One of a kind
December 17th 2009 00:31
There’s a certain country that’s beginning to get a bad reputation in many parts of the world. It overwhelms local cultures with its business and products. It props up unpopular regimes to further short-term interests. It demands ever-increasing amounts of primary resources, often resulting in environmental devastation. It pursues petty territorial disputes, often in places it has no real connection to, solely to exert dominance over its smaller neighbors. It’s called China, and –
Oh, wait. You thought I was talking about America? Understandable, as we’re not really encouraged these days to examine any other country’s foreign policy in this way. It’s sort of a strange dark mirror to the idea of American exceptionalism: the United States is not just another country, but a unique exemplar of expansionism, greed, and dishonesty. As such, we lose sight of some elements of other countries' foreign policy, even the bizarre and pernicious ones. If you ever paused to wonder what the hell the Chinese government was thinking by claiming that part of the Philippines belongs to it, or why the Moroccan government allows its sanctioned imams to publicly dream about reclaiming Andalusia, or how the ayatollahs of Iran could even imagine nuking the supposedly holy city of Jerusalem, you might conclude that America’s financially-motivated meddling wasn’t so bad after all.
Oh, wait. You thought I was talking about America? Understandable, as we’re not really encouraged these days to examine any other country’s foreign policy in this way. It’s sort of a strange dark mirror to the idea of American exceptionalism: the United States is not just another country, but a unique exemplar of expansionism, greed, and dishonesty. As such, we lose sight of some elements of other countries' foreign policy, even the bizarre and pernicious ones. If you ever paused to wonder what the hell the Chinese government was thinking by claiming that part of the Philippines belongs to it, or why the Moroccan government allows its sanctioned imams to publicly dream about reclaiming Andalusia, or how the ayatollahs of Iran could even imagine nuking the supposedly holy city of Jerusalem, you might conclude that America’s financially-motivated meddling wasn’t so bad after all.
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