China never entered the fusiles Trap that US History invented welcome everyone this is Jeff Rich from the burning archive what is China's role in the world after American Primacy it is not snared in the FUSD trap it is haunted by an American Nightmare of banquo's ghost both these visions of China's role after the breakdown of the postwar world order are defined by Western cultural Traditions neither image will control China's future role in the world after 2024 China's future as with its past will be spun from the many threads of world history into its own cloth
China and the FUSD trap the FUSD trap was defined by Graham Allison in destined for war Can America and China Escape FUSD trap 2017 it has become the governing metaphor for the Western foreign policy communities account of China's rise from ruins to prosperity in the post 1945 World Order Allison defined the metaphor so and I quote from FUSD trap from uh Destin for War as a rapidly ascending China challenges America's accustomed predominance these two Nations risk falling into a deadly trap first identified by the ancient Greek historian fusades writing about a war that devastated the
two leading city states of Classical Greece 2 and a half Millennia ago he explained it was the rise of Athens and the fear fear is italicized that this instilled in Sparta that made War inevitable we FUSD was correct in this interpretation mattered little to Allison let alone the thousands of geopolitics uh analysts and strategists who adopted this Loosely stated maxim of a failed Greek General Allison read thus cidades as historical scripture because he was in the business of myth making about American hegemony this benow sentence from FUSD long history of the pipian Wars written Circa
400 before the Contemporary era is recast by Allison as a quote Primal Insight that described a quote perilous historical pattern Allison sounded the alarm to the power elite whom he had long courted the USA must take difficult and painful actions to avert war with China tactically and strategically to contain quote a rising power that threatens to displace a ruling power the success of the idea of the FUSD trap did not spring from truth or historical insight into the conflict of two ancient city states which had populations estimated in the range of current day wack and
Pittsburgh it sprang from the anxiety the threat of a rising power and the American Myth that it was the Democratic ruling power that shaped the postwar world order the USA was the contemporary Reincarnation of Athens Allison so restated a long tradition of American and British history which interpreted America's rise in the post 1945 world through fables of classical Greek and Roman Imperial and Republican history but now the threat was not Sparta it was not communism it was China despite its success destined for war Can America and China escaped FUSD trap is poor history its account
of the post 1945 World Order is full of the standard American cliches and has none of the insights the rise and fall of global Empires presented by John Darwin in after Taman Allison's book is also shoddy world history he claimed to have established a database or case File to support his conclusions the case files are shown uh below with a image of uh appendix one of uh Destin for war the FUSD uh trap case File which lists the actual cases that he refers to to justify his argument uh you can read it all if you
subscribe to my subc the case files as shown below a brief scan shows the Euro Atlantic bias a reader of John Darwin after tamilan the rise and fall of global Empires immediately detects this iconic book of international relations to be junk history moreover as George yo former foreign minister of Singapore points out Allison's Primal insight into history came from Deep ignorance of the history of Asia and the state he feared China quoting Yo's recent comments in a interview a televised interview or YouTube interview if China were like the old Soviet Union then such a fear
is warranted then the lessons of the pipian war the FUSD trap becomes relevant but China is in fact of a different nature and while understanding the Greeks SK gives one an important window into the evolution of Western Society the understanding of East Asian Society requires a different window and it is a window into the rise and fall of China and there's a link to his remarks in the post China never entered the FUSD trap its history and traditions of statecraft are different the Western strategic imagination has trapped itself in this fallacious perilous historical projection despite
the shorty history and cultural blindness of the FUSD trap it dominates American Anglo American and Western accounts of the China dilemma Allison's book provided a fake veneer of classical learning to the realest postwar American theory of great power relations it is a retelling of international relations as a no rules fight to the death between hegemon and Challenger it is a fantasy of American Primacy but there is a deeper darker story from the Western Cannon behind the fears of American and Western leaders that AR ing power will displace them as the ruling power of the postwar
world order this story is more profound than Allison's Fable from the father of History it is rooted in Anglo American culture even today because it expresses a deeper insight to power violence and rivalry it is a story of a nightmare and a murder this story haunts us leaders to believe that the FUSD trap was indeed a primal insight into history there is a spectre haunting the Western foreign policy imagination of the role that China might play in world history that Spectre is banquo's Ghost the American Nightmare of China as banquo's ghost in Shakespeare's tragedy of
McBeth a challenger to the Scottish Throne becomes the hegemon through Bloody Murder By The regicide of Duncan the Challenger mcbf has an ally Banquo who questions his friends ambition to dominate MC Beth feared banquo's good intentions and his preference for harmonious civility quoting from mcbf and this is part of a speech by MC Beth in the play our fears in Banquo stick deep and in his royalty of nature Reigns that which would be feared is much he dares and to that dauntless temper of his mind he hath a wisdom that doth guide his ballor to
act in safety there is none but he whose being I do fear and under him my genius is rebuked as it is said Mark Antony's was by Caesar mcbf killed his King Duncan fear of a life without hegemony then drove mcbf to murder again this time his ally Banquo at a banquet celebrating MC Beth's New World Order however Banquo returns as a ghost MC bef fears the dead have come to push us from our stools the ghost inspires fear and Madness as much as guilt and remorse shocked by the appearance of Banquo mcbf speaks approach
th like the rugged Russian May the armed rhinoceros or the hien Tiger and in the post I have a little note explaining that the Heen tiger is referring to tigers from hiia the region near Iran and Turkmenistan approach thou like the rugged Russian Bear the armed rhinoceros or the hien Tiger take any shape but that referring of course to Bano goost and my firm nerves shall never tremble hence horrible Shadow unreal mockery hence when Joe Biden or Donald Trump or countless think tanks and journalists in the western media summon the threat of China they do
not use language with Shakespeare's skill they talk of pacing challenges strategic competition autocracy eses or the slogans like red threat or take down the CCP but they are driven mad by the same fear the rebuke to their genius Spurs a fear that a rival will displace them from their stools they are engulfed in Madness because they cannot admit that they have wronged China the USA LED post 1945 World order's relationship to China is the same as MC Beth's Victory banquet's relationship to Banko's ghost when American leaders praise the liberal rules based order the world order
which they shaped through endless war and murder since 1945 they resemble MC bef at his banquet celebrating his his bloodstained kingship like banquo's ghost China haunts the US leaders whose consciences cannot suppress the memory of their crime China was the wartime friend that became in rana's term the Forgotten Ally that the West wronged and that comes from R MAA forgotten Ally China's World War II 193 7 to 1945 China was to be one of the four policemen of world order after 1945 alongside the British Empire the United States and the Soviet Union it was the
first signatur of the United Nations Charter but when the USA lost China in 1949 it betrayed Bano he denied China membership of the United Nations and gave the seat to a government in Exile that had fled to Taiwan and so controlled [Music] 0.4% of China's land area it excluded China and the USSR from the final peace treaty with Japan the former colonizer of Taiwan and rebuilt its security architecture in the Western Pacific in the islands of the Japanese empire that had menaced China and other East Asian States for 50 years it fought a horrific war
in Korea killing Millions to contain the horrible Red Shadow of China's ghost it excluded the real China from the world diplomatic system until the late 1970s r m argues that this exclusion from the world contributed to the tragedies of Chinese history after 1949 the Great Leap Forward in the cultural revolution ma may have exercised power from the barrel of a gun but the American fear of being pushed from its stool left Blood on the hands of successive American presidents from Truman to Biden and now again Trump America denied China full access to the world economy
until 2001 when China was admitted to the Britain Woods postwar World Order institution of the World Trade Organization they did so with the Cockiness of a hyperpower that had won the Cold War and brought an end to history banquo's ghost for a decade or more shape shifted into Neil Ferguson and Henry Kissinger cherica but the terror came back to haunt America in many forms pivots to Asia tariffs on China chip Wars zinghang alleged genocides indopacific strategies South China Sea free navigation disputes social credit schemes woan viruses plans for regional hegemony the attack on the mighty
US dollar the fight for democracy against the access of upheaval agents of chaos and of course the fidi Trap the FUSD trap and John mim's anti-china realism are both screen stories in a psych analytical sense of a self-justifying memory that conceals a more traumatic Primal insight they both cover the American Terror that the USA will be displaced AS Global hegemon they disclose guilt for past wrongs they expose wounds of regret the Americans scrambled for power in the 20th century over the dead bodies of tens of millions of eurasians its greatness rad on the back of
its betrayed Ally who had a dauntless temper of mind and wisdom that doth guide his Valor to act in safety these Pricks of conscience fuel hate for the great state of China that the USA has wronged do dovi wrote that we hate those whom we have wronged so it is for America the vast Anglo American culture Industries including those who practice history spew forth reams of this hatred every week with increased frequency since 2017 the year Donald Trump became president and Graham Allison published destined for war so so much destructiveness has sprung from this fear
of Bano ghost Ban's failed Chip War T Trump's tariff Bluff and even a reckless threat to sty the flow of oil from Iran are among the looming Carnage that American Terror has brought to the world the tragedy is alas ghosts are not real the threat of China taking over the world is a figment of the western strategic imagination in destined for war Allison recalled with his trademark foe scholarship Napoleon's historically inaccurate remark that in 1800 china was sleeping but when she wakes she will sh make the world Allison continued to shout fire in the hall
to his fellow Americans quote he said today China has awakened and the world is beginning to shake Allison was wrong China never slept history never does America never slayed her despite all its plan banquo's ghost was never there it is time for the USA to wake from its long nightmare of losing China to reimagine the history of China in the world and to support the development of peace and prosperity across the world we need a different vision of Chinese history in the world we we may even have to turn to Chinese literature not the Western
Classics we might have to listen to the stories of the past written and told by Chinese people not anglo-american academics let alone the National Security Community even the Best Western histories of China in the world still suffer from the Stamper that comes when we imagine China as Banos ghost at the Glorious banquet of the end of History especially in the anglo-american academy histories of China are still written in the stifling intellectual conditions of Cold War even if it is Neil Ferguson's beloved Cold War II but I am on the search for better history iies of
China not haunted by this American Spectre and not obscured by the London Fog of Imperial Nostalgia I do not know enough Chinese history and have no Chinese language skills but I am still searching and sharing my discoveries with you I have shared some discoveries from my search over the last last two years on the burning archive including uh and there are links to all of these uh articles uh in the substack post if you're listening on podcast or YouTube Jeff rich. substack docomo subscribe and you can also become a paid subscriber for $8 us a
month or $80 us a year the Articles include red memory dread trauma my review of journalis Tanya branagan's account in red memory uh remembering and forgetting China's cultural revolution of the memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution my wonderful interview with historian of Chinese Australian Sophie l Wilson and uh my Reflections How to Mend our broken Asian heart Sophie Wilson on China Australia and generosity in history my Reflections on James karan's history of the Australia China Rel relationship since 1945 my discussion on the Duran of orcus in Australia China relationships my interview with war pal how
Australia China and Asia can live together in a multi-polar world my interview how defense and diplomacy can avoid a us China war in Asia a conversation with Sam Ravine of the Loy Institute my reflection how did Multicultural Australia misread the multi-polar world prompted by these three interviews and my pieces on the two Chinese winners of the Nobel Prize in literature uh in the Nobel archive yes one in 60 of the prizes to this great culture through these writings I have reflected on my idea that since 1970 and its attitudes to China Australia has overvalued trade
and undervalued culture how complex close and longstanding Australia China relationships have been too much about money and not enough about shared meaning in writing this week's piece I have come to realize even more profoundly how the soft curves of culture through the American Nightmare image of China as banquo's ghost shape the tough guys of hard geopolitics truly culture is up River from geopolitics [Music] [Music]
