Ruan Jianping and Deng Kaifan: The American style of "throwing the pot" is even worse today, harming others and harming themselves

Source: World Wide Web

In the face of the unprecedented impact of the global new crown epidemic, the US government has not fully reflected the responsibility and organizational effectiveness that it should have as a responsible major country, but has arbitrarily thrown the pot, trying to blame the huge losses caused by its own policy mistakes, and even used the virus as an excuse to carry out political attacks on other countries, showing the American "throwing the pot" to the fullest.

Objectively speaking, American pot-throwing doctrine has a long history, and even today, it has complex roots.

First, party rivalry provides a direct impetus to American-style pot-throwing doctrine. As the driving force of American politics, political party competition is intended to send people and political parties who have more support to power positions. For contenders, in actual campaigns, attacking opponents often has a relatively greater effect, which leads to an increasingly utilitarian competitive strategy, that is, finding ways to shape opponents into the culprits of various problems, and being the key to solving problems, for which they do not hesitate to falsify and slander opponents.

Second, the imbalance in the operation of the system makes it difficult to curb the spread of American-style pot-throwing doctrine. Nowadays, there are more and more imbalances in the operation of the US system, which is not only difficult to curb the inferior quality of party competition, but also difficult to ensure the orderly operation of the separation of powers, and thus it is difficult to curb the spread of pot-throwing doctrine. As another battleground for bipartisan competition within Congress, congress's contest with the White House is more complex and affects the operation of the judiciary. The "imperial president" and the "imperial congress" have appeared in turn, and for many issues involving the major interests of the people, the two parties and the government have boycotted each other, resulting in a long delay and difficult decision. In order to avoid public criticism, it is more necessary to throw the pot opponent.

Third, self-centered individualism is the cultural root of American pot-throwing. The entire institutional design and operation of the United States is based on a self-centered individualistic culture and forms a theoretical system that rationalizes its own behavior. In this cultural environment, blaming others for one's own problems does not experience much internal or external moral pressure. Moreover, in group politics, this self-centeredness can easily be radicalized into racism and hegemonism, that is, to think that one is civilized, correct, just and reasonable, and that other ethnic groups or states are barbaric, wrong, evil and irrational, and thus the root cause of many problems such as disease, unemployment, crime, terrorism, war and environmental change, thus justifying discrimination and exclusion against other ethnic groups, and even extinction, interference and war against other countries.

Fourth, social polarization has exacerbated the prevalence of American pot-throwing doctrine. In recent years, populism in the United States has risen again, and even the trend of left and right populism has risen side by side, which has had a huge impact on the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States. Fundamentally, this is the inevitable result of polarization in American society. The economic structure determines the employment structure, the employment structure determines the income structure, and the income structure determines the position structure. In the face of the confrontation of positions and views brought about by social polarization, it has become more necessary to throw the pot.

From an individual point of view, Washington's pot dumping strategy may have temporary practical value, but from the overall point of view, American pot dumping can not escape the end of both harming others and harming themselves.

First, endanger the United States itself. Throwing the pot will only paralyze itself, will not help solve the problem, and will eventually endanger itself. The United States has continued to throw the pot in this epidemic, but it has not reduced its own losses, and its anti-epidemic effectiveness can be described as "failing". Even so, the US Government is still bent on engaging in political farces that trace the origin of the virus in an attempt to continue to dump China, with the fundamental purpose of serving its needs for strategic competition with China. As a result, squeezing out large amounts of resources that could otherwise be used to improve people's livelihoods, improve infrastructure, tackle disease and climate change, and hinder action to alleviate internal polarization, ethnic antagonism, and ultimately harm itself.

Second, it undermines international mutual trust and cooperation. The security and development of no country in the world today can be separated from cooperation with other countries, and mutual trust is a necessary prerequisite. The Biden administration has made repairing allies a diplomatic priority after taking office, but in practice, there is no essential difference from Trump's "America First." The most typical case is that the United States stole more than $90 billion of submarine contracts between France and Australia. Although France will eventually have to accept reality, its anger against Australia and resentment toward the United States will not be easily dispelled, and will certainly affect trust and cooperation with the United States, as well as the future of the transatlantic alliance.

Third, it involves improvements in global governance. As the world's only superpower in the world today and one of the leading founders of the postwar global governance mechanism, the United States should make greater contributions to improving global governance. However, based on narrow self-centeredness and zero-sum thinking, some POLITICIANS IN THE UNITED STATES ARE UNWILLING TO FACE UP TO INTERNAL GOVERNANCE ISSUES AND UNWILLING TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE TO ASSUME THE LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, BUT INSTEAD WANTONLY DUMP OTHER COUNTRIES AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS.

As more and more countries embark on the road of socialized large-scale production, maintaining a free, open and stable international order is increasingly important for the development of all countries and world peace. The American approach of throwing pots is not conducive to the solution of its own problems, and it is even more irresponsible to the world. (The authors are Professor of the Institute of International Rule of Law of Wuhan University and Ph.D. of School of Politics and Public Administration, Wuhan University, respectively)