Doslej je bila nova hladna vojna (hladna vojna 2) enostranska akcija ZDA proti Kitajski. Začelo se je s Pacifiškim trgovinsko-investicijskim sporazumom, ki ga je predsednik Barack Obama ponudil pacifiškim državam in ki je bil izrecno usmerjen kot oblikovanje gospodarskega bloka proti Kitajski. Nadaljevalo se je s trgovinskimi vojnami proti Kitajski in prepovedjo nastopanja nekaj kitajskih tehnoloških podjetij na ameriškem trgu v času predsednika Donalda Trumpa. Danes pa eskalira s polno tehnološko blokado proti Kitajski (prepoved izvoza čipov in tehnologije za izdelavo čipov, dolg seznam prek 1,000 kitajskih tehnoloških podjetij, ki ne smejo nastopati na ameriškem trgu ali s katerimi je prepovedano sodelovati) in podpornimi ukrepi za izzivanje Kitajske (obisk Pelosijeve na Tajvanu, ameriško urjenje tajvanske vojske, ustanavljanje vojaških baz okrog Kitajske ter histerično sestreljevanje nedolžnih kitajskih meteoroloških balonov).

Bidenov zakon za podporo ameriški tehnološki industriji (Inflation Reduction Act, IRA) je simbolično enak Kennedyjevemu Trade Expansion Act iz leta 1962. Slednji je zakoličil hladno vojno s tedanjo Sovjetsko zvezo in tehnološko vojno (v vesolju in jedrskem orožju). Vendar s to razliko, da je Kennedyjev zakon spodbujal sodelovanje z evropskimi zaveznicami (iz njega se je razvila t.i. “Kennedyjeva trgovinska runda” pogajanj v okviru GATT o zniževanju medsebojnih carin), medtem ko je Bidenov zakon izrecno protekcionističen, usmerjen proti Kitajski in vsem drugim, predvsem evropskim državam. Gre za izrecno soliranje ZDA, za tehnološko tekmo proti preostalemu svetu.

Kitajska  je doslej te ameriške enostranske ukrepe – v duhu svoje pragmatičnosti – dokaj stoično in potrpežljivo prenašala. Po münchenski varnostni konferenci prejšnji vikend pa je na ameriške desetletje in pol dolge enostranske aktivnosti tudi uradno odgovorila. In sicer s predlogom mirovnega sporazuma za Ukrajino, ki ga je predstavnik kitajskega zunanjega ministrstva Vang Ji skomuniciral z Nemčijo in Francijo, nato pa še v Moskvi. V Moskvi je predstavnik kitajskega zunanjega ministrstva tudi napovedal, da bo Kitajska “združila sile” z Rusijo (z odprtim pomenom tega izraza).

Nato je Kitajska snela rokavice. Včeraj pa je tiskovni predstavnik kitajskega zunanjega ministrstva Wengbin predstavil ključne poudarke iz notranje analize kitajskega zunanjega ministrstva glede oblik ameriškega posredovanja v drugih državah po drugi svetovni vojni in posledicah ameriške politične, vojaške, kulturne in tehnološke hegemonije za mir in stabilnost v svetu. Ta predstavitev je bila neobičajno nediplomatska in brutalno neposredna – z izjavami, da so ZDA v svoji 240-letni zgodovini le 16 let uspele zdržati brez vojne, da so po 2 SV poskušale zamenjati 50 vlad v drugih državah, da so se vmešavale v volitve v najmanj 30 državah in poskušale ubiti več kot 50 tujih voditeljev držav.

Ta predstavitev tiskovnega predstavnika kitajskega zunanjega ministrstva Wengbina izhaja iz dokumenta “US Hegemony and Its Perils“, ki ga je ta ponedeljek objavilo kitajsko zunanje ministrstvo. Sam dokument sicer ni nič posebnega, dejansko še najbolj podoben nizanju zgodovinskih dejstev v stilu Wikipedije (le da brez vključenih internetnih povezav na citirane vire). Zanimivo je predvsem dejstvo, da se je kitajska oblast odločila tak dokument objaviti. Pomenljiva je objava dokumenta in njegovo javno komuniciranje. S tem aktom je Kitajska uradno vstopila v hladno vojno, ki so jo začele in stopnjevale ZDA.

Kitajska se v neposredno vojaško konfrontacijo z ZDA kljub ameriškemu provociranju – z veliko verjetnostjo – ne bo vključila. Prav tako ni pričakovati vojaške pomoči Rusiji. To ni v kitajskem stilu. Kitajska deluje strateško in dolgoročno. Zaveda se, da ji mir koristi bolj kot vojna. Bo pa ojačala zavezništvo z Rusijo, ker s tem jača svojo pozicijo proti ZDA. Zdaj sta se z Rusijo naslonili s hrbtom ena na drugo, branita si hrbet in vsaka se bori na svoji fronti proti ZDA, med seboj pa intenzivirata gospodarsko sodelovanje. Prav tako bo Kitajska okrepila sodelovanje v okviru skupine BRICS+, z oblikovanjem nove, skupne rezervne valute in skupne razvojne banke. Z BRICS+ bosta Kitajska in Rusija postopoma izrinili ZDA z mesta globalnega gospodarskega voditelja, globalnega hegemona in policaja. 

Kot sem že nekajkrat napisal: mene skrbi, kam se bo pozcionirala EU. Glede gospodarske moči bi EU morala igrati vlogo enega izmed treg globalnih centrov. Vendar, ker je politično podrejena ZDA, EU ne more igrati pomembnejše vloge v novem multipolarnem svetu. Od evropskih voditeljev bi pričakovali, da bodo sposobni strateško oceniti to situacijo in sprejeti strategijo za politično in vojaško osamosvojitev izpod ZDA ter za trasiranje EU kot tretjega globalnega centra moči. Zavedam se, da preveč pričakujem od evropskih politikov, od katerih se vsak ukvarja s svojim miniaturnim svetom. In da na vidiku ni nobenega pravega državnika.

_________

Če koga zanima, je spodaj nekaj pudarkov iz kitajskega dokumenta. Za tiste, ki se ukvarjamo z mednarodno trgovino in institucijami, so zadeve precej jasne in zgolj navajanje faktov. Za tiste, ki pa se s tem ne ukvarjajo, pa bodo nekatere zadeve morda presenetljive. Zanimivi so predvsem deli glede tega, kako so so ZDA skozi mednarodne organizacije (Svetovna banka in IMF) preko pogojevanja kreditov prisilile države v privatizacijo in liberalizacijo finančnih tokov, od katere so imele koristi predvsem ameriške korporacije. Glede dolarja kot rezervne valute in sredstva za kontrolo sveta, glede nadzora medijev in usmerjanja javnega mnenja prek medijskih platform (Twitter, Facebook itd.), glede hollywoodskega kulturnega imperializama itd. pa so zadeve itak že splošno znane vsem, ki berejo Marcela Štefančiča Jr.

Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

…

he year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

…

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

…

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

…

II. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

…

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”

◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

…

IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

…

V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.

Vir: US Hegemony and Its Perils, MFPRC