This is the most important point for Americans to learn: China is not threatening American prosperity because American middle class prosperity has been the main engine of China’s economic growth.
So if the Chinese destroy American middle class prosperity, they are destroying the main engine of China’s economic growth—and the oldest civilization in the world is not a stupid civilization.
It understands that actually American prosperity is a gift to the world and a gift to China, says Singaporean diplomat, commentator and well-respected bestselling author, Kishore Mahbubani.
China is not threatening American prosperity: Dr. Mahbubani has said that the greatest failing in modern Western thought is the lack of a basic common moral understanding. It creates a cultural divide that will sap and divide the West in the years ahead.
Mahbubani argues that as a result of the ethical decline, the West has developed deep rooted structural faults in its moral foundations, writes Hanne Nabintu Herland, historian of comparative religions, author and the founder of The Herland Report.
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Xi Jinping puts China First while US puts Internal Division first: Guess who wins
- The destructive effect of moving American jobs to China
- The Humiliation of China: Western drug lords, Opium Wars and the merging of public and private funds in the East India Company
- China values freedom from chaos – The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy
- China takeover and Western corruption: The West Has Lost Its Dominant Position
China is not threatening American prosperity: In Clash of Civilizations: The Debate, he asserts that Western countries, for example, fail to recognize that democratic values such as individualism, also carry destructive tendencies. The fall of such a culture will come from within, from its own lack of moral integrity.
Mahbubani points to a dwindling work ethic, lack of care for elderly, expectations for free handouts and lack of self-discipline.
As the American superpower façade is cracking more than ever, ill-advised foreign policy choices such as the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria has cost the U.S. billions of dollars and also led to a remarkably negative shift of opinion of the United States worldwide.
Serious socio-political unrest now rocks the entire nation, with deep-rooted financial issues in a system that lacks sufficient self-regulation.
Millions have lost their jobs as a result of the Covid scandal, pensioners now work at McDonald’s; living standards are plummeting in the country that used to be the richest in the world.
Today politicians and world leaders remain in office regardless of scandals, corruption or mismanagement of public funds. There seems to be very little political accountability. To lie, steal and cheat is actually more what you expect from a politician.
Yet, individual accountability is the moral prerequisite for constructive, sustainable profit. If the individual does not behave in a manner that inspires trust, the glue in the economic as well as the political model fails. The system falls apart. Where egoism is permitted, arrogance, pride and division are short to follow.
This is the very core of what Protestant Calvinism attempted to combat through values such as boundary setting, self-control, selflessness and discipline; the very same moral values that are despised in the decadent Western world today.
Historian Niall Ferguson points out in The Great Degeneration. How Institutions Decay and Economies Die that the U.S. is now facing the result of mismanagement by political elites with ideological aspirations not rooted in reality.
Ferguson refers to Adam Smith’s quote “the stationary state,” which defines the condition of wealthy states that have ceased to grow. With a corrupt and monopolistic elite who exploit the system to their own benefit, its citizens suffer more and more. While Adam Smith had China in mind when stating the above, China is now ahead of the US. The West is declining, while the Rest is rising.
The level of censorship in social media and search engines is all-time high. Do like thousands of others, subscribe to The Herland Report newsletter here!
Led by Scandinavian bestselling author, Hanne Nabintu Herland, The Herland Report news and opinion website provides independent analysis from leading Western intellectuals and ground breaking YouTube interviews, cutting through the mainstream media rhetoric. It is a great place to watch interviews and read the articles of leading intellectuals, thought leaders, authors and activists from across the political spectrum. The Herland Report believes in freedom of speech and its editorial policy resides above the traditional Left vs Right paradigm which we believe has lost its relevance and ability to describe the current driving forces in Western politics.
