American "throwing pot doctrine" can be put to rest

Shirking responsibility, commonly known as "throwing the pot". Over the years, Americans seem to be particularly keen to "throw the pot" everywhere. At home, the two parties in the United States have "thrown the pot" at each other and have incessant infighting; internationally, the United States has done its utmost to "throw the pot." Since the epidemic, the face of the American "throwing pot" has been exposed, and the "pot" of the souls of more than 800,000 Americans has been thrown to others by any means. In this "throwing pot event", China has become the most suitable "back pot" person in the eyes of some people in the United States.

American politics comes with its own "throwing the pot" gene

There has long been a phenomenon in American politics, that is, the mutual blame between the federal and local governments and between the two parties has led to the difficulty of implementing policies and the long-term stagnation of social reforms. The fundamental reason is that the DNA of American politics comes with the gene of "throwing the pot", or that the "throwing the pot" itself is a by-product of the American system of decentralization and checks and balances.

The contradiction between the US federal and local governments originates from the US Constitution and provides an institutional basis for the birth of the American "throwing pot". The United States has a unique tradition of conservatism. Colonial Americans, influenced by British empiricist philosophy, were skeptical that the political elite interfered in the functioning of society through "rational design." They were also influenced by Locke's liberalism, radical European republicanism, and anti-monarchical ideas, hostile to totalitarian governments that meddle in local affairs. At the beginning of the founding of the country, the framers compromised under political pressure from the states and amended the U.S. Constitution to give local governments all powers other than those provided for by the federal government. Since then, there have often been power struggles between the federation and the localities, competing with each other in the face of interests and competing to "throw the pot" in the face of crisis.

The institutional arrangement of American-style democracy provides a stage for the two-party politics to stage a "throwing pot". The "winner-take-all" electoral system in the single constituency of the United States determines that both parties belong to the "all-you-can-eat party" that lacks clear demands and party membership. Their tactics are to win over each other's voters and swing voters in the middle, and demonizing the other side has become a common tactic in partisanship. Much of U.S. electoral activity is based on community and voter personal identity rather than class or shared political ideals, which has led politicians and political parties to avoid real social contradictions in favor of "scapegoats" who are prone to incite voters. In addition, the victorious president and his team have great power, which has led to American voters often tied to "charismatic leaders" rather than partisans, such as Reagan and Trump have a group of staunch supporters. For personality admirers of political leaders, attributing negative performance to external factors is almost an instinctive conditioning. Today, with the increasing development of social media, politicians who sell fear through extreme slogans are emerging in an endless stream, which undoubtedly further lowers the threshold of "throwing the pot" and aggravates the spread of american "dumping the pot" in domestic politics.

The United States is a master of "throwing the pot" to imaginary enemies

The United States has encountered many serious political and economic crises, and every time contradictions accumulate to the brink of outbreak, some external imaginary enemies full of a sense of threat will be created to "back the pot" for contradictions at home and abroad in the United States. Today, the United States is familiar with the hypothetical enemy of "throwing the pot", and populist politicians have no political burden or moral guilt about it.

Xenophobia is the ideological basis for the United States to "throw the pot" to the imaginary enemy. Xenophobia is directly related to so-called "American exceptionalism." "Exceptionalists" believe that the United States, as a "city on top of the mountain", is often eroded by foreign ideas, and that the cultural "other" challenges American values, which is a serious problem that American society needs to be particularly vigilant about. "American exceptionalism" also implies the idea of "destiny", which can provide legitimacy for the continuous expansion of the United States driven by capitalism, and the active geopolitical and economic expansion of the United States often requires politicians to shape imaginary enemies, thereby suppressing the resistance inevitable caused by expansion. Xenophobic fanaticism based on the "American exception" and "destiny of Heaven" has appeared many times in history, and Chinese laborers, black Africans, Catholics, and Jews have been discriminated against and ostracized as enemies of white American society. The contemporary "Tea Party" movement stems largely from the belief that white American workers believe that immigrants and foreign countries have stolen jobs from "honest workers" through "unfair competition", resulting in a wave of anti-China and anti-Latin American immigrants once again dreging.

When there is an external crisis in the United States, specific groups of people at home will be positioned as imaginary enemies and will be spared no effort to "throw the pot" on their bodies. Before World War II, the International Influence of the United States was relatively limited, and the United States often pursued isolationism in diplomacy and was not keen on shaping imaginary enemies. After World War II, the United States became the dominant player in the international order, and shaping the "communist threat" became a weapon for the capitalist hegemonic system with the United States as the core. During the Cold War, "McCarthyism" incited "Red Fear" brutally persecuted large numbers of leftists. During the Trump administration, the "new McCarthy doctrine" was revived through the "China Project" of the Department of Justice, creating a large number of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases against Chinese Americans and Chinese scientists.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States needs to continue to create international "throwing pot" objects and maintain unipolar hegemony. Only in this way can we maintain the cohesion of the hegemonic system externally and mobilize the people internally to continue to support the "protracted war" of the US military. A typical example of this tactic is that the US neoconservatives fabricate evidence of the threat of the United States on the pretext of "spreading democracy" to open the way for their large-scale overseas military aggression. Even Trump, who calls himself "anti-war", has "shared the worries of the United States" by shaping imaginary enemies such as China and Russia, strengthening the control of the United States over its allies, forcing them to significantly increase military spending. It is foreseeable that China will become the number one imaginary enemy of US politicians for a long time, and it is also an important tool for US politicians to mobilize foreign allies and domestic voters. This phenomenon will not change with the attitude of individual presidents toward China.

American "throwing the pot" is getting worse and worse only because of the "four major diseases"

Those who are familiar with the history of "throwing the pot" in the United States will find that in the past two years, the "throwing pot doctrine" in the United States has become widely popular and very popular, and it is only because of the "four major diseases" that the "throwing the pot" has become the opium used by the US authorities to self-anesthetize and relieve pain.

The first is the "anxiety disorder" in the context of the dissolution of unipolar hegemony. At present, the United States still has a huge alliance system, as well as comprehensive advantages in science and technology, finance, culture and other aspects. The European Union and more middle powers are seeking autonomous diplomacy, and the trend toward multipolarization is increasingly challenging the unipolar hegemony of the United States. These changes have created a strong strategic anxiety among the U.S. ruling elite, and the 2017 National Security Strategy Report shifted to making great power competition the primary threat to U.S. national security. China's rise has made the United States more anxious about whether it can maintain hegemony, so American politicians are peddling "China threat theory" everywhere, from space exploration to epidemic prevention and control, from economy to culture, they want the world to see is "China's challenge".

The second is the "frostbite" under the intensification of political polarization in the United States. Contemporary bipartisan politics in the United States is gradually bottomless, with both sides frequently obstructing each other's bills and repeatedly leading to government shutdowns, key reforms being repeatedly postponed, and the entire system is like suffering from frostbite. The diminishing consensus among supporters of both parties, the information cocoon brought by social media has exacerbated social divisions, and domestic terrorism and hate crimes have grown rapidly. Political inefficiency and the extremization of public opinion have spawned a large number of demagogic populist politicians, which in turn has exacerbated political stagnation and formed a vicious circle. In the case of the inability to unite people's hearts and minds to cope with reforms and social challenges emerging in an endless stream, not only populist politicians habitually "throw the pot", but even moderate politicians have frequently expressed their position to blame other countries, hoping to seize political capital through "throwing the pot".

The third is the "hypocrisy" under the rise of anti-globalization ideas. In the context of the soaring economic globalization, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has widened, resulting in the financialization of its national economy, the hollowing out of its industry, and the structural unemployment of labor, and the populist trends of populism on the left and right such as "Occupy Wall Street," "Tea Party," and "Alternative Right" have risen one after another. The economic situation of the American working class has deteriorated, and it has become increasingly distrustful of the inefficient and reform-minded Washington politicians, and has conjectured conspiracy theories of "globalists" enslaving the American middle class and seeking "control of the world." By creating a false causal link between domestic issues and the object of the "throwing pot", populist politicians direct domestic discontent to the object of the "throwing pot". In the face of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, some politicians in the United States not only do not actively lead the people to fight the epidemic, but constantly advocate the absurd conspiracy theory that "the American elite and the Chinese virus laboratory conspired to create the new crown virus to force the American people to vaccinate and control the world".

The fourth is the "madness" of manipulating and ignoring international organizations. Faced with the dangerous tendency of a small number of countries to ideologize neutral issues, existing international mechanisms cannot effectively constrain them. For example, WHO has difficulty resisting the political intrigue of a small number of countries in the United States and the West, and its secretariat has succumbed to political pressure and unilaterally proposed the so-called "second phase traceability plan". International organizations themselves are often the "throwing pot" and pressure targets of US politicians. The political influence and discourse power of the United States are still higher than those of other major powers, and it has privileges in a large number of international organizations led by the United States, and can be upside down and "throw the pot" at will in the international arena. For example, the United States has long refused to pay its contributions under the pretext of the "inefficiency" of the United Nations. During the Trump administration, the United States once withdrew from the World Health Organization at a critical moment in the fight against the epidemic, undermining the overall situation of the international fight against the epidemic.

American "throwing pot doctrine" ends up harming others and harming oneself

The American "throwing pot" may have the effect of entangled separated domestic political parties, societies and allies for a while, and achieve short-term political returns. Lawmakers from both parties have achieved rare agreement on bills to promote infrastructure development and domestic industrial policy, citing "responding to the China threat." In recent years, a small number of US allies have also pursued a foreign policy of "pro-US and far-reaching China" for various purposes, and have constantly "thrown the pot" at China in the same way as the United States. In order to hold the us thigh, Australia has constantly escalated anti-China rhetoric; India has not hesitated to carry out military adventures on the Sino-Indian border in order to enter the US Indo-Pacific clique; and Japan has set up a small calculation of achieving "normal nationalization" by means of the United States to contain China.

The "pot" thrown out by the United States will eventually go around and hit itself. The Biden administration intends to use the exaggerated "China threat" to force its own changes, but the marginal effect of its "throwing the pot" is decreasing. As the Economist magazine pointed out in an Editorial in July 2021, the U.S. Republican Party cannot submit to Biden because he stamped the bill with the "China threat." The result of the Democratic Party continuing to "throw the pot" at China is to tie its hands and feet, and it has almost lost the opportunity to cooperate with China to promote climate change and global cooperation against the epidemic. What's more, a few US politicians have frequently sent out wrong signals on the Taiwan issue, devising how to turn the Conflict in the Taiwan Strait into a new "Pearl Harbor moment" and re-unite American society like during World War II. But China is not the Japan of that year, the United States is not the United States of the year, if there is a direct conflict between China and the United States, there will be no real winner in the world, and the United States will suffer even more.

American "throwing pot" has a hundred harms in the "global village" and no benefit. First, the "throwing pot" of the United States hinders the dialogue between major countries in the field of global governance, and leads to an unfair distribution of responsibilities among countries in areas such as climate change, which will ultimately affect the realization of global governance goals. Second, the US "throwing the pot" behavior has exacerbated the risk of conflict between major powers. The United States has wrongly attributed the problems of the Western world to the challenge of so-called "authoritarian countries" to "democratic countries", and has exerted pressure on China and Russia and other countries through the "Alliance of Values" to sow discord between allies and China and Russia, resulting in the escalation of tensions in Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific and other regions. Third, the "pot-throwing doctrine" of the United States encourages irresponsible state behavior. Whether it is sabotaging allies' arms sales contracts or extorting confidential corporate data, as long as China is allowed to "back the pot", the US government can bully everywhere with open fire.

The bell must also be tied to the ringer. In the final analysis, the chronic diseases of political division, social contradictions, and economic structure in the United States cannot be eradicated by "throwing the pot," and the deep-seated causes that hinder its domestic reform cannot be eliminated by "throwing the pot." Americans can only save others and save themselves by showing political courage and stopping "throwing the pot."

True multilateralism is the antidote to the "pot-and-turn syndrome"

At present, US politicians have regarded the "China threat" as the primary challenge, regard the "throwing pot doctrine" as a sharp weapon in the toolbox of national policies, and take this opportunity to recruit "like-minded people" to join forces against China in the international Network. They hold up the "rules-based international order" in their hands and sing "multilateralism" and "rebuild a better world" in their mouths, but they act one after another with the selfishness of "only state officials are allowed to set fires and the people are not allowed to light lamps." To cure the disease of "throwing the pot", we must rely on genuine multilateralism.

True multilateralism is based on a broadly participatory and authoritative international framework that governs the narrowness of "pot-throwing doctrine". A mature global governance system can clearly divide governance responsibilities, clarify and fight back conspiracy theories, and help offset the narrow and exclusive influence of "throwing the pot". At a time when major powers are prevaricating their responsibilities and global governance issues are struggling because of politicization, international organizations such as the United Nations should play a stronger leadership role. However, the United States is trying to dominate the international rule-making power by co-opting the "small circle" and overriding the international governance system with the United Nations as the core. This attempt carries the risk of returning the international landscape to the Cold War. China and many countries that support true multilateralism clearly oppose the model of governance that divides the world and uphold the international authority of the United Nations and other institutions.

True multilateralism, which has the approval and support of the overwhelming majority of countries, is the mainstream of public opinion in the international community and monopolizes the deceptiveness of "throwing pot doctrine". It is the "consensus" of a handful of politicians in Washington who have vigorously "thrown the pot" to the outside world, and have been echoed by a handful of US allies, but they cannot represent the entire United States, the entire West, and still less the whole world. The developing countries represented by China have called on all countries to practice true multilateralism, which has received extensive and sincere response and support, piercing the true intentions of the "throwing pot" and making the "throwing pot doctrine" nowhere to hide. At present, some people in the United States blame the intensification of the Sino-US struggle on China's "non-compliance with regulations" and "non-cooperation," and its "throwing pot doctrine" is quite deceptive in the international community. The results of the Glasgow climate summit show that only when the United States abandons the "throwing pot", respects the will of the international community, and takes the road of true multilateralism, can there be hope for Sino-US relations and a way out for the world to solve problems.

Responding to the "throwing pot doctrine" requires countries around the world to face up to the anti-globalization trend, and also requires China to respond positively to the doubts and vigilance of some countries about China's development. Through taking the initiative to carry out multilateral cooperation, China is demonstrating a posture of "strong but not hegemonic", promoting the "Belt and Road" initiative of consultation, co-construction and sharing, and practicing the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind. On the other hand, the united states, the harm of "throwing the pot" to global governance has been well known, not only can not solve the challenges faced by all countries in the world, even the allies of the United States have no intention of following the United States boss repeatedly tossing and turning, self-pleading is not interesting.

American "throwing pot doctrine" can be put to rest!

(Author: Jin Junda, Zhao Hai Unit: Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Source: Guangming Daily