Nikki Haley’s Neo-Imperialism and ‘Chinese Influence’

 

Neighboring countries in the Americas are not our property.

by Daniel Larison Posted onJune 18, 2023

Nikki Haley asks silly questions:

4. Why is China infiltrating the Western Hemisphere?

It’s not just the spy base in Cuba. Beijing is trying to turn almost every country in the Western Hemisphere against us, often using economic bribery. We need to get Chinese influence out of our backyard.

Haley is a politician and would never be confused for a good foreign policy analyst, but even for a presidential candidate trying to whip up the crowd this is ridiculous stuff. Is the United States “infiltrating” the Eastern Hemisphere when it sends its ships into the western Pacific? Are we “infiltrating” a different hemisphere when our government reaches agreements with China’s neighbors? No, that’s an absurd way of thinking about international affairs.

Neighboring countries in the Americas are not our property, hard as that may be for some people in this country to believe. China isn’t “infiltrating” anything when it does business and makes agreements with them. As for turning them against us, I can’t think of anything more likely to turn our neighbors against us than trying to lord it over them and demand that they cut off ties with one of their major trading partners because Washington says so. Haley’s would-be neo-imperialism is so crude here that it would probably embarrass Max Boot.

I don’t know how the U.S. would go about “getting” Chinese influence out of the entire hemisphere, and I suspect Haley doesn’t, either, because it isn’t possible and it isn’t a reasonable goal. It is the sort of mindless demagoguery that we can expect as the U.S.-China rivalry intensifies, and if left unchecked it will sooner or later lead to some very nasty policies directed against our neighbors in the name of combating “Chinese influence.”

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison writes at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in Antiwar.com, the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.   

   https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/06/18/nikki-haleys-neo-imperialism-and-chinese-influence/