Selbstsprechend wollen wir heute einen Artikel der South China Morning Post veröffentlichen, der sich mit chinesischem Rassismus gegen das Woke Imperium der werteliberalen USA beschäftigt. Jedoch  Wokeness als Geopolitik , Han-Rassismus als geostrategic asset und die scheinbare Formierung einer  rechten  unwoken  Internationale aus Putin, Xi, Orban, Trump, u.a. , wobei interessant ist, ,dass es 2013 dazu eine Pentagonstudie gab. Teilweise ist sie ja geschwärzt. Die andere Studie „Woke Imperium: The coming Confluence between social justice and neoconservatism“ , die den woken Neoimperialismus als messianisch, utopisch und zum Scheitern verurteilt sieht, wie zuvor schon den sogenannten Menschenrechtsimperialismus,  sollte man Baerbock und Faeser zu lesen geben. Wobei die Frage bleibt, ob diese unwoke rechte Internationale Bestand hat, da sie sich ja auch nur auf unwoke Werte bezieht, als geben es zwischen den unwoken Staaten dann nicht auch geopolitische, ökonomische und dann auch wieder unwoke Wertedifferenzen und unwoke Konflikte zwischen den dann unwoke Staaten und Großmöchten gibt , wenn man Rasse, Kultur, Sozialdarwinismus und den jeweils eigenen missionarischen exceptionalism und die eigene Überlegenheit und höhere Wertigkeit, egal ob kulturell oder biologisch chauvinistisch begründet. Kann es dann einen „unwoken Ultraimperialismus“und unwoken Weltfrieden und eine unwoke rechte Internationale und Neue Weltordnung  in Anlehnung an Kautsky geben oder wird es dann eher einen „Unwoken Imperialismus als höchste Stufe eines sozialdarwinistischen Kapitalismus“ geben in Anlehnung von Lenin , der zu Kriegen und Weltkrieg oder eben doch zu einem Clash of Civilizations/ Kampf der Kulturen im Sinne von Huntington führt? Auch ist die Frage, ob es sich hier um einen Neokonservatismus oder nicht schon originären Faschismus handelt ,wobei die Übergänge ja auch fließend und nur graduell zwischen Autoritarismus und Faschismus sein können. Alex Lo spricht auch lieber von chinesischem Kulturalismus denn von chinesischem Han- Rassismus , zumal Han-Chauvinismus ja eher kulturell begründet ist als biologistisch und mittels Rassenlehren, die offiziell in China noch nicht so vertreten werden, wenngleich durchaus in der Bevölkerung und einigen Elitekreisen in vertrautem Kreise da auch schon mal bei ein paar Maotai zuviel zirkulieren, zumal die KP China auch noch nicht die Rassenideologie des Nationalsozialismus übernommen hat, sondern die Global Xivilization Initiative offiziell an Kultur/Zivilisation anknüpft, eher in die Richtung von Alain Benoist Ethnopluralismus  und einen scheinbar inklusiven, diversen Dialog der Kulturen und friedliche Koexistenz verspricht ,wenngleich unausgesprochen China sich für die auserwählte Nation und das Reich der Mitte und nun auch mit Weltraumprogrammen als Reich der Mitte im Kosmos ansieht. Der Narrative vom unwoken Weltfrieden mittels einer unwoken Internationale , die etwa wie Trump verspricht den Ukraine oder andere Kriege innerhalb von 24 Stunden durch einen unwoken strong man deal aus der Welt, ja durch einen neuen Weltordnungsdeal mit klar definierten Einflußzonen, etwa einem Jalta 2.0 zu schaffen, wenn einmal alle Wokeness, Demokratie, Menschenrechte und Liberalismus zugunsten von unwokem Sozialdarwinsimus abgeschafft würde, klingt verlockend für alle, die hoffen nicht Opfer dieser Neuen unwoken Weltordnung zu werden. Aber schon jetzt sieht man eben, dass da auch unwoke Achsen wie Trump- Bolsonro- Milei gegen das unwoke China entstehen, der Groß- und Weltmachtkonflikt eben nicht verschwindet, sondern sich eher zuspitzt, zumal auch das ganze auf einem anarchistischen Nationalstaatensystem besteht, wenngleich die EU da ein Hybrid zischen supranationalen Institutionen und Nationalstaaten ist aber eben aufgrund der 2 Weltkriege und Historie und weltweit nichts gleiches vorfindet, weder bei der ASEAN noch bei der Afrikanischen Union, die bei weitem nicht diesen Integrationsgrad erreicht haben. Zudem ist das ja dann wieder die Illusion man könnte aufgrund gemeinsamer Werte eine Neue Weltrordnung schaffen- eigentlich ein Fukuyamas Ende der Geschichte teleologisch nur unter unwokem Vorzeichen. Es klingt auch wie Brzezniskis Vision von der G2, von Chimeria nun in Form eines Trump- Xi- Deals zur Aufteilung der Welt wie damals zwischen Spanien und Portugal.

Oder wie Thomas Barnetts und John Milligan Whytes Vorstellung eines Achse USA- China zur endgültigen Durchsetzung der Globalsierung als gemeinsamen Ziel und Beseitigung der gap state durch die core states, auch mit einer gemeinsamen US-chinesischen Globalisierungsarmee für Globalsierungskriege., wobei Milligan- Whyte noch forderte, die USA müssten nur ihre Verfassung im Sinne von Deng Xiaoping umschrieben und etwas sinisieren. Etwas ist gut. Nun scheint man zu hoffen, wenn Trump den USA die Wokeness, Demokratie, Moral, Menschenrechte austreibt, dass dann zwischen den USA und China alles in Ordnung sei. Mal davon abgesehen, ob Trump eine Diktatur so schnell errichten kann, auch ohne die USA ins Chaos oder einen halben Bürgerkrieg zu stürzen, wobei China ja das entstehende Machtvakuum und eine etwaige Paralyse ausnützen könnte, wäre immer noch die Frage, ob sich dann der sinomamerikanische Machtkampf um die Weltmachtstellung auflösen würde, auch wenn die KP China betont, für die USA und China sei genug Platz in der Welt.. Vielleicht für eine Zwischenphase, aber Chinas Ziel bleibt die Weltmacht No.1, wenngleich schon nicht morgen, aber das Ziel die USA aus dem Indopazifik und dann auch weltweit rauszudrängen bleibt, ebenso wie von Putin die USA aus Europa herauszudrängen und den eurasischen Block, das eurasische Heartland zu kontrollieren, wovor ja Brzezinski oder auch Mac Kinder, Mahan und Homer Lea immer warnten. Die Frage ist, ob die USA bereit sind sich isolationistisch auf ihre Weltinsel zurückzuziehen, vielleicht noch die beiden Americas als letzte Einflußsphäre einer neuen Monroedoktrin zu haben, wobei China ja den USA auch ihren ehemaligen amerikanischen Hinterhof streitig macht. Bleibt da am ende nur noch ein isolationistisches klerikalnationalistisches- oder faschistisches USA nach Vorbild von Magareth Atwoods „Die Geschichte der Dienerin“, eine Art- Trump- Nordkorea mit Atomwaffen? Ob Trump dass selbst möchte oder er unter Weltmachtstellung und America first doch mehr und ambitioniertes versteht-da dürfte doch letzteres wahrscheinlicher sein. Ersteres könnte aber als unintended effect langfristig herauskommen. Und bei der immer noch existierenden anarchische Nationalstaatenkonkurrenz in einem Weltkapitalismus wird eben aufgrund möglicher Eskalations- und Eigendynamik der oft so gepriesene „gesunde Patriotismus“ sich zu einem immer weiter steigernden unwoken Sozialdarwinismus, Militarismus, Nationalismus, Chauvinismus hochschaukeln.

My Take

 by Alex Lo

Is Han ‘racism’ a geopolitical asset in China’s rivalry with the US?

• Putin and Xi think their countries need ‘manly men’, racial unity is a strength, and ‘wokeism’ is destroying the West. A pioneering decade-old Pentagon study agrees with them

Alex Lo

Published: 9:00pm, 20 Feb, 2024

Everyone and their dog has by now commented on Tucker Carlson’s controversial interview with Vladimir Putin. So I am very late to the game. My poor excuse is that what I am about to comment on is not urgent, like where the war in Ukraine is headed or whether Donald Trump 2.0 will shut down US support for Kyiv, but something much longer-term.

One big reason I can think of – there were of course many others – why the Russian strongman was happy to sit for hours with Carlson was because the former Fox News star anchor and now online influencer is closely associated with America’s far right.

There is even a rumour circulating – one which Carlson has never denied – that if Donald Trump secures the Republicans’ choice for him to be their presidential candidate, Carlson could be his running mate.

Putin has long tried to cultivate relationships with far-right leaders in Europe and the United States, whether it’s Marine Le Pen in France or Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, even before the Ukraine war. Certainly many such far-right leaders and parties have been demanding an immediate end to the war.

Putin would consider Trump as part of the gang, as the former and possibly future US president has consistently expressed admiration for Putin. Trump’s latest row, probably meant as a joke, was to call on Russia to attack Nato member states who did not pay their dues.

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What Putin wants, as one policy wit in Brussels once observed, is a “far-right International”, something like, but ideologically opposite to, the old communist International.

Over the years, Putin has repeatedly attacked Western wokeism. And Carlson had no trouble playing up Putin’s pet peeve.

One thing that the American far right opposes is “diversity, equity and inclusion”, a phrase most closely associated, in their minds, with “wokeism” or woke ideology.

What is woke?

Its advocates call it social justice. Their opponents derisively label it as woke. I have no good definition of the wokeism of “diversity, equity and inclusion”, so yours is as good as mine. I will just cite some examples to make sure we are talking about the same things.

If you are woke, you believe there are not only two genders, namely male and female but several, or even many. Like genders, racial differences don’t exist except as social constructs. It’s sometimes called critical race theory.

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Some mental conditions such as autism are “neurodivergent”, but just as acceptable or desirable as any other commonly accepted condition. Beauty is also a social construct, so you can be morbidly obese and still consider yourself a top beauty. If you don’t accept these beliefs, you are racist, sexist and/or discriminatory against others, even if you don’t consider yourself as such.

Generally, diversity in whatever form is the name of the game. It’s considered a strength to an organisation, a government or a society. Many North American companies and government departments now have powerful “diversity, equity and inclusion” offices that can hire or fire staff on the strength of their diversity compliance.

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But for the more hardcore woke ideologues, there are supposed privileges enjoyed by white people, who hang on to those discriminatory notions – such as there are only male and female sexes – and practices for exactly that reason, their privileges.

They believe it’s OK to subvert traditional institutions, beliefs and religions to achieve true diversity. This includes banning, rewriting or censoring any number of literary classics, and policing public or online speeches considered inappropriate or hurtful to someone or some groups.

Wokeism and geopolitics

Wokeism is usually discussed as a domestic phenomenon within many Western societies. In contrast, many social developments and orders imposed by the governments of Russia and China domestically are “anti-woke”, from a Western perspective. We certainly know what Putin and Xi Jinping think about Western wokeism, or its sometimes Japanese and South Korean equivalents.

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The Chinese internet and TV, for example, have long banned “sassy men” such as effeminate influencers who imitated those in Japan and South Korea.

But such contrasting approaches and attitudes towards “woke” issues are starting to have obvious implications in their foreign policies as their rivalry and confrontations turn increasingly bitter.

One fascinating Pentagon study – written in 2013 and subsequently compelled to be released by a US court order after freedom-of-information litigation – examines one key aspect of “diversity”, that is race. More exactly, it asks whether “Chinese racism” or Han supremacy offers a geopolitical advantage or disadvantage against the US.

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Its title gives the game away: “The Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: A Strategic Asymmetry for the United States”. It’s a fascinating read. Many of its observations and conclusions may also apply to Russia. “This study examines … the strategic consequences of Chinese racism,” it declared at the outset.

The following are some choice quotes.

“[The] Chinese do not even recognise their racism as a problem. They believe that racism is a Western phenomenon and that Westerners are obsessed with race. This obsession is seen by the Chinese to be a strategic vulnerability of the West, whereas China is not affected by racism.”

“The Chinese believe that states are good to the degree that they are unicultural. They have a strong, implicit, and racialist view of international politics, and an equally dominant view of the racial balance of power.”

“The Chinese see multiculturalism as a sickness that has overtaken the United States, and a component of US decline.”

“From the Chinese perspective, the United States used to be a strong society that the Chinese respected when it was unicultural, defined by the centrality of AngloProtestant culture at the core of American national identity aligned with the political ideology of liberalism, the rule of law, and free market capitalism.”

In the West, diversity is strength. In China, unity is strength, and that applies to Han “racism” particularly.

Consider this long quote: “Racism is a cohesive force for the Chinese. Racism does benefit the Chinese in four major ways. First, the Han Chinese possess a strong in-group identity with a polarised and tightly defined out-group. This allows the Chinese government to expect sacrifice as well as support from a considerable majority of the Chinese people.

“Second, based on this identity, the government has the ability to focus with great willpower on the demands of the state. All governments make patriotic appeals, but the Chinese government is able to do so effectively because any entreaty is based on patriotism as well as nationalism. When we reflect on the tools the Chinese government has to extract support and 20 resources from the population, only one conclusion is possible, they are formidable.

“Third, they have strong societal unity and purpose, which supports Chinese power. The Chinese do not have a culture that is self-critical or one that ponders its fundamental faults.

“Fourth, China’s racism and ethnocentrism serves China’s teleological world view. History, in the Hegelian sense, is moving in China’s direction and the future belongs to it, China’s political beliefs, civilisational culture, and economic might triumphed over the West.

“The lack of any desire by the Chinese to self-reflect on the profound faults of their society means that there is no motivation to solve these faults. Accordingly, a powerful message may be that China will not change because it has no desire to do so. In essence, with China, ‘what you see is what you get.’ The country is a civilisation, and that yields them great strength.”

Weaponising unity and diversity, Chinese and US-style

We are perhaps looking into the heart of the difference between China and the West. For the Chinese, national unity, racial unity and a unitary state are and have long been the basis of national strength. I prefer to call it Chinese culturism rather than racism, though the heavy racist elements are undeniable. Racial cohesion is considered essential to societal cohesion.

By contrast, in the US, diversity – and a federal and divided state – guarantees freedom and is considered the raison d’etre of state.

The study concludes in the end, as you do for a Pentagon study, that diversity puts the US on “the right side of history”.

But it dares to consider Chinese racism as a possible “strategic asset” for Beijing, and makes a far more convincing argument than that for the US diversity style being essentially the right thing to do.

Certainly the Chinese and even some Americans consider worsening racial tensions as a divisive and polarising force within US society, and the situation may be worse now than when the study was written a decade ago. Coolheaded Chinese and Russian strategists probably don’t think the country could win in a hot war with the US. Far better to let the US devour itself because of all its many internal contradictions such as racial conflicts.

Woke as US foreign policy?

What the Pentagon study didn’t consider but which a 2022 study does is how Washington is already weaponising woke ideology to further foreign policy goals.

I have previously commented on this fascinating study, “Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice and Neoconservatism”, produced by the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, so I won’t go into details.

Suffice to say that Washington can weaponise and has done so with “woke” values just as it does with human rights previously, for example, by interfering in a country’s domestic affairs and sanctioning its government officials for being “anti-gay” or repressing women or minorities, say, China!

The Pentagon study is certainly not definitive. I am not even sure if its characterisation of Han “racism” is correct. But it certainly makes me think about racism and anti-racism as strategic assets and weaknesses in international politics. And that’s something new to me!

Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.

Opinion | Is Han ‘racism’ a geopolitical asset in China’s rivalry with the US? | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

Why America goes woke and broke

• ‘Woke’ moralism in US foreign policy will provoke a global backlash while encouraging polarisation and extremism from the ‘unwoke’ at home

22 May 2023

Opinion | Why America goes woke and broke | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

The Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: A Strategic Asymetry for the United States

Litigation Release – The Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism 201301.pdf (whs.mil)

NAZI GORENG- RASSISMUS IN ASIEN

 25. März 2019  Ralf OstnerNazi Goreng- Rassismus in Asien – Global Review (global-review.info)

WOKE IMPERIUM: THE COMING CONFLUENCE BETWEEN SOCIAL JUSTICE AND NEOCONSERVATISM

WHITE PAPER

• JUNE 27, 2022

WRITTEN BY: Christopher Mott

DOWNLOAD:

PDF

Key Findings

• The advocates of American primacy within the United States foreign policy establishment historically rely on prevailing ideological trends of the time to justify interventionism abroad. The new ‘woke’ face of American hegemony and projects of empire is designed to project the U.S. as an international moral police rather than a conventional great power—and the result is neo-imperialism with a moral face.

• This is an iterative and systemic process with an internal logic, not one controlled by a global cabal: when the older rationalizations for primacy, hegemony, and interventionism appear antiquated or are no longer persuasive, a new rationale that better reflects the ruling class norms of the era is adopted as a substitute. This is because the new schema is useful for the maintenance of the existing system of power.

• The rise of a ‘woke’ activist-driven, social justice-oriented politics—particularly among the members of academia, media, and the professional managerial class—has provided the latest ideological justification for interventionism, and it has become readily adopted by the U.S. foreign policy establishment. These groups now have an even greater level of symbiotic relationship with state actors.

• Professional selection and advancement under these conditions require elite signaling of loyalty to ‘progressive’ universalism as the trending state-sanctioned ideology, which further fuels the push towards interventionism. This combination of factors encourages a new institutional and elite consensus around trending shibboleths.

• The emerging hegemonic posture and its moral imperialism are at odds with a sober and realistic appraisal of U.S. interests on the world stage, as they create untenable, maximalist, and utopian goals that clash with the concrete realities on which U.S. grand strategy must be based.

• The liberal Atlanticist tendency to push moralism and social engineering globally has immense potential to create backlash in foreign, especially non-Western, societies that will come to identify the West as a whole with niche, late-modern progressive ideals—thus motivating new forms of anti-Westernism.

Executive Summary

The primacist, interventionist wing of the United States foreign policy establishment—’the Blob’—has a long history of using prevailing moralist trends to serve as ideological justifications for expansionist and hawkish policies. From Presidents William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson on through the militant democracy promotion of the George W. Bush administration, this process often mutated to accommodate the de jour proclivities and entrenched biases of the policy-making class. The newest iteration of this process is the adoption of social justice causes and rhetoric as the explicit goals of the United States’ foreign policy. Such use and weaponization of the language of justice to advance the foreign policy objectives of the liberal Atlanticist Blob is particularly evident against regions and countries the West believes actively challenge the Liberal International Order (LIO) status quo or where it seeks to justify military and economic interventions on normative grounds.

Rather than a coordinated conspiracy directed from a central organization or even a conscious desire on the part of the participants however, this process of adopting, incorporating, and cultivating new rationales to sustain what is an idealist and internationalist strategic culture in the United States has become routinized. This entrenchment of systemic moralism in the American national security apparatus has been facilitated, and is at least partly driven, by a highly competitive professional class vying to secure their position in the system by using virtue signaling to demonstrate class solidarity to their higher ranks. This mimetic mechanism incentivizes pushing the envelope and chasing trending causes (normative mimicry)—but always in service of the imperial needs of the state where expansionism and primacy are viewed as the triumph of a universalized American conception of virtue over those forces which are viewed as being on ‘the wrong side of history’. Under such moralistic conditions, prudence, moderation, and narrower conceptions of interest—provisos of realism—could be effectively vilified as enabling oppression and injustice.

This process of adopting, incorporating, and cultivating new rationales to sustain what is an idealist and internationalist strategic culture in the United States has become routinized.

The current Wokeist incarnation of American globalist evangelism seeks not only to change the governments of other nations, but engineer their very cultures according to the Western progressive model. Its universalist framing of human values could be readily applied to violate or undermine the sovereignty of alternate political or cultural systems and justify those interventions for the domestic Western audiences in the name of ‘moral responsibility’.

This white paper seeks to elucidate the often hidden processes and mechanisms that have led to the consolidation of this “woke imperium” of moralistic cosmopolitanism: its historical roots, present day trends, and possible future evolution. It is also intended as a guide for advocates of realism and restraint: to help realists understand the nature of the resistance they are likely to encounter from certain sectors of the foreign policy establishment and their sympathizers as they try to realign U.S. foreign policy goals with more limited and concrete national interests.

WRITTEN BY:

Christopher Mott

Dr. Christopher Mott is a Research Fellow at IPD and a former researcher and desk officer at the U.S. Department of State.