Middle powers need friends. US offers only colonial vassal status with CIA determined rulers. China does not. Just buy stuff because it is best value/cheap. In the prehistory that was 2021, Russia did not vassalize its customers. Just buy their stuff because it was cheapest. Russia is not an imperial power over Europe because of counterbalance. Russia did not threaten/berate EU over green transition. Trump/Biden threatened EU over Nordstream 2. When your master extorts you with energy prices and forced war, you need new friends. The more friends, the more counterbalance for others to be friendlier to you.
This is all political theatre. European countries continue to host US bases from which operations against Iran are currently being carried out.
Yes, but not all are allowing operations that support the war on Iran
i wonder if it’s a cover strategy for getting access to hormuz
“Our objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powers,” he told students in Seoul. “We don’t want to depend on the dominance, let’s say on China, or we don’t want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of the US.”
European countries, he said, have a shared agenda with places like Japan and South Korea on issues like international law, democracy, climate change and global health.
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on medium-sized powers to join forces and stand up to the US and China.
Europe being hostile towards China isn’t exactly news though. It’s the break up of the Atlantic alliance that’s the real story.
Is Europe’s hostility towards China not a function of US hegemony? Surely there’s less reason to be hostile now.
In a sane world yes, but in reality there’s a lot of racism and notions of white supremacy at play here.
There’s the whole democracy thing.
Congress at 15% approval rating is damning for democracy. FYI, 26% of Americans believes the sun revolves around the earth, and so that 15% is the functionally full tropic thundered not aware of how bad it is.
do go on
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
Elaborate
Democracies tend not to fight each other, or so the theory goes.
Authoritarian countries also usually ignore human rights. China (and Russia) constantly get called out on the human rights abuses by Europe, which irates the ruling class of China. This isn’t to say Europe is the shining beacon on the hill, they are just seen as the lesser evil.
The fact Europe still hasn’t broken all ties with Israel over their human rights abuses tells me their supposed democratic values are more window dressing than anything.
Europe is led by material interests, not democratic values.
They/most of them have Zionist supremacist laws forbidding speech against genocide.
Well there is the fact that Europe isn’t one homogeneous political entity. Spain, Ireland and Norway openly went against Israel.
With uh…minimal due derision, this isn’t a theory that holds up to scrutiny or even makes sense internally
You realise we have democracy in China right? Just not western style liberal democracy.
Europe is the lesser evil for whom? Certainly not the victims of European colonialism and imperialism.
And when you look, you’ll see those former colonies are getting closer with Russia and China.
Finally someone says it.
