Turning point: China takes up the frontal confrontation with US hegemony

Turning point in Beijing: In a rare, utterly damning essay, China's Foreign Ministry has condemned Washington's continued attempts to dominate the world in the strongest possible terms. Such fierce criticism of the USA has never been heard from there before. What does that mean?

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has published a devastating attack on the United States and its desire to dominate the world under the title "U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils."

The essay has been widely published in the Chinese state media and is probably the sharpest ever published in relation to the US. The publication also coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly. The text attacks the US on a wide range of issues, describing the multifaceted efforts of the US to achieve and maintain exclusive dominance over the entire planet. These include military actions such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states in the form of coups d'état and revolution.

The essay sheds light on the Arab Spring, U.S. interference in Latin America—including the CIA-orchestrated coup in Chile—and attempts to undermine the governments of Cuba and Venezuela. The "color revolutions" in former Soviet states such as Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan are also discussed in detail. Beijing also condemns Washington's weaponization of democracy, forcing countries to take sides, branding the US as a nation characterized by "violence and expansion," strangling its adversaries with sanctions and "economic constraints," and identifying the U.S. dollar as "the main source of instability and uncertainty in the global economy."

Never before has China's Foreign Ministry ridden such a violent verbal attack against the US. For many years, despite Washington's hostility to Beijing, China remained overwhelmingly restrained. Beijing has long held on to the belief that it can come to terms with the US, that the country can somehow be brought to its senses, and that bilateral relations between the US and China can be improved and stabilized. It was initially believed that after Donald Trump's departure from the White House, things could return to "normal" under Joe Biden.

This expectation could not have been more wrong. After two years in office, Joe Biden's administration has proven to be more bellicose and restrictive towards China than Trump and his predecessors ever were. Bilateral relations have fallen from one new low to another, with the Biden presidency escalating US policy from "America First" frustration over mutual trade to an all-encompassing campaign of military and strategic containment, causing tensions between the two countries to rise dramatically. Trump behaved like a businessman who wanted to strike trade deals with China, using tariffs as leverage to accommodate U.S. interests, while the word "compromise" does not exist in Biden's vocabulary.

Joe Biden's administration has repeatedly claimed to keep "guidelines in bilateral relations" and "channels of communication" with Beijing open, but Washington's actions have shown true intentions: from tolerating Nancy Pelosi's highly provocative visit to Taiwan, to fomenting paranoia over a lost balloon, to forcing other nations to Cut off supplies to China's semiconductor industry. The conclusion Beijing eventually had to come to is that there can be no serious dialogue with the United States. This is a waste of time. China faces a belligerent, hegemonic and malicious actor who is trying to contain it and destroy it strategically at all costs.

The US is thus forcing China to adjust its foreign policy. For many decades, China's philosophy has been to avoid confrontation with Washington and seek some form of cooperation. This was to prevent the US from turning to a policy of containing the Cold War, thereby blocking China's economic development, which is considered the Communist Party's overarching domestic priority. Therefore, even as the US became increasingly hostile, China remained ambivalent and cautious for a long time. They wanted to believe that the relationship with the US could be saved and balanced.

China has now realized that its best option is not to appease Washington, but that its continued development and prosperity depends on building and maintaining a multipolar world in which US power is diluted. China has now officially identified US hegemony as the greatest source of instability, chaos, inequality and conflict in the world, reinforcing Vladimir Putin's findings.

The US has no interest in accepting the rise of another country or resigning itself to its monopoly on global power being challenged. The US views its hegemony as a kind of divine right, leaving little hope for "stability." The US will do everything it can to try to contain China and break its integration into the world economy. This does not mean that Beijing will do anything reckless or risky in response. But it does mean that Beijing has finally become aware of the challenge it faces and, even after decades of friendly relations, is no longer naïve about the true nature of the US regime.