My Take | Hats off to ‘whataboutism’ for exposing Western hypocrisy
Pointing out your critic’s bad or worse behaviour may be self-serving but can often provide much-needed context and background in a war of words
There is a perplexing article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs filed by two scholars from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and the University of Hong Kong.
Despite their respective employers, the piece is really about how the United States can criticise other countries more effectively without being subverted by “Whataboutism”. The title is “Why whataboutism works”, with the subtitle, “In international politics, it pays to point fingers.”
It certainly does. America knows all about it.
The term itself is problematic, but more on that later. Whataboutism works best when it points out the blatant hypocrisy of one’s critic. It doesn’t work so well when that critic is morally upright and has kept his nose clean. That’s why whataboutism can be used very effectively by countries targeted by the United States, but far less so with critics that have a long history of peaceful and genuine human rights records, such as Sweden and Canada.
For example, it’s beyond hypocrisy, though you can call it whataboutism, that the US accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang while arming Israel to the teeth so it can bomb Gaza back to the Stone Age. That’s not just whataboutism – Washington is asking for it. But if Beijing is criticised by Canada or Sweden over Xinjiang, it’s a bit different as they are more disinterested and carry more moral force.
