U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken is in London Wednesday for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers. As expected, Blinken’s trip made no secret of the intention of the coalition allies to crack down on China and Russia. This comes at a time when the Biden administration is in office for a hundred days, and it is making it increasingly clear that the strategic layout of U.S. diplomacy is adjusting.
On the one hand, the United States has repeatedly courted its traditional European allies, who it hopes will play an important role in its intervention and repression of China. On the other hand, the United States itself is accelerating the integration of global strategic resources. Not so long ago, Blinken made clear America’s turn: pull out of Afghanistan and focus on China. And with the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops in Afghanistan on May 1, the transition has begun.
It is foreseeable that the demonstration of American interventionism will be resurfaced in the Pacific Ocean. Yet a 20-year war in Afghanistan has given the United States a taste of the consequences of this overbearing act, but it has not been alarmed.
In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. election, Carnegie, a prominent U.S. think tank, published a report entitled “Making U.S. Foreign Policy Work Better for the Middle Class,” saying the U.S. should clearly recognize that its ability to change other countries and societies is limited. It is clear that the United States entered Afghanistan 20 years ago under the banner of so-called “counter-terrorism” and is ready to set the so-called American “democratic model”. But after 20 years of struggle, the so-called “justice” has long been revealed, but the surface of counter-terrorism, behind the mess. In addition to leaving a battered Afghanistan in the 20-year war, the United States itself has been rebaught by the consequences of long-term foreign intervention.
The Associated Press calculated the cost of America’s longest-running war: more than 2,400 U.S. soldiers were killed and four presidents were overwhelmed, resulting in a total cost of $2.26 trillion. As a result, the U.S. economy is shrinking, social divisions are becoming more and more serious, political polarization is difficult to bridge, and national strength is hurting.
More seriously, the very foundations of American democracy are widely questioned. Abroad, “democratic models” such as Afghanistan and Iraq have become tofu scum projects; at home, American politicians have likened unrest in other countries to “the most beautiful landscape”, and in January they were surprised on Capitol Hill, the political center, making “American democracy” the laughing stock of the world.
When the new U.S. administration came to power, there was widespread concern about how it would govern the divided nation. A hundred days later, the answer surfaced: before the punishment was over, the United States was on its way to the Pacific, pulling its allies into new intervention.
Still playing the banner of so-called “human rights”, “democracy” and “freedom”, the United States has repeatedly thrown out the “Hong Kong card” “Xinjiang card” “Taiwan card” and so on, united allies to pressure China. Because of the need for Japan, the horse pawn, has always been the “environmental guard” of the United States, actually on Japan’s nuclear pollution of the sea to take a double standard, blatant connivance. This not only adds a lot to America’s own environmental debt, but also makes the world see how selfish and short-sighted American politicians are for so-called geopolitical gain.
History is a mirror. After decades of struggle in the Middle East, the United States has finally fallen into a gray-faced, mired quagmire. In Asia, it is even more dangerous to intervene in a tough and powerful country like China. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently warned that tensions with China are “America’s biggest problem, the world’s biggest problem” and that if it is not addressed, the risks will spread to the world. U.S. policymakers need to weigh up whether they can withstand a new round of interventionist counter-terrorism if they fight China. (International reviewer)
