but toiling away, American neocons need to mind their own business rather than taunt the Chinese. For the sake of Dog they need to become positive in the nature of the relationships they cultivate around the world. How much hard proof is needed for Americans to realize that exceptionalism comes as a result of hard earned respect.
We find non of this in the efforts the U.S. has made to assist the Right wing Israeli government in it’s prosecution of the current genocide.
I have a question for anyone inclined to respond. Is the manic hate displayed by the Israeli right wing leadership a valued trait of Christians?
Thank you to CN and especially Ms. Johnstone for caring so much about humanity.
How the West” can keep on about “authoritarian régimes” when referring to those which provide decent lives for their citizens and are shown in polls to satisfy the needs and desires of their populations,shows how easily fooled we are. I live in “rights of man” France, where the government ignores election results, follows Ursula and Kaja Kallas into greater militarism and Russophobia, keeps websites and other “disinformation” hidden, and sinks us deeper into penury. I remember when there was a “Left”, it was pacifist and actually tried to improve our environment. Now, look what “Green” means in Germany!
And idiot westerners always cry “authoritarian” when talking about anyone outside the West, the same West where people are being arrested for THOUGHT CRIMES. Human stupidity is the very definition of infinite.
I’m always hesitant to make statements about a country after the mistakes people made during the 1930s in praising Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union. Nevertheless, because I live half my time in China and half in the U.S., I can say that feel exactly the same as Caitlin. In fact, in many respects I am more comfortable living here in China than in a country that has participated in genocide. I also find life here safer – guns are not a part of the culture; even the police don’t normally carry them, and the violent crime rate is low. All in all China feels to me to be a safer, more sane and stable nation.
Very well said. Of course few desire the truth, let alone introspection.
1. Most citizens are too young, uneducated, or inexperienced to see beyond simple MSM narratives;
2. Glimpsing the truth leaves most others feeling terrified and helpless, so they retreat to MSM narratives;
3. “The average man avoids truth as diligently as he avoids arson, regicide, and piracy on the high seas, and for the same reasons: it is dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn’t pay.” (H.L. Mencken)
Our amoral unregulated market economy elevates its lowest scammers to top government offices, with bought-off careerists below them. The USG has grown rotted and ruined by corruption for more than a century: all three branches of the federal government and the mass media are now corrupted.
The solutions are:
1. Constitutional amendments prohibiting election or mass media funding beyond limited individual donations;
2. Public and mass media education to identify and avoid dangerous social dependency upon tribal groups, which creates fear of leaders and invites the tyrant personality to demand power as their defender in aggressive wars.
The path to truth is a long and winding road filled with lies, deceit and subterfuge. Truth is closely connected with reality, lies have no connection with reality. There can be no justice without truth. There can be no real freedom without truth.
Yes, seekers of justice for themselves learn that it requires justice for all, which requires truth.
To stay on that road requires the means to obtain the facts and balanced argument of all viewpoints.
Eventually we will have the Congress Of Debate (dotcom) to balance viewpoints engaged in discourse.
This is a courageous take on large-scale geopolitics; one which, I fear, will not attract a very large audience in the places needed: not that it is totally true, but is absolutely essential to have in the quiver. That region and its people (‘China’ is an outlandish simplification) have all the human capacities for evil, clearly demonstrated in its history, but it does seem at this time that the central government of that region (we can call it China if we want) has the survival of the earth’s living space — natural world and unnatural humanity— as a more serious concern than the American empire does.
Caitlyn’s ability to cut through to the moral heart of things with hilarious (if tragic) irony has few parallels.
(I do wish that the links in the first sentence were to somewhere other than Wikipedia!)
Nigel,
I liked this article but you pointed out it pointed to wikipedia . I agree that certain aspects of wiki try to paint an image of bias . Some say they cannot correct errors of their own described personna even when wrong ?
Some entries seem to coincide updates with propaganda . Who has power to create updates of pages .
Certainaly there are errors and facts within same pages , but can sometimes seems intentional ?
I always try when using wiki see it as a jumpoff point to further prove / disprove statements made .
Digging beneath the surface can be a rabbit hole .
Trust but verify if you have to make sense or complete what seems to give pause.
AI gives a jumpoff point as well .
It can give clues where to look for additional info it gleans .
Sometimes copying a whole or incomplete sentence as a google search may find the source where it derived from .(plagerized)
With this in mind I applaud Cate for linking a place to dig and glad you do not rely on wiki soley . Hey we all can work together with a bit of our own desires to find the truth or concensus .
Headlines don’t cut it nor do half titles like — ” Breaking — they just went into” is nothing but a reason to click and see the story which peaks your interest for knowledge . ( a psychologist may agree ? ) Don’t be a sucker ( not directed at you Nigel but for us all ) but sometimes I click to see the whole title and sense the story , how long I stay varies as sometimes I leave as fast .
Youtube has allowed long looping videos ? days long ? — think the algo uses that incidence rate to bring those to the top ? No it keeps you at the bottom ? A good editor can splice that loop to make it seem invisible and after a half hour of watching it you realize it was only 2 minutes long ,,,,,, Too funny from experience . What does that say about me ? lol.
Nicely drawn picture painted with words . Heartfelt , I felt the pulse of your heart rise and fall .
“Focus on criticizing the far greater abuses of the far greater evil that you actually live under”
Indeed. And, besides, there’s also the Chomsky argument that we need to criticize our own government because it’s the one we pay for and have a potential ability to affect.