DAVID BROOKS

David Brooks is a sophisticated commentator of the American res publica. Given his often accurate insight and unsparing observations one wonders how he can still call himself a Republican. True, the GOP of former days had in its code of manners a certain amount of excellence, although often unevenly shared and often ignored. Still he represents a moral and enlightened alternative to the current gutter slang which has taken hold of the ruling discourse of this administration.

Brooks and others should follow the lead of French intellectuals who do not shun visibility or controversy and who play a major role in shaping the ying and the yang of the debates regarding society. To follow up on this Chinese reference, it might be appropriate to return to Brooks' last editorial in the New York Times "How China brings us together."  He suggests that China is a threat to the United States and the world order and that Americans should come together upon the realization of this ominous danger.

He mentions, rightly so, China's murky record regarding intellectual property and its many transgressions in areas that are too numerous to mention:  democracy, human rights, South China Sea, trade...and one can go on. He also mentions that the Chinese government has nevertheless the highest level of social trust worldwide, after the Netherlands!  Hence there must still be something laudable in Xi Jinping's claim for China's place in the modern world.

Brooks' premise is wrong. The menace for the world order is not China but Trump's America. Bluff, menace, push, trade wars are the province of the mostly immature and uninformed. The world is fed up with the vulgar, corrupt trickle down lies and turns against the United States. Europe, the dispensable ally now, might end up accommodating the Russian bear (for energy) and the Chinese dragon (out of infatuation) rather than being lectured by gross amateurs.  

China's policies in Xinjang or Gansu are frankly racist, almost Trumpish. The Tibet brutal "assimilation" is still going on. The intellectual debate in China is mostly "underground". On the other hand one should not underestimate the chauvinistic DNA in the Han psyche. Nor should one forget the Chinese resentment against the West which is stronger than any form of corrective introspection. Beijing does take its historical memory and recuperation seriously. When the US condemns (rightly so) the intellectual theft which is rampant, the Chinese never fail to point at the US record of malpractice: the looting after World War II of (i.a.) Germany's know-how and hijacking of its engineers and scientists, be them guilty of Nazi sympathies or not. China's role in South America and Africa today might be ambiguous but it does fare better than most Western incursions in previous times.

China is a formidable competitor, unhindered by democratic excess (as seen lately in the aborted NYC Amazon deal). The real enemy however is within America's walls. Trump roams the world alleys like Godzilla. The clear-eyed thinkers like Brooks, Nye, Nasr had better lay the blame where it belongs. They should start to mobilize a majority of Americans who are tired of being deprived of values and dignity. The political class--Democrats included--looks too puerile to be taken seriously for now. Maybe some might mature but meanwhile the chorus of wise men and women has to take the lead in a country which is at risk. Only an American revival can save others, Europe in the first place, from the fallacy of ennui. Brooks mentions the need for reform and repair against China.  He is right to prescribe the prescription, he is wrong in targeting China.