President Xi laid down four red lines in his conversation with President Biden.

According to Business Insider, President Xi laid down four red lines in his recent conversation with President Biden. The four hot-button issues are Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China's path and system, and the country's rights to development.  I do not claim to understand exactly what any of these lofty pronouncements really mean, but I believe the essence of Beijing’s position is that the United States does not have the right to tell China how to define and organize its own country, nor to thwart it’s development.  In principal, I actually agree with that position, but the problem arises when China’s objectives threaten our own, and I believe that they constitute a major threat, not only to our objectives, but to our very existence.

American leadership is intent on maintaining American dominance of the way in which the world organizes itself.  We don’t like the term dominance and refer to it as world leadership, but many of our foreign friends see it differently, and are increasingly open to Chinese initiatives that appear to offer a better way forward.  Combine this with the ongoing breakdown of American society and you have a formula for World War III.  Too many Chinese and American politicians are too intent on quarreling with one another over issues that should be resolved through negotiations.  The fundamental problem facing us is how to transform that hostility into problem solving solutions that benefit all.  We can’t even do it domestically, so I am not surprised that we have trouble developing a foreign policy that can accomplish it out in the world.

As I have said repeatedly in previous articles, the problem is in us - you and me.  I suggest that we are more interested in maximizing our individual personal advantages than we are in helping our fellow human live a better life.  We scoff at those like myself, that argue that it is in our own narrow interest to look out for our neighbor, and insist that we will only help those that agree with us about everything that we deem “important.”  Were I influential enough, I would reestablish our military dominance and reintroduce our effort to improve the lives of all humans clinging to this increasingly small rock spinning aimlessly in space.  My pessimism derives not from Xi, Putin, or the Ayatollah, it arises because of what I see here in America, where you and I are tearing ourselves apart in a rich person’s argument about the sign on the bathroom door, the price of whatever, and our precious feelings.  You and I do not give a fig for the lives of the millions of people that are living miserable existences outside of our non-existent borders and we refuse to see the relationship of that to the growing foreign threat that exists.

We pretend to be ignorant of the fact that nuclear weapons have fundamentally changed things.