WESLEY SEALE
The words of the song, Weeping, went through my mind as reports came in of Antony
Blinken’s statement on the latest US policy towards China.
Written as an anti-apartheid song in the eighties, Dan Heynmann penned those words: “I
knew a man who lived in fear; it was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near…I heard its
lonely sound, it wasn’t roaring, it was weeping.”
Needless to mention, the song was written in response to Botha’s state of emergency in
1985. The apartheid regime was fearful that their racial and class project was failing and
they could no longer contain their fear. Indiscriminate killings, abductions, detention and
beatings were the order of the day.
As the international order moves fast into a post-American world, the US is experiencing the
same sort of paranoia and prejudice pursued by the pundits of apartheid.
Speaking at the Asia Society’s Policy Institute, the US secretary of state insisted that “China
is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order – and,
increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.”
He went on ad nauseum about how “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal
values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years…”
Yet the rest of us in the developing world know exactly what these so-called universal values
have meant for us in the last eight decades. The international order, defended by the likes
of Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken, have only meant exploitation, gross inequality and
undemocratic practices for the majority of us.
Like Botha in the eighties, Biden and his administration are creating scarecrows for the rest
of the world in order to instill fear in us when all these countries, such as China, have meant
to us is cooperation, co-development and mutual respect.
While focusing mainly on China in his speech, it is worthwhile mentioning here that both
Russia and China have played and continue to play an integral role in the upliftment of
millions of Africans.
Side-by-side Russians and Chinese supported the liberation of many African countries and
yet that support did not stop there but continues to this day to achieve freedom through
development.
The propaganda promoted by Blinken is akin to the propaganda promoted by the apartheid
regime in its last days: western civilization and all it holds dear is being threatened.
However, this western civilization has meant only subjugation and suppression for the
majority of the world’s people.
If this were not enough then the irony displayed by the Botha and Biden administrations
could not have been starker. Surely in order to preserve western civilization its proponents
should be apply its values indiscriminately?
Yet the greatest threat to the world order and to values such as democracy and
development itself is the United States.
Correctly so, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, noted that “it is no other
than the US that poses the most serious long-term challenge to the international order. The
‘rules-based international order’ it touts is actually the ‘US-rules based international order’,
a hegemonic order to dominate the world with the house rules of its clique.”
There could be no better example of praise of China’s principle of non-interference than the
words of Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky who was quoted as saying, a day prior to
Blinken’s address, that “China has chosen the policy of staying away. At the moment,
Ukraine is satisfied with this policy. It is better than helping the Russian Federation in any
case. And I want to believe that China will not pursue another policy. We are satisfied with
this status quo, to be honest.”
Informed by their US-rules based international order, American diplomats posted in South
Africa find it apt to continue to lecture our government against neutrality and yet this is
exactly what the Ukrainians want, as seen through Zelensky’s words on China’s stance.
However, one must understand where these patronizing lectures are coming from. They
come from a deep-seated place of fear because they, like the apartheid regime, are not
roaring but are weeping.
Seale has a PhD in Chinese foreign policy.
