THIS article concludes my series on the New Cold War. The other parts looked at Russia and the USA separately. At the beginning of the series, I opined that China will outmanoeuvre the US and will have more support from the nations of the world than the US.|

They say a picture paints a 1000 words and one picture on the internet will show who will win the New Cold War.
The President of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was warmly greeted at the airport in Beijing by the Chinese President and his wife. When he visited the US, not even a Cabinet member was at the airport. The DRC is not a key player in Africa, yet President Xi, the leader of a superpower nation, greeted him at the airport.

That simple video clip tells the story of the difference between the US and China in their rivalry. The US empire started out as a militaristic venture and it has remained like that since 1945. The US has over 250 military bases all over the globe.

It sees power in militaristic terms. For example, the US has put enormous sanctions on Russia for invading the Ukraine. Do you think you can correctly guess which import from Russia that the US buys that is exempted? It is uranium.

China on the other hand, sees the quest for global control through economic ventures, thus its strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative. The simple fact of the matter is that China learnt from the lessons of the infamous American mistakes.

The US dominated the world after 1945 through coercion and militarism, with aid taking a low priority. In the 1970s, the United Nations adopted a policy of asking developed countries to spend 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Income on development aid to the Third World. The only developed country that never met the 0.7 per cent requirement was the US.
China has done the opposite to the US. It is seeking global influence through the use of resource donations. There is only one word to describe the prodigious delivery of Chinese resources to the Third World – fantastic.

The Chinese is the world’s busiest superpower and the world’s most generous superpower to date. China is all over the Third World and the world in fact, using investments as a mechanism of extending their global reach. I just saw on YouTube, a social media influencer boasting about that Chinese infrastructural aid to Jamaica.
The second lesson the Chinese have learnt is that while the Americans and Western powers have canopied their presence in the Third World through special housing areas, the Chinese have not built exclusive districts for themselves in the Third World.

The Chinese are astute enough to know that the surest way of alienating the local population is appearing like colonials.
Glenn Lall, Ravi Dev and I once had dinner with a Chinese ambassador. It was phenomenal to see the modesty of this man. He summoned the consular officers to meet with us. It was equally phenomenal to see how modest these young men were.

We went through no metal detector examination. I could never imagine any Western ambassador behaving with such friendliness.
The Americans woke up one day and found out they have a superpower rivalry – China. But the Americans are still to ask themselves why the Chinese became so globally dominant. And even if they know the answer, they are afraid to acknowledge it.

The Chinese did not come with offers of building a military base to confront the “bad guys” who want to dominate the world. When they came they ask which economic programme they can be of assistance with.

The third lesson the Chinese have learnt from American domination of the world is the need to avoid supporting international wrongs. One US ministry alone has about the same staff that a combined 10 ministries of another developed country has.

Yet you wonder how capable was and is the US in understanding the world. It took the side of the apartheid regime and in that conflict it stood alone among other world powers
The US is the main backer of Israeli governments–past and present–that have reduced and are reducing the Palestinian people to living in a mode of apartheid.
How in a game of superpower rivalry with China, the US hopes to have the Third World on its side when the US sides with such inhuman treatment of an entire race of people?
Space has run out, but I will close with an assertion; given the philosophical differences in how the US and China see people and the world, my bet is China will win the New Cold War.