Former President Barack Obama had high praise for many of the traditional adversaries of the U.S. during his eight years in office. From Cuba to Iran, Obama tried to mend past differences and bring former enemies to the negotiating table through generous rhetoric. Obama singled out one country above all others in his praise: China.
Obama marveled at Xi Jinping’s rapid consolidation of power, at the Chinese infrastructure that dwarfed that of the U.S., at the Chinese ability to “build things,” but he might have been surprised at how the Chinese people viewed him and his political beliefs.
It turns out that the Chinese astutely observed how the Obama administration’s leftist policies made the U.S. take a step back on the world stage. They have almost no comprehension for the issues that most liberals believe are the most pressing, such as climate change, LGBTQ+ rights and open immigration, as their country places very little emphasis on these issues and holds very different views on how they should be handled. The Chinese believe that people so heavily focused on these values are the true threat to western hegemony.
They think the left benefitted, more than any global group, from the rising, post-World War II living standards. They understand that left-wingers have seen such a rise in their living standards compared to the rest of the world, and they simply cannot sympathize with the pressing issues that matter to other global citizens. For example, the left in the U.S. care deeply about LGBTQ+ rights and, even after legalizing gay marriage, continue to fight for privileges for members of this group. The Chinese, along with most other people around the world, are shocked by this, as they can barely deal with more pressing issues, such as feeding their people. The rest of the world’s inability to understand why the U.S.’s left has spent so much political capital for such a small percentage of the population evidences that the liberals in the U.S. are entirely out of touch with issues of global importance. The Chinese realize that spending time and resources on this issue will impact an infinitesimally smaller group of people than other “real” issues, like fighting terrorism or creating economic growth and thus see it as wasteful.
The Chinese view the “white left” (or “baizuo,” a derogatory name for American liberals) as a real threat to western hegemony and see their political views as deeply hypocritical. The white left is seen to care about political correctness more than anything, even when it threatens their way of life, which is what the Chinese see as hypocritical. They see the white left prioritizing the feelings of their enemies above the feelings of their allies and themselves. They have watched countries in Europe cater to the rights of Islamic migrants and refugees and simultaneously watched these countries lose legitimacy (i.e., French police “no-go zones”) and watched their cultures diluted to avoid incorrectness. They see these white leftists as being blind to the threat of radical Islam out of a misplaced sense of self-righteousness and know that if those policies persist, they will contribute to the demise of the West.
The white left in this country might be smart to reassess their views from the Chinese perspective. After all, can 1.3 billion people, so heavily praised by Obama, be wrong?
Jack Story is UF political science graduate. His column appears on Tuesdays.
