Bret Devereaux

Was listening to the latest Vox's Worldly podcast (titled "A new "cold war"?") on US-China relations. There was a lot of good stuff there, but I want to push back on one thing, which was how uncritically the PRC's stated geopolitical vision was treated. 1/11

So @zackbeauchamp argues (about 13m in) that China's policy "out of its experience with colonialism" favors non-interference and national sovereignty. And I think this is just a *very* credulous reading of the PRC's actions and stated policy aims. 2/11

Sure, the PRC leadership *says* these things (so does Putin!) but then they draw the nine-dash line, dispute borders with everyone, *conquer*Tibet*, and use predatory loans to appropriate resources from developing countries. It's Sovereignty for Me but Not for Thee. 3/11

Which is exactly what Putin does too. Ask the Ukrainians about the value of Putin's claims of supporting national sovereignty. Borders matter! Except the ones in Eastern Europe. And to be fair to the Worldly folks, a lot of that evidence comes up later in the pod. 4/11

But it never causes them to backtrack and reassess @zackbeauchamp honestly rather naive-sounding reading of PRC objectives. It seems to me that when the PRC says Nat.-Sov., what they mean is the 'restoration' (I'd say *creation*) of a "traditional" ordering of states. 5/11

Where traditional 'Great Powers' like the PRC are granted heavy, very paternalistic and self-interested spheres of influence over their (to use the Russian phrase) 'Near Abroad.' True sovereignty in that vision belongs only to a handful of big countries. 6/11

It's colonialism by another name and we should be honest about that: the PRC dreams of being a colonialist power. You can see the propaganda justifications for it - the '5000 years of history' (BS, as a side note; China is about as old as Greece and younger than Egypt). 7/11

That 'old and civilized' argument should sound familiar to anyone who has studied the 'civilizing' adventures (read: colonial bloodbath) of modern European powers. I worry that we don't recognize the game because it comes from outside of Europe - but *it*is*the*same*game* 8/11