Michigan Youth Political Alliance

For whoever that thought handing China the Olympics would give the US more influence over China’s decisions: What were you thinking? Even though the Olympics has been a thorn in China’s side–with all the international attention focused on beating the human rights, Tibet, Darfur and governance issues to death–it is a symbol of China’s rise to the top, similar to Tokyo 1964 and Seoul 1988. And it seems as if America is a little jealous or at least resentful of its newfound strength.

China has risen in gobal status due to its accelerating economic growth, especially after it entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, and it has become more open with the expansion of the internet, cellular phones and information technology. However, interestingly enough, the Olympics has reversed quite a bit of that openness with the government cracking down harder than ever on protests, restricting internet discussion on the Olympics (though it did recently just uncensor that), and curtailing many political rights to prevent a future terrorist attack. The Olympics brought exactly the opposite of what the international community, especially the United States, aimed for when it designated them in Beijing.

I don’t know if this is the reason why so many Americans and our leaders are frustrated with the China problem, but there is so much wrong about our foreign policy towards China. We are at a point in time where while our military and political system are still the best in the world by far, other nations are speeding up towards us in economic, social and cultural areas. China is one that could overtake us in the far future–and the reason why that matters now is because it’s going to be a rocky road from here on out.

The United States has a problem with blaming other nations for failures and problems instead of accepting its faults and learning from its mistakes. We have blamed China for not responding enough to the Darfur crisis, have blamed other nations for stealing our jobs and have blamed Europe for not helping out enough in the War on Terror in the Middle East. In the instance of China and Darfur, we have threatened to boycott the Olympics on multiple instances. On Tibet and China, our media has made the Chinese appear ugly and brute. We have angered the rising nation by continuing to push and push for human rights reforms and democracy.

China has become a more respectable nation now, and it wants to be treated so. It can’t stand the meddling in its internal affairs and other nation’s internal affairs, e.g. Zimbabwe’s (and so international sanctions failed for the reason of sovereignty). I strongly believe that China’s adamant stance on sovereignty protection is a valuable tool it uses to paint a negative image of the US–one of imperialism, domination and bullying. But it does us no good to fight back with further restrictions and criticisms because one day, China will backlash, and it will put up even greater fight.

Our economic growth is dwindling and our international image is in pieces. We are unhappy, but by continuing to act as if we are in charge in every aspect is to be arrogant, tactless and ultimately hurtful to ourselves. Only by recognizing that we are at a critical time where we have to proactively reengage with the world can we ensure our fall isn’t bottomless. Old geopolitics and Cold War-esque foreign policies aren’t effective anymore.

Instead of being protectionist, we need to boost our trade, establish more free trade agreements, remove more trade barriers and accept developing countries as partners instead of foes. We need to be less skeptical of globalization–those aren’t our jobs anymore. For your information, they belong to the global economy. Our goal should be to compete, not to be retreat from competition, and so we should develop more innovative, creative and better jobs.

Instead of blaming China for not cooperating on Darfur, we should be pick up the slack. We labeled the crisis a genocide, and we have the moral and legal responsibility to provide assistance. Humanitarian aid can go a long way just from us.

Sovereignty and international law are enormous problems we have to deal with as well in the 21st century and the debate about how we should deal with them is even bigger. I certainly hope we can make it out of this mess.

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