The reasons behind the unending ‘China bashing’ by the West

(Editor’s Note: The following is an article written by Prof. Dennis Etler, an American professor and political analyst who also holds a doctorate in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. His profile also shows that he also taught at the Cabrillo Community College in Aptos California.

Etler’s article can also be browsed at ‘investor.com,’ an online news site based in Malaysia, last June 19, 2021, as posted by Koon Yew Yin. As Koon noted in describing Etler’s profession, “Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take a broad approach to understanding the many different aspects of the human experience, which we call holism.

“They consider the past, through archaeology, to see how human groups lived hundreds or thousands of years ago and what was important to them.”

The website, ‘Friends of Socialist China,’ in its tribute to Etler last June 21, 2021, acknowledged him as an expert on China, having “conducted archaeological and anthropological research in China throughout the 1980s and 1990s.”

The website described itself as, “a platform based on supporting the People’s Republic of China and spreading understanding of Chinese socialism.”

“The sheer scope of Dennis’ interest in China, past and present, and his exceptional command of what he knew, continues to humble us–as do his knowledge of historic detail and his extraordinary powers of synthesis in his essays and articles,” the tribute noted.

With such deep understanding of China, the article further noted that he was not just an “internationalist” who has also taken time to expound on what is really happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran thru Iran’s PressTV, but that, “…he was the sort of teacher committed not only to his profession but also to the social good. This drew him to China, where he saw great strides in human progress.”

“In his retirement, he founded the discussion page Xi Jinping–China’s Exceptional President,” the tribute further noted.

“He worked tirelessly until it grew to number 35,000 members–and he valued and took pride in the membership’s active contributions.”

Etler, the article said further, died “suddenly and unexpectedly” last June 3, 2021, but careful browsing of the Internet showed his passing was only widely disseminated on social media on June 10, 2021. He was 74. Below is the article that we are reprinting here due to its continuing relevance).

Why is it that the West is so preoccupied with demonizing China? The usual answer is that China’s economic growth is challenging Western global hegemony which has held sway for at least 250 years, if not longer.

The Chinese military has also reached parity with that of the West, so it is no longer subject to Western intimidation and bullying. All that is true, and sufficient reason for the West to want to savage China and portray it as the root of all evil.

But there is one other consideration that must be taken into account.

It’s not only China’s economic prowess and military might that frightens the West, it is also China’s success as a nation versus the West’s failure.

Moreover, China has forged a society in which there is harmony between its different ethnicities in contrast to the systemic racism that characterizes Western society.

Western ruling elites and their media mouthpieces do not want to acknowledge the fact that China has eliminated extreme poverty while more and more of their own people descend into poverty.

They do not want to admit that China has constructed a 21st century infrastructure while they lag far behind.

They do not want to confront the fact that the Chinese people overwhelmingly support their government while people in the West have lost confidence in their own; they do not want to accept that China beat COVID-19 while they haven’t; and, finally they are loathed to accept the fact that a non-white nation has outperformed them and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

In order to deflect attention away from these truths the West has concocted a series of lies and slanders that allow them to deny Chinese reality. Instead of poverty alleviation the West imagines “genocide.”

Instead of the advances in HSR, EVs, alt-energy and e-commerce, they focus on “IP theft;” instead of a socioeconomic system that serves the people, they accuse China of forced labour and forced sterilizations.

Instead of seeing China as defending its national sovereignty in the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it’s called an “aggressor.”

All the China-bashing serves multiple purposes.  But one of the main reasons is to make sure that people in the West do not get to hear about or see what the real China is all about because if they do, they may get ideas that the Western elites don’t want them to have, such as socialism works for the betterment of the 99 percent while capitalism works primarily to enrich the 1 percent.