In discussions about government accountability on these pages, mention of state actors other than the Chinese one is rare, so Wendy Larson’s comment is much welcome, akin to letting much needed air into the room. Her bringing the U.S. into the discussion, while still limited, at least moves us a little closer to an appreciation of our very complex (global) realities.
Given that China — what it is, how it acts, etc. — as a political entity is constantly shaped by its relational interactions with the rest of the world, one wonders how such a neglect of others can have persisted for so long. I realize that this is a China-studies list but, surely, our disciplinary-area specialisms should not define us — or our concerns — so narrowly, lest we become that proverbial frog-in-the-well?
What seems to be sorely needed on these pages are richer, more internationalist, and, hence, more balanced perspectives. Otherwise this blog risks becoming at best a bastion of academic provincialism; at worst, an academic echo-chamber of the China-bashing industry of which the ‘free’ Western corporate media now specialises, and duly profits from. Cultural monotheists may not like it but comparative and contextualised studies are actually needed to make sense of human complexities. Even more so going into the future, I suspect.
The points Wendy Larson has raised in her response are well-noted but there could possibly have been a misunderstanding. To be sure, what I was calling ‘shameless’ was the accusation made by ‘US intelligence’ of the Chinese government’s Covid-19 numbers. I repeat: U.S. intelligence is shameless for accusing the Chinese government of faking its Covid-19 numbers.
Is ‘US intelligence’, after all, not that organ of the US state that gave us the recently concluded Russiagate fiasco, and which, famously, fed us the lies leading to the illegal US invasion of Iraq? Given their ignominious history of mendacity and/for war-making, what basis is there to believe them now? They would be hard-pressed to meet any standard of probity, even China-made ones.
If Chinese official narratives are unbelievable, why would anyone think US official accounts to be any more credible, not least when propagated by an institution whose very existence is premised on secrecy and fabrication? Is there not a need for intellectuals to be more critical?
While it is only right to expect transparency and accountability from authorities across the world, believing that US intelligence — or any state intelligence agency, for that matter — can be the worthy champions of such a cause is to be politically naïve. It is simply a non-starter, a fantasy.
Accountability begins with an attempt to make sense of things as they are; it involves a search for historical understanding. The U.S. is in the throes of a pandemic that has, as of 5 April 2020, infected over 300,000 and claimed nearly 10,000. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this social crisis has been made possible by an obdurate social and political economic structure that, despite preaching ‘human rights’ abroad, has consistently withheld basic amenities to the weakest and most vulnerable at home. More crucially, if we are genuinely concerned about the well-being of the world’s others, a proper accounting would involve asking how we have allowed and abetted just such an oligarchic system – the Washington consensus, the system of the 1% – to be exported and imposed across the globe over the past four decades.
Given the imminent life-and-death challenges now faced globally and in the U.S., accusing the Chinese government of faking numbers must surely be a distraction, as much as it is a distraction singling out the inadequacies of Trumpian theatrics. This is hardly just an issue about Chinese authoritarianism, or about U.S. partisan politics. What we are witnessing is system failure of global and historic proportions. The neo-liberalism of the Washington Consensus that the U.S. has imposed upon others for decades is morally and materially bankrupt and has been slain to its knees. This is made plain by the extent of pain, suffering, and devastation in the U.S. itself. None of this needs to be.
A search for understanding begins by asking the right questions. By trying to get us to believe that Chinese state-sponsored creative accounting is responsible for U.S. domestic failings, the U.S national security agencies have thrown us another red herring. I hope the open-minded and empathic among us will take heed. Take care.
Tung-yi Kho < kho.tungyi@yahoo.com>