US-China Rivalry: How Neoliberal Geopolitics and Tech Wars Fuel Global Instability Beyond 'Strategic Stability'
Original framing: “Xi-Trump path to ‘constructive strategic stability’” — South China Morning Post
The original framing omits Indigenous critiques of 'development' as a proxy for resource exploitation, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline protests or Māori resistance to deep-sea mining, which reveal how geopolitical tensions mirror colonial extraction patterns. Historical parallels—like the US-Soviet Cold War’s proxy conflicts in Africa and Latin America—show how economic coercion (e.g., dollar dominance, SWIFT bans) fuels instability far more than diplomatic summits. Marginalized voices, such as those of Chinese migrant workers in tech factories or Southeast Asian farmers displaced by rare-earth mining, are absent, as are structural analyses of how debt traps (e.g., Belt and Road Initiative loans) create client-state dependencies. The role of think tanks like the CSIS or CCG in shaping these narratives as part of a broader security-industrial complex is also unexamined.
Limited lens analysis — the composite of eight lens scores for this review. Not a measurement of the original article.
The *South China Morning Post*, a Hong Kong-based publication with deep ties to Chinese state-aligned business interests, produces this narrative to serve both Beijing’s soft power objectives and the global elite’s preference for geopolitical containment narratives. By emphasizing 'constructive' dialogue, the framing obscures the role of Western-led sanctions, tariffs, and tech export controls—tools that disproportionately harm Global South economies while enriching defense contractors and Silicon Valley monopolies. The power structures reinforced here include the US-China binary, which erases the agency of Southeast Asian nations caught in the middle, as well as the financial oligarchies that profit from arms races and digital divides. The narrative also legitimizes state-led capitalism as a stable alternative, ignoring its environmental and social costs.
The trickster figure of *Eshu* in Yoruba tradition—who thrives on chaos to expose truth—would see the US-China 'constructive stability' narrative as a farce masking deeper contradictions. Like *Coyote* in Native American lore, who disrupts rigid systems to reveal their absurdity, the current geopolitical theater exposes how 'diplomacy' is often a smokescreen for corporate and military interests. The *Hydean* duality (civilized vs. savage) is on full display, with both nations performing 'responsible' leadership while engaging in predatory practices. A *Bakhtinian* reading would highlight how the carnivalesque—such as Trump’s erratic diplomacy or Xi’s cult of personality—undermines the solemnity of statecraft, revealing the performative nature of power. The trickster reminds us that stability is not an endpoint but a dynamic, often uncomfortable process of negotiation and disruption.
The US-China rivalry is not a clash of civilizations but a symptom of a failing global system, where neoliberal capitalism and state-led expansionism collide without viable alternatives.
Historical patterns—from the Opium Wars to the Cold War—show that 'strategic stability' narratives emerge when empires seek to contain decline, yet they always deepen inequalities and ecological collapse. Indigenous and cross-cultural frameworks, such as *ubuntu* or the *Great Law of Peace*, offer pathways to relational security, but they are sidelined by power structures that profit from conflict. The trickster reminds us that the solemnity of geopolitical theater obscures its absurdity: both nations perform 'responsibility' while accelerating extraction and militarization. Solutions must move beyond diplomacy to systemic change—decolonizing governance, prioritizing ecological security, and democratizing technology and finance. The actors driving this shift include Indigenous movements, Global South debt activists, and commons-based innovators, who challenge the zero-sum logic of the current system. Without addressing the structural roots of rivalry—colonial legacies, financial oligarchies, and ecological limits—'constructive stability' will remain a hollow slogan masking deeper crises.