Li Yudong, a researcher at the Chahar Society
When Trump sat on the US presidential throne and signed the decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the entire United States and even the entire world entered a historical inflection point. The maverick president has emphasized the slogan "Make America Great Again" over and over again, and the streets of the United States have heard a wave of protesters. When such a strange picture is presented to the world, people can't help but ask, what is going on? What happened to the United States, the world's leader?
In fact, the world is not how, going back to the source, it just moves forward according to the logic of nature.
To explore the behavioral characteristics of all societies, we must first go deep into their culture itself. Culture is a complex and vast system, but the driving force behind the formation and operation of this system is the mode of thought. The beginning of thought is closely related to the environment, geography, and other issues of early life, and this article does not intend to delve into it, and what is depicted here is the "figurative" characteristics of Western thinking. The immediate reaction to this characteristic is the worship of a certain "spiritual totem."
Unlike the abstract nature of our pursuit of the Tao, in Western society, once a certain practical belief, trend of thought, or ideology is established, it will be widely regarded as the "only standard" of human beings by the entire social group, and all groups that believe in different forms must take the initiative to compromise with it and then change, otherwise they will never meet the "human standard".
The famous "Crusades", whose Christian countries were subject to the same birthplace of Islam, differed only by their forms of expression, the idols. Both religions have canonized their gods as the patriarchs of the universe, and the peoples of both places are willing to go to the battlefield in order to defend the gods they believe in. The church and politicians took advantage of this universal "social appeal" and ordered the army to march into Jerusalem.
It's an incredible way of thinking. Whether a person is righteous or not is not first of all whether he does good, but whether he believes in God or Allah. Some would argue that this was just a unique way of thinking in medieval religious beliefs, and that it no longer exists. But in fact, it is just the opposite - only God is relegated to the second line, and the "supreme" who is enshrined as a "spiritual totem" has only changed the protagonist.
After extensive struggles and competitions, what was finally established by the West was the "universal values" that they often talked about. Universal values themselves are composed of abstract concepts such as "democracy, freedom, equality, and human rights", and have been advocated in different terms in the philosophies of all dynasties and dynasties in our country, and there is no problem. However, western-style "universal values" are not abstract concepts expressed in different forms according to different stages of development or cultural environments, but a very specific set of Western-style "democratic systems". In the eyes of Westerners, any country, whether its political system has maximized the protection of "democracy, freedom, equality, and human rights" for the people under its existing conditions, as long as it is different from the generally recognized political system in Western society, it is "anti-democratic" - the Western political system has become the "God" of their society in this era, because for them, this system has indeed brought them prosperity at this stage, and they are even willing to make this "prosperity" out of their own kindness. Spread to the whole world. Its politicians, on the other hand, make proper use of this "social demand" to seek their own interests through repeated external "value transmissions."
The most impressive thing about recent years has been the war in Syria. Western-style democracies cannot bring true "democracy" to that prosperous country, and war leaves nothing but chaos. The war to promote "democracy" has also awakened isis, the most rampant terrorist organization of this century. Ironically, the War in Iraq launched by the United States in the region during the George W. Bush era also took advantage of its society's worship of "Western democracies." The war wiped out the "dictator" Saddam Hussein, but it brought a long period of chaos to the land — and it was providing the ground for ISIS to grow.
Ironically, the war, which sent out "Western democracies," did not bring true freedom and human rights, but spurred the infiltration of terrorist organizations into "Western democracies." As terrorists blend into the Syrian refugee influx, Europe, the "holy land of democracy" that hosts these refugees, finally can no longer enjoy peace alone.
Western religious beliefs and ideologies are fundamentally the same thing. In essence, it is nothing more than the establishment of a specific standard first, and then the highest or most fundamental spiritual totem. As can be seen from the above examples, in the Middle Ages, "good or evil" was not the core of its values, and "whether it believed in God or not" was its fundamental. Similarly, in today's Western society, whether a country can make the people "free and democratic" to the greatest extent is not the core of its "universal values", and whether the country has a Westernized "democratic system" is the issue they are concerned about.
The Crusades brought disaster to the Islamic state, and the delivery of democracy brought chaos to the whole world. What was originally a war of aggression, under the understanding of the "figurative" thinking of its people, became a "war of honor" that "delivered justice", and hundreds of thousands of American boys rushed to the front line with a smile - and the reality they saw with their own eyes cruelly tore apart the faith in the hearts of many people. In the past decade or so, "universal values" have collapsed in the hearts of some people.
In the eyes of consortia and politicians, the belief of the whole society in its "democratic system" can be used as a tool. In this set of "beliefs", voting is the most important part, and elections can be regarded as the expression of the people's will, but they must not avoid the inflow of third-party capital. In the election of parliamentarians or presidents, external factors such as money, power, and party all play a crucial role in voting. Once elected, candidates are bound to have contact with consortia, capitalists, and other groups, and they have to take into account the interests of this group when formulating bills. In addition, they also need to curry favor with voters to a certain extent and meet their demands.
The rise of the capitalists had contributed to social development earlier, and with the increase in productivity, the people's living standards would also increase. But when social development enters the deep waters, and the capitalists' constant desire for "maximizing interests" becomes prominent, the desire for trade monopolies will gradually expand. In order to take the initiative, the competition for state power is also intensifying, and in order to win elections at all levels, they have to raise the standard of commitment to the people. After such a continuous "increase", the people's demand began to exceed the production capacity.
The birth of "neoliberal economic globalization" is an important tool for American capitalists to monopolize international capital and pursue excess profits. Under the series of rules it formulated, such as freedom, democracy, marketization, and privatization, the United States objectively promoted the process of globalization, but it also made a lot of money in it.
For a long time, the United States has created a triangular circular relationship of "DOLLAR - US Military - US Debt, US Debt - US Dollar - US Military". Simply put, its social productive forces have become difficult to meet social needs, the usurpation of interests by a few, and the reality of a lazy society have exhausted the whole country, and if it wants to be undefeated for a long time, it must formulate an international order controlled by itself. Any country can benefit from its rules, but it must not threaten the United States itself, or it will be ruthlessly suppressed by the rulemakers - because if the hegemony of the United States ceases to exist, the "robber cycle" of "dollar - US military - US debt" will become a dead cycle.
In addition, capitalists also use society's worship of "ideology" to "transmit democracy" and carry out "color revolutions" in countries with different political systems, thereby controlling their political and economic resources. Such tactics were common in the United States' years as the "world boss" and abounded.
However, the plot has changed.
At the end of the Cold War, the GDP of the United States was 6 trillion yuan (Editor's note: the monetary unit is the US dollar, the same below), 4 trillion in Japan, and 2 trillion in Germany. Today, the United States is 17 trillion, Japan is 5 trillion, and Germany is 3 trillion, from two-thirds and one-third of the United States to less than one-third and less than one-quarter, respectively. The gap is even greater in the rest of the country and will not be discussed here. In the neoliberal economic globalization system dominated by the United States, there is exactly one country that has benefited from it, and the ideology of this country is outside the West, although it has been tried to "subvert" many times, it has not moved, and it is the only country in the whole world that has gradually shrunk the size of the US economy - that is, China.
Just as disturbing to the United States as the size of the economy is the volume of China's trade. Since 2013, China has surpassed the United States and ranked first in the world, so the rules of the game of world trade may no longer continue to take care of the hegemonism of the United States – that will be the catastrophic nightmare of the "world boss".
All of this gave birth to the blueprint for the U.S. Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. To keep China out, the TPP has adopted extremely conservative "high threshold" standards, requiring tariffs on all goods to be reduced to zero immediately or in stages, requiring participation in the development of consistent labor and environmental standards, and excluding all government interventions in trade (subsidies, sloping measures, etc.), which in fact excludes many of the advantages of developing countries from trade. In this rule, developed countries, such as Japanese cars, will directly impact the US manufacturing industry due to 0 tariffs, and in direct dialogue, it will not bring benefits to the United States, but the United States can maintain its right to make rules for trade rules, carry out more black-box manipulation, and continue its world hegemonic status.
However, this will not help it to suppress China absolutely.
Among the 12 member countries that have already intended to join the TPP, China is the largest trading partner of most member countries and has the basic conditions for "breakthrough". Once China succeeds, where will the United States go?
Labor is the only source of value. When a society presents a state of "pleasure" beyond the control of its productive forces, all its prosperity is doomed to be unsustainable. When the people of a country are addicted to the figurative spiritual totem of the Western "democracy", when the capitalists use this tool to seek their own self-interest and thus promote the laziness of society, the whole country will be in a vicious circle of insufficient income. The more we rely on borrowing foreign debt, the more we need to maintain hegemony, the more we need to maintain hegemony, and the more we need to borrow foreign debt. The United States has used its hegemony to kidnap the whole world, its banknotes are international currency, its dominant institutions are the makers of the rules of the international game, and if it prints a dollar, the whole world will evaporate a fortune. Its own deficit must make the whole world pay for it. However, when China, the "game-breaker," appeared in front of it, it panicked.
Just as Christianity declined in the later period, with the decline of American hegemony, the "Western democracy", the "spiritual totem" in the hearts of the people, finally began to be questioned. To some extent, the American people are beginning to question whether "democracy" is wrong. But if "democracy" is wrong, then what is right? In this way, with an unprecedented tear in American history, he has been called "the president least like a president" - Trump has ascended to the throne of power. He brought some applause and even more panic — fears that their lifelong faith would end.
On the first working day of the White House, Trump withdrew from the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a big stroke. At the same time, the concepts of capital repatriation, revitalization of manufacturing, protectionism, etc., put forward by him, represent that the United States has personally stopped the "neoliberal economic globalization" model it has opened and turned to the path of "anti-globalization".
But it also marked the beginning of the last part of its life, the "democratic system" worshipped by American society. Trump's idea of "making America great again" obviously does not mean that the United States will completely abandon the usurpation of other countries' economic interests, but it all seems to be going back to the real productive forces themselves.
However, in the face of a society that has been laziened by "democratic freedom", in the face of a system bound by various chains of interests, where will he go?
And when the United States, the advocate of "globalization," stops and makes up lessons for itself, how a solid China will create a new and fair world pattern with its traditional "communion" thinking is even more evocative.
At the crossroads of human history, we look forward to it.
(Image from the Internet)