Democracy's a Foreign Policy.

Plump and Plumper.

In a hatchet job on China, Foreign Policy Magazine decided, via a list of bromides referring to what, I've no idea, that "Yes, Blame it on China and Xi Jinping, for the US outbreak of a pandemic for which the US had full knowledge was on its way, and a full three months to plan and take action against it. Many say instead we did nothing. That's not quite true.

The USA, that most modern of nations, went  out of its way to deny it was a problem.

Then the USA's pompous ass of a President re-assured the entire world, from his podium @ Davos, that it was under control, when it most certainly most obviously, wasn't.

THen,  even as it was spreading in his own country he rebuffed his own VP,  who he had "put in charge" (NO one else is ever in charge of ANYthing, no matter the depth of their scholarship, as long as the child-president is in the loop) of containing the virus, for bumping elbows; and the supine Pence, that most lapdog of Executive branch incompetents, panned for the camera shaking hands once again, because the big, as in BIG kahuna belly stands no dissent in his rank ranks. She who Must be Obeyed brooks no dissent.

The reasons the Foreign policy magazine gave, which reasons are obviously meant for an electorate still reading Highlights for Chlidren, as they drop a gelatinous dollop of pabulum for the masses: a squishy, cloudy clotting blancmange of cartilaginous junk plopped down on paper and sounding like it came right out of the pages of a 50's anti-commie comics, or out of the mouth of Marvel's Sgt. Fury.

They, as in Paul Miller, but since FP published this Fake News, it still deserves a "they", start by insisting that ,

"If China had a different government, the world could have been spared this terrible pandemic."

Somehow the fact that "if the USA had a different president, its citizens could have been spared this terrible pandemic", doesn't matter, since it's China's Government, that same government without which there would be no US, or perhaps European, economy. The Capitalist world devoured its own toxic paper and was choking on the garbage it had stuffed itself to the gills with. It relied on Communist China to extend the credit it needed to pull it chestnuts out of the self-inflicted conflagration of bad debt burning in the midst of a Bonfire of the Vanities, trillions of dollar of which is still sitting on the Fed's books (in this Free Market Economy ... dislike the commies as much as you like, but at least their level of hypocrisy is stories lower than that of the west) to this day, toxic debt that was marketed by the, now let's see, how did they put it in this propaganda sheet of lies and distortions? Oh, that's right, "open, established free-market democracies, which allow the free flow of information and markets", such that that "free flow"  of AAA-rated paper consisting of sub-prime debt foisted on to barely-solvent borrowers could be deliberately packaged as investment-grade "securities", all its Risk cleverly obfuscated by algo-enabled cons, blessed by Ratings agencies paid by the entities whose paper they were rating, and sold to the world as a haven as safe as US Treasuries.

Paul Miller claims that the Chinese government is most directly responsible for the governance failures that have now unleashed untold suffering and economic collapse on the world. Its mendacity and incompetence should cause politicians, policymakers, and business leaders across the world to reconsider their willingness to engage and do business with China until it proves itself a responsible actor on the world stage.

But, it is the US government that is most directly responsible for the governance failures that then, and continuing to now, has unleashed untold suffering and economic collapse on the world. Its (deliberate ... 2008 was no surprise pandemic that no one planned for, it was a carefully executed takedown and Shock Doctrine-maneuver to reallocate enormous swaths of capital "into", as GHW Bush put it, "the right hands") mendacity and incompetence:

 "should cause politicians, policymakers, and business leaders across the world to reconsider their willingness to engage and do business with China the Untied States until it proves itself a responsible actor on the world stage".

The geopolitical dimension an scope of the 2008 crisis means we should have sought criminal accountability to prevent its recurrence—and accountability begins with casting blame where it is due. That is, in China's case. In ours, of course, no such accountability took place. The exact same players are pulling the exact same schemes with the exact same results. Having a corona to hide behind is the biggest boon they could have wished for. And they lost no time in making the capital grab in the Capitol building the center of Disaster Capital Crimes for which there is never a Capital punishment. The pandemic will pass. The US Ponzi-schemes, embezzlements, defalcations and rehypothecations will not. It will continue its rot while writers such as Paul Miller pretend everything's just hunky-dory.

The USA has yet to "prove itself a responsible actor on the world stage".  The mendacity Miller refers to is on full display as, in the midst of a deadly pandemic in which the USA itself, thanks to its own view of itself as exceptional (No virus can come here, we  have a Wall), is now the center of, keeps sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, all for purportedly political reasons when the only reason is as always, energy resources, and the control of them. Not a Free Market, free flow of information, open government system, but instead more akin to how Miller characterizes China,

"... the most powerful institution on the planet that daily opposes human freedom, human flourishing, and human dignity."

Ummm, that's how the USA is seen by many billions who have suffered under the jackboot of Demockracy.

And does so not to try and assure a fair share of the world's resources for its 1.3 billion people, as China must, but to drain, within the time span of one generation, the earth's crust of an entire continent of its last drops of fuel, flaring in the process enough energy resources to lift entire countries out of poverty, in order to enable the lifestyle of effortless ease and Breaking Bad contempt for the very good governance the West provides its barely 350 million souls, a mere quarter of the number China must serve, yet the US is unable to provide that everlasting affluence and economic growth without sucking down more fossil fuels than the entire Chinese economy does to provide for 3 X's our population.

Miller goes on to opine that,

" ... the Chinese government’s record in the recent crisis is only the tip of an iceberg (no cliche will be left unturned). The same government is responsible for genocide against the Uighur people, violating international law in the South China Sea, wholesale intellectual property theft from and cyber-espionage against the United States and its allies, one of the worst records of environmental pollution in the world, the invention of a new type of technology-powered totalitarian surveillance state, and more."

He's kidding, right? Do you think he just didn't notice that,

the Trump government’s record in the recent crisis is only the tip of an iceberg. The same government is responsible for genocide against the Afghan, Irani and Venezuelan people, violating international law in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and ignoring the ICC so as to have no restraints place upon its illegal activities, and cyber-espionage against the Iran, murdering its nuclear scientists, and its allies, one of the worst records of environmental pollution in the world, having peopled Federal agencies with his own toadies and yes-men who do nothing without their Furor's Imprimatur scrawled across it, the deployment of killer drones for assassinations in the airspace of another (Oops, there ARE no other sovereign nations, the US policy of pre-emptive war and unilateral abrogation of treaties whose provisions the signatories have violated none of, makes sovereignty moot) sovereign Nation after said nation refused to grant it the invention of a new type of technology-powered totalitarian surveillance state, and more."

The real kicker regarding this entire hatchet job is that it is in response to the Trumpelstiltskin calling  COVID-19 (remember, the "19" stands for 2019 ... the virus was not something that sprang upon us without warning the way it did on China ... yet China's response, compared to our own, was far superior) a Chinese virus.

I saw the interview. The reporter was asking the President why, given the hate-mongering and anti-Chinese attacks that his referring to it as such were causing, does he insist on calling it the Chinese virus?

To which the puerile response was, "Because it's from "CHInuh", and the base dutifully rolled their eyes at the clueless libtard.

But the high-school level retort was more suitable to the sophomore gym class, or as a comedian's rebuttal, but it separated the last part of the reporter's question from the first, a bit of tried and true trumpery.

If he weren't cloaked in the awesome mantle of the presidency, and the reporter had a fair hearing, she would have answered him the same way a weary parent would have answered their teenage child. Yes dear, I know it's from China, but that's not what I was asking, and you know it's not. I was asking why you are insisting on referring to it as the Chinese virus WHEN YOU KNOW FULL WELL THAT YOUR BASE BASE WILL USE (has already used, as per your signalling) IT AS AN EXCUSE TO FOMENT VIOLENCE AND HATEFUL ATTACKS AGAINST CHINESE-AMERICANS.

... US citizens you have taken an oath of office to protect; not to put your base on notice that they're fair game. Which is exactly what you were deliberately doing.

But the answer to her actual question wasn't something you wanted known, it wouldn't  play well on the Reality TV show you still think you're the host of.

"Unsurprisingly, authoritarian rulers, such as China’s, Trump, do not like sharing news about their ignorance and do not like cooperating with other governments. As Danielle Pletka recently argued, Xi’s Trump's “prime concern was not lives at risk, or containment of the virus, but rather the nation’s and his reputation, place in the global supply chain and his grip on power re-election prospects.”

(Easy change that one)

If, as Miller apparently believes, it is authoritarian rule that is so suspect, why is the thrust of every Western country, ever since the permanent damage the US inflicted on the global economy for its own nefarious purposes, intent on turning every one of the Democracies, but none more than the US, into authoritarian States? Here the Leader owns the Justice Department as his own: pardoning willie-nilly, using his little bevy of lawyers and the AG like it's a steno pool paid for by the  taxpayers to do his bidding.

You don't get more authoritarian than castigating a member of Congress because he took his sworn oath seriously. Surrounded by religious "Leaders", he openly mocked Romney for "bringing religion" into the impeachment process, because Romney had, like every other Senator, placed his hand on a bible to swear that oath.That was not Romney's idea; that was the Senate's rtual. The fact that they swore an oath that they then disregarded as though it were as meaningless as a Trump marriage vow, demonstrates the blasphemous disdain for the deity these dilettantes actually feel.

Miller goes on to claim that "Simply put, the Chinese government does not give a damn about the Chinese people." Well many Chinese people are US citizens, but "the US government does not give a damn about those Chinese people", nor does its President. They are not part of his base, so that oath he swore to protect them, he relegates to the realm of meaningless mumbo-jumbo, as he then insisted Romney, who actually has integrity, should have done. An oath to god, sworn an the bible of a religion I profess to believe in? Meaningless ... completely non-binding nonsense.

For all the truth in many of Miller's observations, it is the lack of any sense of proportion that his piece screams for being torn to pieces. Communism may indeed be godless, but to pretend that you are, to put on a sham religion to sway an ignorant base to vote for you and then blaspheme in front of the world, scoffing at an oath to tell the truth as so much falderal, makes our own system uniquely our own. Whatever. It is what it is, right? However, what it doesn't do, is what we have been doing for generations now. It doesn't bestow on the us any right to steam aircraft carriers across the oceans and bomb the bejeesus out of one country after the other, all the while insisting they, "be more like us", which is what Miller so arrogantly insists China do. Yeah, right.

In that case, when they start arming every country in South America with sting missiles, drones, laser-guided missiles, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction we delight in marketing, selling, deploying and dropping on unarmed civilians heads, like those we have been hawking to the world in our role as the globe's premiere Merchants of Death, remember, it was you who insisted they mimic the country hosting that "most thoroughly diseased and decaying institution in the world", one whose only raison d'etre is to enable the Sole Super Power in its soulless quest for Omnipotence: The Pentagon