{The subtext of this focus on China’s problems is that Western domination of the world will continue, proving the superiority of the West’s political and economic ideologies.}
How well China manages these forces remains to be seen.
An objective analysis of China’s economy is required, but the constant drumbeat of negativity emerging from the West makes that difficult. Some of it is a concerted propaganda campaign, financed by the United States, to undermine America’s biggest competitor. But the trend also reflects the Western world’s racial and political anxieties and its profound insecurities about its own failures and decline.
For hundreds of years, the West has used imperialism and violence to construct an international system that ensures its prosperity and prioritizes its interests. Keeping the Global South subservient to a Eurocentric world order has been critical to this strategy.}
It cannot simply impose its will on the Global South, though the American campaign against China is an effort to re-establish this status quo.
To the West, this was not how it was supposed to be.}
{This political and economic system, embodied by the West (especially the United States), was supposedly the only path to success. The West was held up as pinnacle of achievement that the entire world should emulate.
{Western hostility toward China reflects the grudging realization that the West may not be the pinnacle of achievement after all. Rather than possibly learning from China’s successes, Westerners have chosen resentment borne of a sense of frustrated superiority.}
