Superpower marathon: Here's how China's strategy is different from the US

The Chinese government has not left anybody in doubt about its ambitious target of dominating the world at any cost. Chinese government has been suppressing freedom of speech, taking away the rights of citizens of Hong Kong in an authoritarian manner and aggressively occupying the territory of neighbours.

China is now aggressively claiming a territorial right in the South China Sea and Senkaku island. The Chinese government says that Taiwan is part of its territory and objects to any recognition given to Taiwan by any other country.

Further, China is trying to enforce its dominance over small and weak countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and others, by extending loans, which these countries cannot afford to repay in the foreseeable future.

Viewing China’s methods and targets, one does not find much of difference between today’s Chinese government and Hitler’s Germany. Several countries in the world are gradually realizing that checking China’s ambition is as necessary, as checking Hitler’s ambition that caused World War II.

However, the supporters of China claim that US government too should be accused of trying to dominate the world and it has sent troops to several countries such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others to enforce its domination. There is an element of truth in this as the American government seem to think that it has the duty to police the world.

In any case, on careful analysis of the scenario and judiciously comparing the domination desire of China and the US, one cannot but see a subtle difference between both these countries.

While China believes in ruthless elimination of opponents both inside and outside and wants to occupy territories of other countries by coercion or force, the US does not indulge in such acts of suppression of human rights or occupying territory of other countries.

The US has not concealed its desire that freedom of speech and democratic procedures should prevail in all regions in the world. On many occasions, the US has fought against totalitarian regimes, religious extremists, and terrorist groups and has paid a high price by losing American lives.

The US may have the ambition to dominate the world and ensure its authority as a superpower, but it has no ambition of territorial expansions that China has.

All said and done, if the world were to choose between US and China, it would inevitably come to the conclusion that world domination by the US is a lesser evil than the world domination by China.

Unlike China, the citizens of US have the right to criticise the decisions of the government, launch protests against human rights violation, if any and exercise their franchise once in four years to change the party in power, if it would act against the wishes of the people. By such a process, the conscience of the US largely remains intact and the US government is vulnerable to the pressure of public opinion.

On the other hand, China has a totalitarian regime and no citizen can survive in China if he would criticise the Chinese President or question the decision of the Chinese government. To this extent, it is a dictatorial regime in China which can be termed as an uncivilized form of governance.

The fact is that the USA holds the superpower status for several decades now. Of course, there has been criticism against the US government by some section of world opinion, but most of such critics belong to religious extremist groups and motivated communist forces, whose economic and administrative policies have totally failed to deliver the goods.

China achieving superpower status and establishing its authority across the world with the least consideration for value systems and sentiments of people, is the worst thing that can happen to the civilisation.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)