fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Why “Speaking Out” About Foreign Protests Is So Often a Mistake

At its worst, it is an exercise in using a foreign political movement to make a point about how important interventionists think the U.S. is to the rest of the world.

James Fallows agrees with Benjamin Carlson’s case for why the U.S. should keep quiet about the protests in Hong Kong:

Why does this matter? Because I am already anticipating the wave of op-ed columns and grumblings on the weekend talk shows about this latest case of Obama’s “weakness” or “passivity” or reliance on “leading from behind.” Anyone who encourages him to get in the middle of this reveals both ignorance of China and indifference to the consequences there [bold mine-DL].

Obviously, I think Fallows and Carlson are correct. It’s this last point in the quote from Fallows that can’t be emphasized enough: people that demand that the U.S. government side with protesters in Hong Kong or in other parts of the world are typically indifferent to the consequences of what they’re demanding. If they weren’t, they would not insist on a course of action that is almost certain to undermine and harm the people that they claim they’re helping. The real trouble with such demands isn’t just that they’re heedless of consequences, but that they are being made mostly as a way of affirming a belief in American “leadership” that has nothing to do with the well-being of any group of dissidents or protesters anywhere in the world. At best, it is a short-sighted indulgence in the beliefs that the U.S. has to “lead” in response to every event around the world and that its “leadership” will be beneficial and welcome. At its worst, it is an exercise in using the people in a foreign political movement to make an unrelated point about how important and necessary they think the U.S. is to the rest of the world.

Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, doesn’t understand any of this, and sent a complaint to the Chinese government about its handling of the protests so far. Predictably, his complaints achieved nothing and earned a rebuke from the Chinese government:

“Hong Kong affairs fall entirely within China’s internal affairs,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Geng Shuang told Foreign Policy. “We hope that some countries and people can be prudent in their words and deeds, refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong in any way, do not support the illegal activities such as the ‘Occupy Central,’ and do not send any wrong signals.”

This one of the many problems with demanding that the U.S. “send signals” to other states. The signal that interventionists think the U.S. is sending is not necessarily the one that will be received, and even when it is the other government’s reaction is typically not the one that the interventionists expect. Instead of being impressed by a “tough” or “strong” response, the other government usually becomes more combative, less accommodating, and more inclined to view the entire situation–whatever it happens to be–as part of some U.S. plot. This last part usually gives Washington far too much credit for advance planning and competence, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that U.S. involvement in a crisis usually provides a very useful distraction from its own mistakes and excesses, and it helps to confuse matters by taking a dispute between a government and some of the people under its rule and turning it into something else. This may make a few American pundits and editorial writers feel better, but it isn’t going to do a thing for anyone else.

Advertisement

Comments

Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here