It is not over yet: \u201cChina\u201d is seen as major threat for \u201cthe West\u201d \u2014 a change of mind, a shift in the cognitive process stands behind the use of inverted commas. Especially with the second Trump-administration the divide of the West itself is becoming increasingly a topic \u2014 \u201cespecially with the second Trump administration\u201d means that it is not a fundamentally new development but a new state of awareness, consisting of following aspects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since some time we witness a growing re-regionalisation and even re-nationalisation in Europe \u2014 despite or perhaps because of the enlargement of the EU, the cohesiveness is becoming increasingly fragile. Core active nationalist\/regionalist\/separatist movements can be found in Catalonia and the Basque Country (Spain), Scotland (UK), and Flanders (Belgium), not unlikely candidates to become new states; a broader scope suggests a range up to 100 separatist movements, including numerous regional movements across countries like Italy (e.g., Veneto, Sardinia), France (e.g., Corsica), Germany (e.g., Bavaria) and the United Kingdom (e.g., Wales, Cornwall).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if splitting up along any of these lines is unlikely, it is an undeniably sign for the zeitgeist. There is seemingly a paradox: \u201cEurope\u201d claims that it must stand united against the US and the rest of the world. To be more precise, it is about Europe claiming supremacy over the US in order to become competitive (again) with the rest of the world. There are some interesting points that remain commonly unnoticed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. The beauty and the beast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n EUrope, in particular the \u201cculturally central member states\u201d, namely Greece, Italy but also France, to some extent Germany as central successor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Sacrum Imperium Romanum Nationis Germanicae) [it must be stated that today\u2019s designations are not identical with the historical designations while it is also worthwhile to mention that the Sacrum Imperium Romanum Nationis Germanicae is in some respect still alive: The Hapsburg-family has still meaningful positions on the political stage; the Thurn&Taxis family owns tremendous property: Germany\u2019s largest privately owned forest, extensive property portfolio, business investments], <\/em>claim to have a globally superior role when it comes to values and morals \u2014 it is remarkable that this claim existed for Europe, notwithstanding the era, notwithstanding the fact that crusades and two world-wars had been systematic part and consequence of this European value system. According to this world view, great civilisations never existed outside of Europe \u2014 everything there had been considered to be brutish, primitive, underdeveloped and in need of some \u201ctuition\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Equalising moral and ethical values, political standards and competitiveness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This supposed superiority stands also behind the equation of superiority and competitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Europe versus a specified \u201crest of the world\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if \u201cEurope\u201d considers itself as seemingly weak, though in reality strong \u2014 a modified David versus Goliath story \u2014 it focuses currently on<\/p>\n\n\n\n ****<\/p>\n\n\n\n Especially the first and the third point are in fact not primarily a matter of China- and-the-rest-of-the-world-bashing; instead, here we are concerned with admitting the own weakness, the fact that European capitalism is lagging behind. \u2022 The US can still profit from a major advantage, namely the currency advantage (see Kishore Mahbubani: \u201cHas China Won?\u201d; 2020; passim) \u2014 <\/em>at the end of the day this is the success of a paper tiger, lacking a sustainable foundation. \u2022 European polities and economies are suffering from the fact that there had not been and is not a competitive system in place \u2014 * for a long time the \u201cEuropean model\u201d could maintain some success, competing against the USSR and the related countries and also leaving the so-called threshold countries behind; * with this and also for a long time the powerful EU member states thought they could rest on their past laurels * while the polities faced situations during which federalism increasingly undermined political effectiveness and efficiency * and the so-called threshold countries gained economic and political strength\/advantage. \u2014 All this is stated in a descriptive way, without qualifying the one or the other system as being better or stronger; such assessment that must be left to the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, equally meant to be a factual statement but in this case also a biased one is the following \u2014 referring to a recent debate of the Kiel Institute China Initiative. Roughly a position that had been brought forwards had been about assessing China\u2019s role in the world \u2014 part of the argument: China would claim to re-establish a \u201chistorical position\u201d, followed by the remark that the historical period of such restoration had not been specified. This is of special interest as it shows the use of two standards:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe can claim to have a great immaculate history and civilisation \u2014 there is no mention of slavery, crusades, wars that originated in European countries \u2026 .<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this view, the rest of the world doesn\u2019t have anything comparable \u2014 great civilisations outside of Europe as Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru are forgotten \u2014 and at most it is conceded that there were certain \u201ccivilised phases\u201d, but these are classified as exceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, in short we are witnessing the following fundamental line:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact that the previously supportive agencies withdraw their backing must be seen as indicator that the path we have chosen may be doomed to failure. Of course, it is a matter of East and West, the competition and even confrontation of systems. However, here the main interest is a different one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, in conclusion the question east versus west may evolve as another question, in fact a set of questions being more central: public versus private AND acceptance of commitment versus reinterpreting (global) polities handled as matter of arbitrariness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is not over yet: \u201cChina\u201d is seen as major threat for \u201cthe West\u201d \u2014 a change of mind, a shift in the cognitive process stands behind the use of inverted commas. Especially with the second Trump-administration the divide of the West itself is becoming increasingly a topic \u2014 \u201cespecially with the second Trump administration\u201d … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debates"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hrug.legal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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