Chimerica is a chimera

By Fabio Mini (Translated from Limes magazine by Jo Di Martino,

posted on Scribd by the author)

A global duopoly is implausible. The rapprochement between

China and America takes place in unwanted and unhappy
circumstances: Beijing remains inferior and Washington is on the
decline. World order and the order of things

1. The last two decades have been an extraordinary

period for the United States

and China as the evolutionary parabolas of both countries

have intertwined. Once free of the duopoly of global
management with the Soviets, America began a downward
spiral that has brought her to its current economic and
credibility crisis while China, after its negative climax of the
Tiananmen crisis and although remaining on a level far
removed from the American parabola, has begun an ascending
phase that has brought it to its current status as the most
likely partner in a new global duopoly. The list of new
acronyms that attempt to identify the future lords of the world
always includes China: the “Bric” (Brazil, Russia, India and
China), “Cindia” (China and India) and the most credited, but
also most problematic from a geopolitical perspective,
“Chimerica” (China and America). The nickname
simultaneously indicates a need, a hope and a nightmare. It
can be a fundamental objective for international security and
stability or a monster that, like the mythological one that it
evokes and that unites the most diverse bestialities, is
suggesting either the fruit of an incestuous relationship or an
illusion. In actual fact the differences in the two beasts that
would allegedly be uniting to lead the world are such that we
cannot really be certain they can succeed. And if they should,
they would give birth to an unstable monster.

The road to rapprochement between the two powers has

been obstructed and greatly influenced by accidental or
unexpected events.

In 1979 China was in full ascendance but the reforms of

Deng Xiaoping achieved no practical results. Militarily China
managed to lose a war against an exhausted Vietnam. Twenty
thousand dead in just 17 days of fighting and only a vague

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objective: a contradiction for Chinese policy unless that
adventure is viewed from the perspective of punishing the ally
of an enemy (USSR) at a time in which the United states were
ready to make any concession to China in exchange for a mere
“sign of friendship”. During that same year the United States
had moved its official mission in China from Taipei to Beijing
and had solemnly recognized Taiwan’s membership in the
People’s Republic. Such gifts needed to be graciously
exchanged.

The American rapprochement with China that characterizes

the entire decade is a series of important geopolitical
concessions in exchange for a financial participation in the
only recently initiated but highly promising development. The
tragedy of Tiananmen and Beijing’s reaction to the rebellion
may also be seen as an exaggerated trust that the United
States (and thus the world) would not risk alienating China
because of a “domestic” issue. This calculation, if it did exist,
will turn out to be erroneous, but only by a small margin.
American reaction was not as harsh as could have been
expected and the sanctions imposed on China were more
detrimental to the Americans than to the Chinese. In effect the
Chinese took advantage of this new international isolation to
settle domestic accounts and to expand the field of their
relations and their national interests to areas that were not
subject to American influence and to escape those of the
rapidly dissolving Soviet influence.

And it was this unexpected Soviet disintegration that

determined the new season of friendly relations between the
United States and China, in spite of U.S. support to Taiwan.
The 1996 show of force by China, with their missile exercises
near Taiwan and the consequent deployment of two American
aircraft carriers to the Straits of Formosa, something else that
was not wanted, will further improve relations between the
two nations. In 1998 we have the historical official visit of
President Clinton to China: a performance-visit that the
Chinese government will carefully organize so that it appears
as a personal success of the president. Relations worsen with
the (accidental) NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade during the Kosovo War of 1999, but in this case also
the showdown is resolved with congruous compensation to the
victims.

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 The Chinese do not much like the new Bush administration.
And only three months from the inauguration another
‘incident’ occurs. In April 2001, in the skies over the island of
Hainan an American Ep-3 spy plane that had been performing
its mission for years, collides with a Chinese fighter plane and
is forced to land. The pilot of the Chinese fighter dies, the
American crew is arrested and accused of espionage. The
American government expresses its regrets for the incident
and the Chinese release the crew. The Ep-3 and all its
electronic equipment however is kept, dismantled, studied,
copied and returned in pieces. The incident is closed.

Another unexpected event brings the two countries closer

together. After September 11 China seizes the opportunity of
putting an end to criticism of its policies of repression of
internal dissent and against the independent movements of
minorities by approving and strongly supporting the war
against global and Islamic terrorism. Beijing votes in favor of
the American proposals before the United Nations and
supports the war in Afghanistan, provides information on real
and presumed Chinese, Pakistani and Uiguri terrorists and
allows them to be arrested and incarcerated in Guantanamo.

China no longer appears as a strategic-military enemy of

the United States but it is still not an ally. The struggle moves
to the economic arena. During that same year the Chinese
People ’s Republic, thanks to the United States, is admitted
into the World Trade Organization. By Western intentions this
should have limited Chinese commercial capabilities: in fact, it
doubles them within one year.

2. The economic and strategic dialogue between the

United States and China,

begun in 2006, is the new forum for tangible rapprochement

and the new Obama administration is expanding and
reinforcing it. Recent talks (July 2009) between the two
administrations concerning the measures to be implemented
to deal with the global crisis are not limited to financial
cooperation and to maintaining Chinese financial support to
the U.S. public debt. The negotiations also cover
environmental and military strategic issues, such as measures

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to contain global warming and control the proliferation of
nuclear weapons, with clear reference to Iran and to
humanitarian crises.

In respect of the global crisis everyone appears to be more

virtuous and cooperative and President Obama can finally
pronounce the words that the Chinese have been pursuing for
thirty years: “strategic partnership”. We do not know if in
uttering these words he was fully conscious of the value that
the Chinese attribute to such terms, but what’s said is said.
And for the Chinese the words of an American president are
worth more than a treaty. For the Chinese “partnership” is not
an alliance or a friendship, it is a sharing among equals.
“Strategic” means that we’re talking of serious issues and
especially of concrete plans, projects and designs. If President
Obama intends “partnership” to mean a relationship between
majority and minority partners, he should explain this to the
Chinese before it becomes necessary for another incident to
make things clear.

‘Strategy’ as understood by the Chinese is not that intuitive

or foreseeable. The one adopted by China in the past thirty
years was on two levels: internal and external, the two not
always connected as they referred to different geopolitical
needs. Within the country, China requires many filters to
prevent the flight of persons, news and resources. That’s why
it needs continuity of central power, the support of
intellectuals, businessmen and investors and the silence of the
masses. So far it has obtained everything. The silent majority
is not a problem and activists of dissent find very few
followers. Even when faced with serious problems (Falungong,
Sars and the protests of minorities and workers) there is no
danger of overturning the central power. Unions do not exist,
although in the past ten years about 60 million workers have
lost their job and the crisis continues to produce
unemployment.

The attacks of September 11 have renewed and reinforced

the repression of ethnic minorities. China immediately
embraced the crusade against international Islamic terrorism
and today it can maintain that it is a member in good standing
of the “global war against terrorism” being led by the United
States because it is combating the Uiguri. Before they were

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simply considered as separatists, independentists and
criminals; today they are “international terrorists”. In-country
China also needs to monitor investments and corruption, crime
and development. The bindings of domestic containment are
tight and it is only planned and explicitly approved arguments
can filter outward.

Outside the country, China requires freedom of movement

and commerce, clear rules and stability. And it is here that the
strategic elements that make up the “pearls” on the string of a
Chinese “necklace” must not limit or obstruct this freedom, nor
can they impair external stability or permit the spread of
anarchy. Thus the strings of Chinese foreign policy are
numerous, placed at different distances and destined for
different purposes.

In its thirty years of pursuing such power factors as raw

material, energy, technology, road infrastructures, lines of
communication, political relations, commercial routes, financial
speculation and political affiliations, China has staked a great
deal on military credibility, industrial and military
modernization and international cooperation. It has built its
geopolitical power network by achieving the control of or its
simple presence in numerous strategic areas.

The continental string of pearls that crosses Myanmar

(Birmania), Thailand, Pakistan and India, is the closest to the
immediate interests of the country, but it is connected to the
string of energy and finance that passes through Iran, the Near
East, Cyprus, North Africa and Portugal. The string of pearls,
essentially military, that connects the East Chinese Sea, the
Straits of Taiwan and the South China Sea is a bit more
external and is both defensive and “offensive” in the sense
that it attempts to attain an area of alleged Chinese
sovereignty that is useful both to freedom of movement and to
underwater exploitation. But this string is connected to a
series of commercial and infrastructural pearls that include the
Pakistani port of Gwadar, a port that plays a much more
important role in the Chinese scheme: it is the westernmost
pearl along the maritime route between the Near East and
southern China and is fundamental to the energy (and military)
interests of China. The other “pearls” are the naval
infrastructures in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia
and the South China Sea.

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 China is also building a port in Sri Lanka, in the city of
Hambantota, which appears to be a naval supply base for
Chinese traffic. Sri Lanka recently defeated the Tamil
separatists with the decisive help of Pakistan, China and
Russia, The latter two are members of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Pakistan, with the full
support of China, has asked to become a full member.

The SCO is an offshoot of the Shanghai Five group founded

in 1996 to improve military security and mutual trust in the
frontier regions between Central Asia and Northern China. In
2001 it became the SCO and in 2004, in Tashkent, it instituted
the Rats, a counter terrorism unit tasked with combating the
three demons: terrorism, separatism and extremism. The SCO
has six regular members, including Russia and China, located
in Central Asia. But in spite of public reassurance, it does not
appear to be destined to remain a regional organization. There
are four “observer” nations (India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia)
that already enlarge its sphere of interest. The United States
asked for the status of observer in 2005 but was refused.
Belarus and Sri Lanka, countries that have nothing to do with
central Asia, are considered dialogue partners. In fact, Belarus
has already asked to become a regular member and in spite
of Russia’s doubts it may succeed. Other invited participants
are Afghanistan, Asean and CIS. The SCO has already been
defined as the “NATO of the east” but for the moment the
similarity to NATO is evidenced not by the level of power but
by the tendency of its members to shrink from common
commitments. Recently Uzbekistan limited the participation of
its forces in the Rats to the role of observers.

But everything that could appear to represent vulnerability

when China is involved tends to become a point of strength.
Beijing has already exercised its regional role becoming the
needle on the scale of numerous crises. It was a point of
reference in the Korean crisis, the Asian financial crisis and the
complex and varied central Asian situation. It has shown fear
of the crises and instability as long as it could manage them to
its own advantage. From the Chinese perspective the SCO,
even if disorganized, can serve to reinforce this role.

3. The global scope of the Chinese strategy can be seen

in many ways: by

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tracking investments, financial speculations, commercial
transactions, the migration of technicians and students,
programs of military cooperation, the flow of strategic
resources, the trips abroad by bureaucrats and speculators
and so forth. But to get a general idea it’s sufficient to check
the destination of diplomatic missions and the changes in
airline destinations. The combination of the two demonstrates
that China is present throughout the globe, even where no one
would expect it to be. The three major Chinese international air
companies have regular flights toward almost anywhere in the
world. They even go to such unusual areas as the Northern
Mariana Islands. China is the only example of a nation that has
permanent diplomatic missions in every nation of the world,
whether it’s a developed nation or one that is broken and
lacerated by war. Where other nations may send mercenaries
or so called humanitarian aid; where the United Nations
believe it’s not even worth being present, China opens an
Embassy and often even Consulates.

Africa and South America are the principal examples

of this sort of geopolitics that extends Chinese presence
well beyond the traditional and expected areas of interest.
In fact, the strings of pearls that reach up to the Near East,
Africa, South America, Panama and the Caribbean are
certainly not for defensive purposes, but are directed at
conquering and preserve the power to control and
penetrate that strategic system of supply that was once
the kingdom of the two blocs and of the colonial powers.
Africa is often described as a continent in the throes of
decline, but it is in Africa that China is staking its future. It’s
a question of economy, resources and industrial interests
as well as political influence. China has official diplomatic
missions in 46 nations of the continent. Many throughout
the world view the Chinese network as a threat that is at
least potential, especially considering the geopolitical and
economic ties that China has with Iran, Sudan, Syria,
Palestine, Yemen, Pakistan, Cuba and Venezuela. And yet,
for many observers, it’s a mystery how China manages to
maintain these relations while simultaneously
consolidating a solid industrial and military relationship with
Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The string of political and financial influence that

appears to be spreading outward from China, and thus from

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the margin of the world, even reaches some islands in the
Pacific, thus penetrating directly into the heart of the
American and Australian area of interest. China is still far
from launching a high seas fleet able to compete with the
United States, but the influence in those islands can
generate political - and potentially military – returns in an
area that is strategically important both for Australia and
the United States and especially for the U.S. Navy which
holds uncontested dominion. In particular, Beijing has
exploited the region’s need for development aid, offering
loans and subsidies free of any political and economic
obligations as are usually applied by the United States,
Australia and international financial institutes. China is
already developing (or expanding) contacts with Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tonga and the Solomon Islands.
In light of the political and ethnic instability that’s already
spreading in many of these nations, it’s easy for Beijing to
be take root in each of these locations by presenting itself
not as an external force of morality – nor as a Maoist or
Communist ideological force - but simply as an interested
Asian country that happens to be well supplied with plenty
of cash.

There’s little chance that Beijing will deploy forces to

the South Pacific in the short term, but relations with island
nations provide it with a strategic instrument to use with or
against American naval power in Asia. The Chinese military
have paid a great deal of attention to developing coastal
batteries of anti ship missile systems that, if needed, could
be deployed along the entire South Pacific and South East
Asia. A chain of islands armed with anti ship missiles could
cause a great deal of delay to the deployment of armed
forces in the region. In the event of a confrontation
between Washington and Beijing, such a chain of islands,
placed along the fundamental routes between the United
States and Australia – and that could potentially extend
along the Indonesian archipelago up to the Indian Ocean –
could really interrupt the exchange and supply routes.
Furthermore, by initiating a psychological war and a war of
nerves it can already influence the economic and military
conduct of the US and their customer States.

Many alarmist descriptions of Chinese expansion in

the Pacific have been reformulated according to the new

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map of terrorism and the Chinese contribution to counter
terrorism. In this field the United States and China plan to
open a new phase of cooperation. China no longer supports
local movements that could be easily accused of
“international terrorism”. Nevertheless, a good part of the
financial ties instituted prior to 2001 are still in force. In
Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Micronesia, Samoa, Tonga
and Vanuatu there are embassies and consulates. The
classification of the largest foreign investors in China, along
with the Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, also
includes the Western Samoas.

In spite of the fact that China has amply

demonstrated that it is already a power thanks to its
geopolitical, strategic and economic capabilities, the United
States and Australia tend to emphasize its military power.
Australia is actually terrorized by the Chinese military
threat and perceives its geographic position as being
“under” China, as if it feared being physically crushed by
the Asian continental mass and the yellow mass that
inhabits it. This is a very old psychosis that also has to do
with the throng of Japanese military moving through the
Pacific during the Second World War and with the mass
migration of the Chinese that had Australia as one of its
favorite goals. In any case, it is unquestionable that this is a
psychosis crated by an excess of geography in making a
geopolitical assessment. The military factor of Chinese
power is in reality much weaker in material and immaterial
factors. It is not obviously inconsistent, but its
overestimation ends up altering the overall judgment
capability.

4. The Chinese armed forces have been

reorganizing and modernizing for more than twenty years.
They have undergone three large reductions passing from a
force of 4 million men and a people’ militia of 20 million in
1984 to the current 2.3 million soldiers, 660 thousand
military police, 800 thousand reservists and 10 million
militia. In spite of the fact that the numbers alone make the
Chinese military structure one of the largest in the world,
the regular forces do not exceed one and a half million
active duty military and the militia, where it still exists, is a
sort of after work activity with an annual opportunity to

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participate in parades or exercises. The official Defense
budget is ridiculous (59 billion dollars for 2008, little more
than the Italian budget and less than a tenth of the
American one). Even if we surmised that it might in actual
fact be double or triple the amount, the levels of
investment are still inadequate as a force to be feared on a
regional or global level.

For this reason the real task of deterrence is

entrusted to several elite and technologically advanced air,
naval and ground units and especially to the strategic and
tactical missile component that has highly respectable
operational capabilities, even though they are still not up to
ensuring global security nor of sustaining a confrontation
with the United States or Russia. The Chinese conventional
force focuses on domestic emergencies or ground based
border activities, using asymmetrical proceedings able to
offset technological deficiencies. The development of a high
seas fleet, nuclear submarines and new missile forces tends
instead to safeguard status and national sovereignty. The
issue of Taiwan or that of the Spratly islands is part of the
latter function while the Uigure and Tibetan problems
overlap the two: if there is no external interference they
remain domestic issues, if there is external interference
they become question of sovereignty requiring the use of
strategic instruments.

On an international level, the climate of suspicion

decreases with the intense cooperation with Russia on the
one hand and the new path taken by Obama on the other.
Australia, New Zealand, India and even the United States
today are very attentive to Chinese proposals of
cooperation and mutual trust. This of course does not mean
that a bordering country such as Japan, India or the United
States will not periodically issue an alarm about the
Chinese threat. India is particularly sensitive both to
Chinese naval maneuvers as well as their land movement
along its borders. While naval movements may cause some
alarm, that of soldiers on foot on the peaks of the Himalaya
certainly cannot represent a crucial threat requiring the
attention of press agencies around the world for every high

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altitude Chinese exercise. But the Indians and the
Americans appear to enjoy this continual “the wolf is at the
door” call for exercises that normally conclude without ever
having fired a shot and with hundreds of frozen and
exhausted soldiers.

5. China is taking advantage of the crisis to

restructure its productive industrial and commercial sector,
to put weak companies out commission and to make
provincial and local governments that often do not follow
the instructions of the central government and evade
paying the taxes owed to Beijing more dependent and thus
more maneuverable.

With the loss of 41 million jobs, the crisis is also

making them lose hope of returning to the “iron bowl”
concept, with guaranteed work for all, including the lazy
and incapable (in addition to dissidents). The qualitative
advantages among the work force will be considerable and
will favor improved production for the next thirty years
since it will be the oldest and the less qualified who will be
sent home. The danger of rebellion by those who are fired
is a real one and they expect to obviate it by a policy of
police and military control and by increasing social
protection measures, making use of voluntary insurance
systems and the ability of local communities to support
themselves. The crisis is also an opportunity to cool the
economy and bring the annual growth to a les chaotic
level. The 9% objective pursued for twenty years and never
reached might be reached this year.

There are also significant repercussions in the sector

of national and international security. Tibetan and Uigure
rebellions have demonstrated that the police, intelligence
and military systems are essential in intercepting and
repressing rebellions. China had planned a “normalization”
of Tibet and Xingjian, envisaging some concessions in
exchange for promises of “harmony”. The two communities
flatly refused and organized their most decisive
demonstrations during the Olympic Games. An affront that
Beijing viewed as a form of looting. It therefore took care
not to appear weak and vulnerable and thus encourage
external rebellions and even attacks. The Chinese police

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regime was strengthened internally invoking the status of
exceptions, but externally it “lost face”. This will never be
forgiven and the increasingly harsher repressions are not so
much a sign of harsher rebellion but of reactions without
scruples.

On an international level China needs to consolidate

the results of a decade old policy of containing external
interference and supporting new and old allies and friends
in Asia, Africa and South America. It must also avoid
attempts at “looting” made by Taiwan, South Korea, Japan,
Vietnam, the Philippines and all the countries with which it
has unresolved issues.

It must be and appear to be strong. China as a

former enemy of Russia and of the United States cannot
even afford the luxury of underestimating the risk that
these powers, directly or through proxies, may strike at
Chinese interests through acts of containment or
embargoes. It must also assure its allies and friends,
including States that are not very malleable, such as North
Korea, Iran and Pakistan, that it will not allow any looting
against them either. International security is pursued with
one eye toward instruments of policy and cooperation and
the other toward military deterrence. It is nevertheless
undeniable that it is in respect of this particular task that
China must deal with more commitments that it has agreed
to and that it can reasonably honor.

Rapprochement between the United States and China

and the possibility of strategic partnership in leading the
world are happening at a most unfortunate time. This is a
historic opportunity that is occurring incidentally (the crisis)
and under material and moral conditions unfavorable to
both. China never dreamed of drawing close to America
under the threat of American insolvency and the United
States never wanted to get close to China hat in hand.
China did not want to show the signs of domestic weakness
so evident because of the Tibetan and Uigure issues and
the United States certainly would never have wanted to be
indifferent to questions of human rights. Obama’s America
cannot dialogue with a China while suffering from
credibility because of the tragic policy of Bush and the
scandals of Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. China
knows that it can yield nothing in terms of national

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democratization and individual liberties. And the United
States know they cannot, must not and wish not to
renounce the prerogatives and responsibilities of a
superpower even though they have been under stress for
years.

6. The likelihood of establishing a Chimerica

according to such geopolitical factors is not a plausible
one. The two partners, although close in some sectors,
have very different indexes of power. To institute a
cooperation of equals China would need to be a super
power or one that would soon become a super power (in a
decade or so). The most favorable estimates in this sense
indicate that such an objective may be achieved by 2038 in
the best of cases and at a constant pace of development, a
pace that is already limited by the current crisis. The most
pessimistic estimates envisage that China will never be a
superpower and that in fact it is close to collapse.

George Friedman of Stratfor, sticking with the

geographic factors, believes that China cannot become a
superpower because it lacks the capability for expansion
since it is blocked in the continent by Siberia, the
mountains and the sea. And since it does not even have a
tradition of maritime power, China is ostensibly condemned
to a regional role. Other scholars believe that the status of
superpower is prevented by the difficulty in managing
resources and by social and demographic dynamics such as
inequality in domestic development, corruption and the
fragility of the Chinese system, still vacillating between
communism and the market, between directorship and
liberalism. All these limitations would appear to prevent
both parity and the objective capability of making an equal
contribution toward forming and managing a new
hypothetical world order capable of stabilizing the planet.

Furthermore, the experience of the United States from

1989 to date has demonstrated that a sole super power,
and one that is in crisis, is not capable of assuming this
global control. According to this logic, even the possibility
that China and the United States might become equals as a

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result of the economic collapse of the latter loses all
meaning: there’s no guarantee that two great powers can
become one super power. Europe for example, is made up
of many medium size powers yet is not capable of carrying
out the functions of a single great power. A Chimerica
composed of a former super power and an almost super
power is a monster even worse than the incestuous fruit of
the superpowers. There remains the possibility that the two
may talk to each other and then do exactly what they want
or that they seek each others’ advice on a football game.
Not so great, but we have to make do.

7. One possibility, though a chimerical one,

would be to relinquish the idea of world order understood
as order imposed and assured by the super powers by
diktats and slaps in the face. We need to restore the Order
of Things. This is not a pun. Nor is it an exhumation of Zen
concepts or of the phenomelogical order that determines
the cause and effect of all biological laws. The Order of
Things is the system that lies beyond our rules and
impositions and that often opposed them. It is the dynamic
order modulated by factors that are just as dynamic and
often ignored. It is the order that rushes to emerge and be
reaffirmed every time it is violated. Violation of the Order of
Things manifests itself as fear, sense of guilt, rancor,
mistrust or as fortune, fortuitous event, accident or
incident. Judging from the incidents, fortuitous events, fears
and rancor that have characterized the past few decades,
Sino American relations and the unipolar management of
the world, it is obvious that world order has done no more
than attack and violate the Order of Things.

The geopolitical world order rests on artificial rules that are

fixed, unchangeable and repetitive, rules in contrast to the
constant free flow of Things. The model of a world order
that we have adopted is mechanical, it is not free and
cyclical. It always issues from the results of wars, not from
peace treaties, that usually alter the results of wars
creating the basis for subsequent conflicts. World order is
destined to perpetuate the order of the conquerors. When
such an order is faced by a crisis caused by an unexpected

14
change in equilibriums we try to construct a new order, but
one that never manages to fulfill all needs and more
important never manages to interpret the sentiment of the
world that it expects to govern. The reason for this
inadequacy is always attributed to the infancy of the
system of order and to its immaturity. Thus enormous
efforts are expended to provide substance to the power
factors that must prevail and to bring the system to a so-
called maturity. A system is considered mature when it
provides the most favorable equilibriums to the power or to
the powers of hegemony. The efforts undertaken to make
the system mature are not just the able political or
geopolitical maneuvers to form alliances or obtain a wider
consensus, to make economies interdependent and
compatible and to raise the standards of living, they are the
disruption of systems that contrast the order imposed, the
subjugation of peoples that do not belong to the system,
the reinforcement of economic and social disparity, the
imposition or rules and bonds, political aggression, an
economic crisis for which others have to pay, speculation,
the weapons race and naturally the wars, small and large,
declared and dissimulated.

When the system is considered mature we are

always surprised that it does not last and that it becomes
necessary to adopt a new one. And everything begins again
in an inevitable samsara: it is the painful cycle of rebirth
according to Buddhism, where the form of rebirth depends
on the actions of a previous life, without having any
memory of that life.

The persistence of that cyclical model and the always

renewed enthusiasm in proposing it can be explained only
by stupidity or by self- interest. There is no reason for the
former, but there is for the latter: perhaps resources and
energies must be dispersed rather than preserved and
perhaps a system that is new, young and even immature
does not disperse as much as one that needs to be
sustained and held together while we daily try to destroy it.

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 The past may teach but unfortunately that doesn’t
mean we are ready to learn. History, even the most similar
to itself, always occurs in different contexts and it is easy to
manipulate it in order to adapt it to contexts that are
inadequate or to reject it. Furthermore, the history of socio-
political systems is always made to coincide with the
history of regimes and empires. And what is affirmed is the
history written by subsequent regimes and empires: those
who won and who hurry to write or rewrite it according to
their own interests. There have always been historians
willing to write and validate the version of the conquerors.
And the intellectuals who launch themselves in revisionist
crusades never do it against the existing system of power
but in its favor.

One might at this point believe that there is no way

out of the system and that the world is condemned to suffer
the imposition of the strong, of the subtle and the
unbalanced. And yet, in the system of the Order of Things
a Chimerica would be a harmonious and compatible entity
exactly because of the different characteristics of each of
the two major components and their need to interact with
all the others: on the same level of respect, because all are
capable of contributing to the general equilibrium, in one
way or another. If Chimerica were understood as a
responsibility of joint leadership and as a catalyst of
energy, China and America would share equally important
roles even though from unequal positions. One might
consider preserving and safeguarding global resources
intended for a more equal distribution. The power factors
would be redefined according to the ability to influence
geopolitics by balancing rather than exasperating. There
would be fewer fears, feelings of guilt and accidents. A
highly chimerical possibility, as I said.

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