Nation seen as best bet for a bright future

Recent remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva following their visits to China have created whirlwinds but strikingly exhibit their comprehension of the essence of our era.

Notwithstanding extensive headwinds arising from geopolitical tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic, China has kept on thinking, planning, educating, creating and building — applying the same collective diligence and intelligence that has underpinned the most extraordinary economic rise and reduction of extreme poverty the world has ever seen.

The National Bureau of Statistics said that China's economy grew 4.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, beating most forecasts. These are early days in the recovery, and China faces immense challenges as it works to secure, over time, a minimum level of moderate prosperity for all 1.4 billion Chinese.

The key leaders visiting Beijing this year understand this. Macron also knows that, just as his top priority is advancing the national interests of France, Beijing's gaze is similarly fixed on China's primary interests.

However, within these clear, nationally focused objectives, leaders like Macron and Lula can see the positive view of the future China projects and how the whole world can benefit from China's rise.

Macron's candid, reasoned remarks, offered directly after his recent visit to China, argued in favor of engaging with China and avoiding conflict over its Taiwan region. These comments sparked foreseeable spasms of disparagement verging on rage from some in the West.

Despite the vehement street activism objecting to the raising of France's retirement age, it is still implausible to think that France may now be in increased danger of having a Washington-shaped color revolution visited on it. It is far too powerful, and the ties that bind France and the United States remain strong.

However, what is the geopolitical reality that Macron, Lula and others can perceive today when they look toward Washington?

British commentator David Campbell recently provided this concise framework for understanding where we now stand: Unless one wants the human race to fail, one could not want China to fail; if China gains living standard parity with the West, it is simply a matter of logic that it is set to become the leading power in the world; and the US has to recalibrate its foreign policy accordingly.

This, though, is just what the US is not doing. However, concerned US commentators have recently observed how badly distorted American foreign policy has become, driven by political tribalism, inequality and gridlock combined with underperforming diplomacy and paranoid groupthink fixated on the "China threat".

The now dominant US response to this self-incubated threat is to seek out still more ways to throw further sand into China's gearbox based on a sinister hope that the rise of China can be halted — or better still, reversed. This is the project (framed in the language of rights and democracy) that the US urgently wants its allies to join.

Political polarization in America has now permeated all its revered governance institutions (even the semi-sanctified Supreme Court) to a degree not seen previously in the postwar period. This has substantially driven the global export by the US of an intense geopolitical polarization crunch, which can aptly be viewed, in good part, as a reckless attempt to try to deflect attention from and buy time to manage the US' deeply troubling internal political shortcomings.

A politically ruptured, globally disruptive superpower that often seems frighteningly violent — this is what the rest of the world increasingly sees as they gaze at the US. This imagery may be most vivid within the developing Global South. But it's clear that President Macron, among others, is picking up the same signals. And he will not have forgotten how Australia and the US, with the support of the United Kingdom, hoodwinked France out of a huge submarine contract in 2021.

Infuriated views in the mainstream Western media notwithstanding, Macron was comparatively measured in his China-visit comments. He made it clear that France is not betting on the past — but backing the best global alternative for a positive future — as he rejected participation in yet another grim repeat of US war-tilted adventurism.

The author is an adjunct professor on the faculty of law at Hong Kong University. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.