What’s The Difference Between Chinese And American Domination? – OpEd

The Chinese government has not left anybody in doubt about its ambitious target of dominating the world at any cost. The Chinese government has been suppressing freedom of speech in China, taking away the rights of citizens of Hong Kong in an authoritarian manner and aggressively occupying the territory of neighbors such as Tibet and part of Indian territory, which it occupied after the 1962 Indo-Chinese war. 

China is now claiming the Indian province Arunachal Pradesh as its own and aggressively claiming territorial rights in 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 domination over small and weak nearby 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 the US government too should be accused of trying to dominate the world as it has sent troops to several countries such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others to enforce its policies. There is an element of  truth in this, as the American government seems 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 USA, one cannot but see a subtle difference between both these countries.

While China believes in the ruthless elimination of opponents both inside and outside China (just like the way Hitler did) 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 USA may have the ambition to dominate the world and ensure its authority as a superpower, but it doesn’t have the ambition of territorial expansions of China.

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

Unlike China, the citizens of the USA have the right to criticize the decisions of the government, launch protests against human rights violation, if any, and exercise their franchise once every 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 USA largely remains in tact and the US government is vulnerable to the pressure of public opinion, both in the USA and other parts of the world.

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

The fact is that the USA has been remaining as superpower in the world for several decades now and the world has not become worse due to its dominating power. Of course, there has been criticism against the US government by some sections of world opinion, but most of such critics belong to religious extremist groups and motivated leftist (communist) forces, whose economic and administrative policies have totally failed to deliver the goods.

Achieving superpower status by China and establishing its authority in large parts of the world with the least consideration for value systems and sentiments of people, is the worst thing that can happen to the world’s civilization.