{Editor’s Note: After the United States Capitol Hill conflict that happened on the January 6, 2021, Xinhua published an article to mock the U.S. It stated that “the American ‘beacon,’ which claims to be a benchmark for Western democracy, has fallen” and that “America deserves it.” The following is a translation of the article. {1}
This article may appear to be “convincing” or “speaking the truth” since it mentions a few things that seem to have weakened the United States’ unity and position, including the looting and social turmoil during the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the political in-fighting and society’s split over the Presidential election fraud issue. However, people should keep in mind that the Chinese Communist Party welcomes these and is happy and eager to attribute acts expressing America’s freedom and its ability to correct itself to “the U.S. falling apart.” It is the responsibility of the American people to keep this nation on the right track.}
By Xinhua News Agency Reporter Wu Liming
I heard that the American “beacon,” which claims to be a benchmark for Western democracy, has fallen. I heard about it, but I didn’t see it in person. In the past several days, the whole world saw, through live video streaming, the dreadful images of the symbol of the “beacon,” the U.S. Capitol Hill, being taken over. Trump supporters captured Capitol Hill. The legislators fled, and there were multiple casualties.
It is said that the last time Capitol Hill fell was during the Anglo-American War of 1814. After a lapse of over 200 years, this “fall” in peacetime resulted from using violent means to prevent the orderly transition of power. It has shaken the foundation of “American democracy.” The “American democracy,” maintained for years, fell from its altar. The Spanish paper Le Monde stated that this is the way that American democracy will die. The U.S. New York Times admitted that “this is a blow to the image of a beacon of American democracy.” No wonder politicians in many Western countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States, are heartbroken and call it a “disgrace.” Former U.S. President Barack Obama said that this was “a moment of great dishonor and shame.” Another former U.S. President, Carter, called the Capitol violence a “national tragedy.”
Why are Western politicians so upset? The reason is simple. “American democracy” is the benchmark of so-called democratic politics in the West, and this so-called American “beacon” is the “backbone” of the Western world. Since the Cold War, the Western world has used newspapers, books, and Hollywood blockbusters to tell the “American dream” and the “American story,” to promote American democracy and American values to the world. The U.S. Capitol Hill and the Statue of Liberty always appear as the benchmarks. The United States has long described itself as a “city upon a hill” and a “beacon to the world.” Americans are “God’s chosen people” and always stand on the so-called “moral high ground,” guiding and even intervening in other countries’ “democracy and freedom.”
As a result, after the end of the Cold War, the theory of the “end of history” was very popular. So was the U.S. as a “country on the hill.”
Now the bloody scenes in the highest palace of American politics have torn off the “painted cover” of “American democracy.” No matter how painstakingly it has been packaged, it cannot be covered up. American politics is not only a “house of cards,” but also leans toward a “color revolution.” Bloody riots and street violence that used to be seen in places overseas where the United States spared no effort to promote “color revolution,” are now playing in the center of the “beacon.” Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, called the images “Maidan-style” [a reference to the popular uprising that pushed Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly President, Viktor Yanukovych, out of power in 2014]. American Foreign Policy stated that “the United States had become what American leaders so often decried,” which is truly a great irony.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. In the United States today, the raging pandemic is intertwined with multiple crises such as economic recession, a high unemployment rate, and heightened racial conflicts. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and society is more divisive. At present, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States has exceeded 22 million, and the total number of fatalities has exceeded 370,000. The Federal Reserve report shows that in 2020 the top 1 percent and 10 percent of the richest U.S. population accounted for 30.5 percent and 69 percent of all household wealth, respectively, while the poorest 50 percent only accounted for 1.9 percent of all household wealth. This gap keeps growing at a faster rate.
Since last year, protests, urban riots, beatings, smashing, looting, and burning during the pandemic have become the “landscape” on the streets of the United States. “Black Lives Matter” has become one of the most well-known slogans. Many experts believe that the democratic system in the United States has become a game in which a small number of elites manipulate public opinion to maximize their interests. In the process, American democracy has not only failed to guarantee social fairness and justice effectively but has increased social inequality and even polarization the nation to a considerable extent. Because of this, the United States today has become a “failed country” in the eyes of its allies. Francis Fukuyama, the author of the book The End of History and the Last Man admitted that “America is the failed state.” Some Western media are full of “sympathy” for what happened to the United States, and even “take pity” on the Americans for the first time. The United States has the lowest favorability rating in history among its European allies.
In spite of the various “maneuvers” of the United States in its foreign policy. The U.S. government upholds “America First,” and blindly tries to maximize its interests, ignoring international morality. It has lost its moral high ground through a series of unilateral operations. From “dropping out (of international groups or treaties),” an addiction to sanctions, and an addiction to fighting trade wars at every turn to “long-arm jurisdiction” blacklisting companies from other countries, the United States has never solved its problems but created more difficult problems. Even Bolton, the former U.S. National Security Adviser, pointed out that the Trump Administration’s “capricious foreign affairs” and “deal-making tactics” have caused “serious chaos” in the world and among its allies. “It is not surprising that it has severely weakened the United States on the world’s stage.” The Spanish Foreign Policy pointed out that the riots on Capitol Hill proved to the United States and the world that “the emperor’s new clothes have been dismantled, and the United States can no longer lead the world.”
There is no doubt that the “fall” of the U.S. Capitol Hill is a “dark moment” for American democracy. It not only highlights the shortcomings of Western-style democracy but also shows that Western-style democracy has failed. This is a major dishonor in the political history of the United States and the West. Its impact is still growing. It is said that a new street movement supporting Trump is already in preparation, and Washington and Capitol Hill remain the targets. I want to ask when the American founders built the Capitol Hill, didn’t they expect that this “beacon” would eventually be defiled and would “fall”?
America deserves it!
Endnote:
{1} Xinhua, “On the Fall of the American ‘Beacon,’” January 12, 2021.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2021-01/12/c_1126973955.htm.