By Xuefei Chen Axelsson
American fall started in 2003 when it invaded Iraq. It was a mistake to do that. But because Bush administration made a wrong estimation of the situation and took unilateral action to send troops there.
Thus, even if UN Nuclear Inspection Team led by Swedish Top Diplomat Hans Blix reported several times to the United Nations to say that they hadn’t found weapons of mass destruction, Bush still ordered American Army to enter Iraq.
Later through interrogation of prisoners, they found what Blix said was true, almost the only one who told the truth.
Since then, many countries and many people lost their confidence in America. Typically New Zealand was a country that really disagreed with America. Australia and Britain were allies to America because they share greater part of bilateral trade. But more countries and people held that American action was not on behalf of the UN, but only for revenge. Such action was not welcomed by Iraq, nor international community.
In ancient Chinese military book, it said that if you sent troops to far away battle field, you were doomed to failure. It is suitable for the case of Iraq war.
It is easy to go into a war, but it is not easy to withdraw from a war. Thus, while it killed a lot of Iraqis, it also killed a lot of Americans. When I went to America in 2002 in Huston, I saw a lot of men in wheelchairs. I admired that the buses had a function to lower down for the wheelchair, but I also felt that the Americans participated too many wars. Think of it, after the Cold War, it fought the first Gulf War in 1991, and since then always sent out troups outside. It fought a war in Yugoslavia in 1999 and splitted it into six countries. In 1998, US led by Clinton bombed Afghanistan, Sudan. In 1999, American Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were attacked by terrorists suicide car bomb.
Then in 2001, Bin Laden, a friend of the US who was hired by CIA to train terrorists to deal with Taliban. But when Clinton bombed Afghanistan, Bin Laden turned away his gun towards the twin towers. With considerate plot, the twin towers were attacked and burned down. Why such a durable tower burned down so quickly? Some said because it was metal, if it were soil or stone, maybe it wouldn’t fall so quickly.
And then Bush took the revenge of this on Iraq. Thus it cost a lot of resources for America.
After the Iraq war, the work began to be peaceful for sometime. China joined the WTO and economic growth surged. China’s manufacturing industries experienced fast development due to the western order. Meanwhile, more importantly China’s real estate industry saw a very rapid development. China cancelled the public supply of housing to civil servants. Instead, everybody can or must buy their own apartments. Some people not just bought one, but two, one for his own living and the other for renting out.
There was a boom in real estate sector. The price of the real estate escalated every day.
In the west, people invented the method of paying instalment. That means one can consume first and pay later. This became an impetus for consumption.
In Iceland it were as if people could only borrow money, but there was not need to pay back. Thus everybody borrowed money and consumed first. Finally in 2008, a stock market crash happened.
At that time, many people thought China should not hug the US so tightly. China bought a lot of American debt. But China felt it couldn’t do that because they still could earn money and if China really separated from America, what would happen? No one knows.
Thus, China didn’t sell its America bonds but began to buy bonds from other countries. However, due to the huge quantity of the US, the trend was not turning back, but going on to see more interdependence between the two countries.
About ten years ago, Swedish economists said it was abnormal that a developing China supporting a developed America. But China felt it was in a dillema. If it sold all the American bonds, it was almost like declaring a war against America. So some people said lets use the bonds to buy peace with America.
If China doesn’t sell, then some Americans even talked some nasty things such as never paying back. China didn’t care much about current win or lose as long as everything can go on. The more the US buys, the more jobs China can provide.
China indeed accumulated a lot of skilled workers throughout the years.
America lost its manufacturing and mainly relied on its financial market. Even economic Nobel laureate Paul Krugman sighed that best people went to the Wall Street and in the end the crisis was so tremendous.
In 1990s, there were such sayings in China. It said there were two ladies. One was a Chinese and one was an American. The Chinese woman said she dared not to spend money because she had to save every penny to buy an apartment for her son. The American woman said she had bought an apartment for her son, but she might not be able to pay it all until her death.
This showed different consumption concept and Chinese are good at saving while the Americans spent as much as they had.
While economic problems were rampning, attacks against Kaddafi took place and this Northern African country became kaotic leaving a lot of refugees coming out to Europe.
During Aobama time, America already decided to withdrew troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. That was right.
When Trump came to power, he told Americans that he would make America greater. It sounded good for Americans. But if it is on the sacrifice of other countries interest, it would not be good. It sounded very selfish.
In order to fight the trade war, Trump said America withdrew from the WTO. This paved the way for America to take unilateral action. Now they understood the dillema.
In fact, American action shows that it doesn’t have the capacity to contribute more to the world. On the contrary, America cannot tolerate that Chinese company Huawei could be better than others. Just because Trump administration took a method that could hit so hard against Huawei.
Huawei’s boss Ren Zhengfei said Huawei had good relations with American companies. But now it was American government who ordered companies not to supply service or spare parts to Huawei.
Isn’t this also a way to disturb the market economy? Is American economy really market economy?