The duel of empires is being played out on the field of worldviews

Ultimately, Trump did not disappoint us: like his predecessors in the White House, he proclaimed himself the champion of liberty, he dispensed punishments and rewards, and he wants us to believe he is saving the world with every display of material power as impressive as it is ineffective.

It’s a historical constant: armed with the incorrigible self-righteousness of the “born again,” the empire projects its devastating Manichaeism onto the world. With its eyes wide open, it dreams of a definitive division between good and evil, the unshakeable pillar of an unashamed ethnocentrism. The law is necessarily on its side, since it embodies the cardinal values ​​of “democracy” and “human rights.” With no scruples to inhibit its savior frenzy, the singular civilization of which it claims to be the embodiment grants itself the express prerogative of reducing barbarity by any means necessary. Imperialism is a universal tribunal that inflicts punishments on whomever it sees fit.

Since their founding, the United States has proclaimed itself an “exceptional nation.” Bush or Obama, Biden or Trump, it makes no difference: buried in the collective unconscious, this identity postulate permeates history. Like a witness furtively passed from one president to the next, it remains intact, immaculate like the Ten Commandments. For it is indeed a matter of structure, not circumstance. The singularity of the United States lies in its belief that it is the lifelong custodian of a planetary “imperium.” It is that it projects itself beyond the seas, in the name of a civilizing vocation that reveals above all the high opinion it has of itself. Nothing is more hostile to secularism properly understood, in this sense, than the dominant ideology of the United States of America.

The exceptional nation cloaks its hunger for power in the folds of “liberty,” “democracy,” and “human rights,” as if these abstract entities were deities it was tasked with serving by vanquishing evildoers. Since it is the embodiment of Good, is not the world at its disposal, a passive object of its salvific impulses? Dispensing an immanent justice tailored to its own measure, the nation with “manifest destiny” sets no limits to its benevolent aura, for it sees it as the legitimate consequence of its moral superiority. Its proximity to God sanctifies its earthly power, and it relentlessly pursues evil forces to sacrifice them in expiation of their crimes.

The belief in divine election, identification with the New Israel, and the myth of “manifest destiny” are all expressed in every possible way in the staggering ambition of this capitalist oligarchy to subjugate the planet. Considering themselves the salt of the earth, the Puritans had already signaled the conquest of the “virgin lands,” that is, the large-scale massacre of Native Americans, whom they likened to the Canaanites and Amalekites. The extermination of indigenous populations was justified by the need for the new man to stand alone before a pristine nature, the possession of which was ordained by God. There were 9 million Native Americans in North America in 1800. A century later, there were only 300,000 left. As Alexis de Tocqueville would say, “Democracy in America” ​​has left its mark, with its poisoned blankets and Gatling guns. But these massacres are not a tribute paid to the absurdity of human affairs: they are in the order of things, they correspond to the divine plan.

The Scourge of Good

A self-designation as the embodiment of Good contributed to the idea, at the end of the 20th century, that history ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The triumph of the United States thus realized the most accomplished form of liberal democracy, and Francis Fukuyama could proclaim the “end of history” once prophesied by Hegel. In a majestic apotheosis, the victory of the United States gave substance to the sublime ideal of the market economy. With the triumph of liberal democracy, the universal republic, at last, loomed on the horizon. This democratic paradise, dispensing its blessings to the entire planet, could only be embodied by “America.” Its exploits fulfilled the divine plan, and providence then led to the triumph of Good under the awestruck gaze of grateful peoples. “Light of the nations,” America guided them firmly toward the promised land of a reconciled world.

What is striking about Americans is how their self-righteousness coincides with the decay of their country. GDP per capita is colossal, yet 20% of the population languishes in poverty. Infrastructure is outdated, inequality glaring, and the education system declining. Violence is rampant, and American prisoners represent 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. More than 30% of the population suffers from obesity, and the health crisis has taken a heavy toll. Average life expectancy in the United States has fallen behind that of China. But these minor incidents pale in comparison to the essential issues, and reality has the courtesy to remain discreet. Morally perfect, an imaginary “America” ​​presents itself as a complete system, erasing all traces of contradiction and facing the future with confidence. It’s strange, but even when discussing the catastrophes for which they are responsible, the leaders of this country always wear a smile.

The exceptional nation exerts its beneficial effects no matter what. Because America is destined by divine decree to become the empire of the end times, its future and present are already contained within its origin. Invested with a planetary mission, it embraces its “manifest destiny” in a salvific gesture that defies space and time. This is why an edifying narrative ceaselessly extols its genius. Rewriting its own history as if it were sacred history, America collides international law with divine law. It is no coincidence that the genocidal entity that survives between the sea and the Jordan River by bombing everything that moves was long worshipped there: American nationalism is not ordinary nationalism. It is a supremacism ordered to the supernatural: it expresses the pride of a power that posits its coincidence with the order willed by the Creator. From the Founding Fathers leaving Europe to establish a virtuous society to the heroic victories won over the forces of evil, American history is more than just history: it is the parousia of Good.

With Trump, as with his predecessors, imperial war introduces violence to others as if exporting goods. A paroxysmal form of the North-South divide, a bloody metaphor for unequal development, this war strikes outside, never within, the “civilized world.” Reproducing the world’s duality, it mirrors the planetary fracture. A war of the rich against the poor, it is embodied by the countless strings of bombs dropped on the peoples of the Global South. Its symbol is the B-52, napalm, the F-35 fighter jet, the Tomahawk missile, the Predator drone, Trump’s aircraft carriers—all this sophisticated machinery of death administered remotely, without risk, without any hidden costs for the perpetrators of this punishment from above. It is also proxy war, embargo, blockade, economic war, insidious destabilization, clandestine action, coups d’état fomented by the CIA, the manipulation of terror, the “Freedom Fighters” of global jihad, all these wars of the “free world” which democracies are fond of, under the leadership of an empire which fancies itself the avenging power.

An empire without imperialism

Today, faced with a predatory empire, Iran is defending itself heroically, Russia is standing firm, sovereign nations are resisting, and the peoples under attack are preparing their revenge, while Europe is capitulating. That leaves China, this vast, peaceful nation, committed to win-win partnerships and multilateralism. Donald Trump has just met with them, for the second time in ten years, with the clear intention of salvaging what he can after the Iranian debacle. China received him politely: without illusions about its capacity to make amends, and without conceding anything on its own national interests.

But do we even know this China, so diametrically opposed to a bellicose America, this power so determined to promote peace and cooperation? According to Western media, it is thirsty for riches, intent on extending its reach across the globe. Displaying a facade of pacifism, it is said to harbor a simmering brutality, ready to erupt, hidden behind a veneer of soothing rhetoric. This “new empire” supposedly demands its share of global hegemony, claiming first place at any cost. Worse still: it supposedly wants to impose its model on us, promote its values ​​at all costs, and present itself as an example for all nations to emulate.

This vision of a conquering and proselytizing China is all the more surreal given that the Chinese are doing the exact opposite. Convinced that their system is unique, they are not trying to convert anyone. Whether they are exporting goods or building infrastructure, they are obviously defending their interests. But their ambition is not to repaint the world in China’s colors. Given the choice, they would probably prefer that others not imitate them, because every nation must find its own path, even if it means making those missteps without which no success is truly worthwhile. Chinese thought is empirical and pragmatic: it confronts facts, undergoes successive corrections, and continues its progress as best it can. Averse to abstract ideas, it readily admits that there are no ready-made solutions. This is why we must abandon the idea that the Chinese are seeking to spread their model and stop attributing dreams of conquest to this great nation.

With the “Opium Wars” erupting in 1839, the British and French invaded China, forcing it to sign shameful treaties and accept the massive importation of this drug with its devastating effects. In 1860, an expeditionary force combining the forces of both nations stormed Beijing and sacked the magnificent Summer Palace of the Qing emperors. Outraged, Victor Hugo condemned this atrocity, writing these bitter lines: “We Europeans are the civilized ones, the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism. Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France, the other England. The French Empire pocketed half of this victory, and today, with a kind of proprietor’s naiveté, it displays the splendid bric-a-brac of the Summer Palace.” I hope that a day will come when France, liberated and cleansed, will return this loot to plundered China . ”

Xi Jinping’s China intends to erase this humiliation by reclaiming its rightful place among the nations: this is “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” What it wants is to definitively turn the page on this chaotic era. To achieve this, there is no need to impose anything on anyone. A model beyond imitation, an empire without imperialism, China is, par excellence, a peaceful power. But this is not solely due to political choice, its leaders having opted for development and rejected foreign adventure. It is also for a deeper reason. The imagined centrality of the empire has forged its destiny, obliging it to prioritize its subjects and their well-being before concerning itself with the rest of the world. As the Middle Kingdom, China receives first and foremost the beneficial influence of heaven, which is round, while the earth is square. It is situated at the center of the world by a timeless decree that removes any desire it might have to conquer its margins. This periphery of the inhabited world, in fact, will never be as interesting as the very heart of an empire whose management is already a heavy burden.

To attribute conquering ambitions to China, therefore, is as absurd as criticizing it for wanting to export its model, since the latter is intended to remain unique. If China is peaceful, it is by virtue of a cosmological status whose privilege comes with a promise of harmlessness toward distant nations. The keystone of the inhabited world, the Middle Kingdom would condemn itself to decay if it dispersed to the margins; it would dissolve into formlessness if, out of ambition, it renounced the dividends of this centrality. This imagined representation is not merely a matter of ideas. Transposed into the real world, it determines a habitus that Western moralizers should reflect upon: a great country that has not waged war for forty-seven years certainly deserves some consideration.

In the West, it was common to say (not so long ago) that China was a poor country, with its hundreds of millions of underpaid workers. But the reality in China has changed faster than Western experts predicted, because the struggles of industrial workers—in a country where social conflicts are resolved through negotiation, as elsewhere—have led to a substantial increase in wages, to the point of worrying foreign investors. China has adopted a proven development model that it does not seek to impose on anyone. This large, sovereign nation is committed to international law. It prioritizes win-win cooperation and does not tie its hands with any military alliance. It does not attack any state, does not finance any subversive organizations abroad, does not impose any unilateral measures on them, and does not interfere in their internal affairs. The contrast is striking with the attitude of the United States and its European allies, who have no qualms about intervening abroad unilaterally, under false pretenses and in flagrant violation of international law.

An inclusive universalism

If all major powers behaved like China, the world would be safer and less dangerous. It would be far less beholden to the interests of multinational arms companies. In the United States, the defense industry is part of the “deep state” that controls the government. In China, it is run by officials who implement its policies. This characteristic of the Chinese system shapes its relationship with the world. The Chinese have only one military base abroad, while the US has 800, and their per capita military budget represents 8% of the American budget. The universalism claimed by the Western world is closely tied to its interests: it is a distorted universalism, in particular. Chinese universalism, on the contrary, rests on the idea that the coexistence of differences is the natural order of things. It is inclusive, not exclusive. While the United States clings desperately to its waning hegemony, the Chinese know they are the rising power and that there is no point in rushing things. China’s pacifism is the flip side of its economic success, while the belligerence of the USA reflects its decline.

In the West, when China succeeds, it inspires fear. When it shows signs of faltering, it inspires fear as well. It is accused of using its public sector to gain market share, all the while brandishing, like holy scripture, a liberal ideology that claims the public sector is inefficient. Meanwhile, the Chinese continue to believe, with Deng Xiaoping, that “it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice .” In China, the state controls key industries: coal, steel, oil, nuclear power, arms, and transportation. Western recriminations will not induce this sovereign nation to change its policies. It has paid dearly for the construction of its development model and will not abandon it to appease foreign powers. China has entered the great winds of globalization with full sails, but it has no intention of relinquishing control simply because the West no longer knows how to steer it. Unlike us, the Chinese take a long-term view. While we are subject to the dictatorship of the short term, they look far ahead.

The social framework necessary for the mobilization of all, in the eyes of the Chinese, is part of a virtuous circle. Westerners see no contradiction between democracies’ claim to embody human rights and their propensity to wage war on peoples who have done them no harm. For the Chinese, the only way to take human rights seriously is to develop their own country while letting others follow their own path. This means improving the living conditions of the population at home and non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. Similarly, our media find the lack of freedom of expression in China abominable, but in France, ten billionaires own the press and dictate its editorial line. The dictatorship of the party offends them, but that of capital suits them. Clearly, the Chinese system is less hypocritical: it rests on a philosophy that explicitly affirms the primacy of the common good and the necessity of collective discipline.

Unfathomable when viewed through Western lenses, Chinese realities require historical context to be understood. On the flag of the People’s Republic of China, the large star represents the Chinese Communist Party, which has held a non-negotiable leadership role since 1949. The four smaller stars represent the social classes that contribute to the country’s development: the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. By building a mixed economy, the reforms undertaken have thus reconnected with the founding principles of the People’s Republic of China. The system’s stability is assured as long as it guarantees collective progress. This is why the management of the Chinese economy is entrusted to the iron fist of a sovereign state, and not to the invisible hand of the market. A dose of capitalism has been injected into the economy because it was necessary to attract capital and technology. But the country’s ruling elite is patriotic. Trained in socialist and Confucian ethics, she leads a state that is legitimate only because it guarantees the well-being of the Chinese people.

Chinese success

This success is primarily due to the country’s political structure. According to the 1982 Constitution, China is “a socialist state under the democratic dictatorship of the people.” The driving role of the Party-State provides its political framework, and the election of assemblies at all levels guarantees its popular support. This dual legitimacy stems from the exceptional circumstances surrounding the birth of the People’s Republic of China. Since 1949, it has been accepted that the Communist Party is the leading body of society and sets its essential direction. Faithful to democratic centralism, the Party accepts internal debate but rejects external competition. The Chinese have invented an original formula that Western categories struggle to describe. It is not a totalitarian dictatorship, but a socialist system whose legitimacy rests on improving the living conditions of the Chinese people. And the Communist Party knows that any deviation from the path of collective well-being would lead to its downfall.

In the West, the vision of China is clouded by preconceived notions. It was assumed that opening up to international trade had sounded the death knell for “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” For the Chinese, this opening is the condition for the development of productive forces, not the prelude to systemic change. Economic reforms led by the socialist state have made it possible to eradicate extreme poverty and raise the country’s level of development to unprecedented heights. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western democracy cast its saving light upon the astonished world. Freed from “communism,” liberalism was expected to spread its benefits, achieving global unification under the auspices of the American model.

A dashed hope. For instead of triumphant liberalism, it is the new Confucian empire under communist leadership that is outmaneuvering the capitalist and liberal West. By becoming the world’s leading economic power (in purchasing power parity), the People’s Republic of China relegates a dying America, undermined by deindustrialization, excessive debt, social decay, and the fiasco of its military adventures, to second place. The duel of empires, in reality, is being played out on the field of worldviews. It is an anthropological game of Go whose outcome we already know, and Donald Trump’s boastful policies are a harbinger of it. One thing is certain: despite his most charming smile, the President of the United States left Beijing with the same powerlessness to alter the course of history as when he arrived.