Guest Column: A Policy Leader Fellow at the European University Institute's School of Transnational Governance on how the Indo-Pacific presents an entirely new model of geopolitical relations
It seems that every writer has the same construct. Everyone seems to have gone to the same schools and everyone tells a common tale. Really? Does anyone challenge anything anymore?
It was "common knowledge" that by 2020, China would have thrown off its communist ways and become free. Why did not someone say that "the king had no clothes"? Common knowledge is "no" knowledge.
Let's face it, peoples do not like each other any more than individuals do. Despite growing up thinking that humans are social animals, they are not! Just try to get two women that are friends to come together in their old age to support one another and you must know what the answer will be. For example, when everyone is satisfied physically, what do they do? Get a dog! You have to be commanded to "love your neighbour as yourself".
All of southeast Asia has had their experience with Chinese businessmen and they didn't like it. Just look at Cambodia. Do you really think that they want to go there again? Indians integrate a little more, but not much.
So much for your analysis of the east. And don't think that democracy is a starting point. We have enough keeping us apart for democracy to bind. And, today the world is all about hate. Where are our young people going to come from that trust might start. Not the way we are going, that is for sure.
I think that China is more intelligent than that. The Art of War says wait. Your enemy will fall right in front of you if you just wait. And the West, running around the world working on regime change will just speed that up.
It seems that every writer has the same construct. Everyone seems to have gone to the same schools and everyone tells a common tale. Really? Does anyone challenge anything anymore?
It was "common knowledge" that by 2020, China would have thrown off its communist ways and become free. Why did not someone say that "the king had no clothes"? Common knowledge is "no" knowledge.
Let's face it, peoples do not like each other any more than individuals do. Despite growing up thinking that humans are social animals, they are not! Just try to get two women that are friends to come together in their old age to support one another and you must know what the answer will be. For example, when everyone is satisfied physically, what do they do? Get a dog! You have to be commanded to "love your neighbour as yourself".
All of southeast Asia has had their experience with Chinese businessmen and they didn't like it. Just look at Cambodia. Do you really think that they want to go there again? Indians integrate a little more, but not much.
So much for your analysis of the east. And don't think that democracy is a starting point. We have enough keeping us apart for democracy to bind. And, today the world is all about hate. Where are our young people going to come from that trust might start. Not the way we are going, that is for sure.
I think that China is more intelligent than that. The Art of War says wait. Your enemy will fall right in front of you if you just wait. And the West, running around the world working on regime change will just speed that up.