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Pride before a fall: time for arrogant US to realise it’s just another member of the international community
- Zhou Bo says the US has been blinded by a belief in its own exceptional status.
- America’s fighting words and claims of technology theft and election meddling do not reflect China’s efforts at integrating itself into the international system
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The US believes it is exceptional. This dates back to 1630 when English Puritan lawyer John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, addressed his fellow colonists in a sermon titled “A Model of Christian Charity”. Quoting directly from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he told them that their new community would be “as a city upon a hill”, watched by the world.
Such pride goes in tandem with the unrivalled strength of the United States. It makes the US a self-styled saviour looking down upon others. The latest example is American Vice-President Mike Pence’s speech, at the Washington-based Hudson Institute on October 4, on the Trump administration’s policy towards China.
Chinese jaws dropped when Pence – echoing US President Donald Trump – claimed that the US “rebuilt China over the last 25 years”, then accused China of initiating “an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion and the 2018 elections”.
The first statement sounded like – to use Pence’s own words – a “wholesale theft” of the collective efforts of the Chinese people in the past four decades. Moreover, it should be pointed out that the US$375 billion trade deficit in China’s favour could be much reduced if the US had lifted its ban on hi-tech exports to China.
As for his accusation of election meddling, just two days before Pence’s speech, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson had said there was no sign China was trying to hack the US midterm vote.
Watch: Pence accuses China of election meddling
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