Diversity Thursday

So, if the People's Republic of China is our main opponent on the world stage, and so many in the USA believe that race if the first and most important consideration in all things ... what about China and its view of race?

Evidently the result of some FOIA, DOD released a report from  07 January 2013 to Andrew Marshall at the Office of Net Assessment.

It is titled, THE STRATEGIC CONSEQUENCES OF CHINESE RACISM: A Strategic Asymmetry for the United States.

You have probably heard of this issue mentioned now and then as a side-note, but this goes in to incredible detail - not just about the Chinese view on race and racism, but how that informs their views of the United States.

From page 134, this bit caught my eye;

The rise of multiculturalism in the United States, and the West more broadly, has destroyed, or “decentered” in the language of the multiculturalists, the American Creed, in favor of an explicitly multiracial, multicultural society that celebrates differences rather than requiring assimilation. Huntington’s American Creed has been replaced by an ideology that rejects its core principles and beliefs in favor of promoting any culture, so long as it is not Western.

From the perspective of the Chinese, it is hard what to make of this. In their view, the United States is explicitly rejecting the principles that made the country great, and united it. It is fair to say that the Chinese have not fully thought through the impact of multiculturalism on the West. According to Sinologist John Copper, the Chinese see multiculturalism as a sickness that has overtaken the United States, and a component of U.S. decline. Their belief is that it is bad for the United States, weakening it at a time when the

United States is already weakened due to its alien political ideology and different cultural values, with too strong a focus on individualism. From the Chinese viewpoint, all of this conspires to cause the breakdown of American society and the lack of purpose in life for most Americans. Yet, at the same time, they embrace American popular culture.

In essence, they think the American people are good but the American government and dominant beliefs are bad. One major implication of this is that the Chinese government may have less of a desire to confront the U.S. due to the expectation that it will collapse of its own internal discord.

You really need to put this on your read list.