Recently, the situation around China has not been stable, and the Philippines in the South China Sea, India on the border, and the Taiwan authorities in the Taiwan Strait are all launching different forms of provocative actions. Against this background, Japan has also made new anti-China moves. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave a speech to the US Congress and made it clear that he opposes the isolationism of the Americans.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks in the US Congress
In his speech, Fumio Kishida said that China's current actions "are a provocation to the security of Japan and the world." He claimed that if Japan's neighbors were to be taken into account, then China's foreign policy and its military actions would pose the greatest strategic challenge in history, not only to Japan's peace and security, but also to the peace and stability of the entire international community.
In addition, Kishida also said in his speech that there should be an underlying self-doubt about what role Americans play in the world. He stressed that US leadership is indispensable, and that the United States should play an active role in assuming the so-called "defense function" in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
The United States must defend the international order that it has worked for generations to build, and actively confront and defeat those who challenge the order with "very different values and principles."
The Japanese prime minister went to the U.S. Congress to give a lesson to the Americans, calling on the Americans not to engage in isolationism, to step up efforts to intervene in the regional situation, to help allies, and to ask the United States to shoulder its responsibilities to confront China.
This may sound like a surprise, but it does happen, and the Democrats in power in the U.S. government really eat it. U.S. President Joe Biden then said that the U.S.-Japan alliance ushered in the most important upgrade, "will protect Japan with nuclear weapons," and planned to reorganize the U.S. military command in Japan to further strengthen anti-China efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Therefore, judging from the results, Fumio Kishida's action of going to the US Congress to give lectures to Americans this time was obviously a success for him, and achieved the ultimate goal of "gaining more support from the United States to oppose China" as expected.
This kind of seemingly strange incident of "the younger brother forcing the eldest brother not only did not get beaten, but got sweet dates", if you want to disassemble and analyze, you can start from two points. First of all, the first point is the "tail wagging dog" issue that has recently become quite difficult for the United States.
The thorny troubles facing the United States
To create trouble for the United States to "wag its tail and wag a dog," of course, it depends on Israel, the most special of all US allies. Since the beginning of the current round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States has been bearing the excess cost of providing unconditional military support and political endorsement for Israel.
U.S. President Joe Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
On the other hand, Israel has also taken advantage of its special values and important alliances that are indispensable and extremely important to the United States, ignoring the repeated dissuasion of the United States, ignoring the credibility and political influence of the United States in the world because of its unconditional support for Israel and the unprecedented humanitarian disaster caused by Gaza. Regardless of the fact that the United States does not want to enter the war in the Middle East at the moment, the global strategic layout of the United States, which does not care, is to concentrate on confronting China and Russia.
In the face of such a wanton trampling on US interests, Israel continues to bomb indiscriminately with weapons and ammunition provided by the United States, bombing the Iranian embassy in Syria and assassinating senior Iranian generals across the border with F35I stealth fighters provided by the United States.
The intention is to provoke Iran to retaliate, and then trigger a full-scale war in the Middle East, which has led to the United States having to send American troops to the war to rescue Israel. In this way, victory was achieved over Gaza and even in the "Sixth Middle East War".
Israel's Netanyahu administration's behavior of "only caring about its own interests and stepping on US interests one after another" has not only smashed the traditional perception of "America first, America first" that the United States has established for a long time in the Western world.
Israel's cross-border bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria is not over, and Iran has vowed to retaliate
It has proved to the world that the United States today will have a vulnerable side in front of its allies due to its own lack of strength and declining influence, and there will also be times when it will be helpless against its allies. At the same time, it has also brought an extremely bad "exemplary role" to other US allies around the world.
The United States faces more than one trouble
The United States, which is keen on provoking regional conflicts and creating geopolitical contradictions, has long had a group of "less peaceful allies." This was originally a good thing to serve the strategic interests of the United States, and it would help the United States to carry out global harvesting and stabilize its hegemony. And now, because of Israel's extremely bad "exemplary role," these traditional allies of the United States are becoming potential crisis flashpoints.
South Korea, which is constantly stirring up trouble to the north, the Taiwan authorities that are stirring up the situation in the Taiwan Strait, the Philippines that is provoking in the South China Sea, and Japan, which has long been clamoring anti-China rhetoric, may all consider "how to emulate what Israel is doing" and then reap their own interests.
Now that the United States is no longer able to control and restrain its allies, not only that, but it also has to continue to support its allies in order to maintain the overall strategy from collapsing. Then it will be possible for other US allies to replicate the "Israel model" and achieve a certain goal of "what they want, but what the United States does not want."
It is against this background that Fumio Kishida came to the US Congress and gave "lectures" to the Americans, and "Japan can also replicate the Israeli model" is the potential hole card in Fumio Kishida's hands.
From the perspective of the United States, consider it from the starting point of weighing interests. The cost of increasing support for an ally who "comes to ask for help" is obviously much smaller than the cost of an ally repeating the "Israeli model" by creating wars and provoking conflicts in the region, and causing the United States another "tail wagging dog" accident.
So we can see that even if Fumio Kishida goes to the Americans' turf for the first time, teaches the Americans how to play international strategy, and asks the Americans for more support. Doing something like this would have been unthinkable even two years ago.
However, under this premise, the Biden administration still gave Kishida what he wanted from the perspective of overall strategic stability. It has not only increased the support of the US military for the stationing of troops in Japan, but also reaffirmed the "nuclear umbrella" policy of the United States towards Japan.
It is foreseeable that after this public demonstration of Japan's actions, there will inevitably be more US allies who realize that this path dependence of replicating the "Israeli model" is profitable, and that it will not be the last time for the United States to increase its efforts to claim benefits, and there will be more in the future.
Of course, from the perspective of global security and regional stability, this is obviously not good news, which means that more US allies may "wag their tails" and provoke regional conflicts and create incidents. In particular, under the premise that many allies of the United States are scattered around the mainland, this point needs to be paid more attention and vigilance.
Geng Shuang, Deputy Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations
In fact, China had anticipated this situation for a long time. At the UN Security Council meeting held not long ago, Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, made it clear at the meeting. Allowing impunity for Israel's bottomless and reckless behaviour would send a gravely wrong signal and encourage more risk-taking.
Judging from the subsequent developments, even though China has made such a clear and resolute statement, the United States still takes Israel as incompatible and fails to impose any effective disciplinary measures against Israel, but has repeatedly reaffirmed its "firm support" for Israel and continues to protect and shield Israel without a bottom line.
If the United States is acting so blatantly in front of the whole world, the "serious wrong signal" will naturally be sent by this move by the United States. Now that it is being approached by allies to force itself to seek benefits, it can only be said that the United States has reaped the consequences. The first to drink the bitter wine made by the United States was none other than the United States itself.
On the other hand, the occurrence of the above situation does show that the "bargaining power" of the United States over its allies has fallen to an unprecedented level. Today, because of the decline of its own strength and influence, the United States has begun to rely more on the strength of its allies in the regional situation and geopolitical contradictions.
For example, instigating the Philippines to provoke China in the South China Sea, instigating the Taiwan authorities to provoke the mainland in the Taiwan Strait, and supporting South Korea in provoking and exerting pressure on the DPRK on the Korean Peninsula can all be regarded as such examples.
Recently, the Philippines has frequently provoked China in the South China Sea
Even against a small Houthi rebel group known as the "slipper army", the United States has to gather allies from all walks of life around the world to come to support, but the response is few, and the US military is still the sole leader, and it is still helpless against the Houthis. It has had little effect other than to show the world, including its allies, "the power of the U.S. military stick."
The United States, which is "powerless against the enemy and urgently needs the support of its allies," is now in fact "helpless and helpless to support its allies." The "real status quo" that many U.S. allies are facing today is the "real status quo" that many U.S. allies are facing now, as the United States desperately needs and can resist the control and constraints of the United States.
It has become a fait accompli that the "bargaining power of the US allies" of the US allies has risen sharply, while the "bargaining power of the United States over its allies" has fallen sharply.
American experts are pessimistic
Of course, the Americans themselves are aware of such a bad strategic situation. Brandon Wechett, a former geopolitical analyst in the US Congress, recently published an article in the US media "The National Interest", saying conclusively that "the biggest enemy of the United States is not China or Russia, but a debt of up to $35 trillion." ”
Point out that the U.S. has a deficit of $1.6 trillion this year, a total debt of $35 trillion, and interest payments of $1 trillion this year. If the dollar ceases to be the main global reserve currency, and suddenly a real American currency counterpart, then the entire US financial system collapses.
In fact, this is a kind of "post-hegemonic era" prediction of the collapse of US hegemony, which is pessimistic but indeed true. The core pillars of US hegemony are nothing more than two – petrodollar hegemony and military hegemony. Now these two pillars of US hegemony are collapsing at a speed that is visible to the naked eye.
In order to maintain the hegemony of the petrodollar, they have lost ground and suffered backlash in their bottomless support for Israel; in order to maintain military hegemony, they have pulled in allies around the world to fill in their military strength, but now they have not only failed to show their own strength, but also exposed their weaknesses, and have been approached by allies to "preach and ask for help".
Future history will remember this moment: "You are not qualified to say in front of China that you are talking to China from a position of strength"
The exact timing of the collapse of US hegemony is still an unknown that cannot be accurately predicted. But as things stand, it is clear that that day is no longer far away and can be predicted.
Some sources of information in the article:
Fumio Kishida said that the "biggest challenge" facing the world came from China, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuted it丨Beijing Daily
The Houthis say the U.S.-led multinational force could not stop it from attacking "Israeli ships"丨Xinhua News Agency
The United States has urged Israel not to attack Allah? Netanyahu: Not really, will always fight丨Observer.com