To shed light on Chinese cognition and the Chinese psyche behind diplomacy and statecraft is to make people aware of things which they may not have been aware of or have seen on the surface, and to do so in an artistic and creative manner. As Edgar Degas said: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
And as Henry Kissinger noted, deterrence in a Chinese sense is much more complex than the brute nuclear and military deterrence employed by Washington. Kissinger noted that “Chinese statesmen relied on a rich array of diplomatic and economic instruments to draw potentially hostile foreigners into relationships the Chinese could manage.” And perhaps the most important point to note about Chinese deterrence and as has been mentioned before is that: “The highest aspiration was less to conquer…than to deter invasion and prevent the formation of barbarian coalitions.”
Bribery is one way of achieving the overarching aim of deterrence, not just for the Chinese, but also for the hidden powers who govern Washington in this day and age. Kissinger recalled what a Han dynasty minister considered to be the “five baits” which would “dilute” those who seek conquest:
“To give them…elaborate clothes and carriages in order to corrupt their eyes; to give them fine food in order to corrupt their mouth; to give them music and women in order to corrupt their ears; to provide them with lofty buildings, granaries and slaves in order to corrupt their stomach…and as for those who surrender, the emperor [should] show them favor by honoring them with an imperial reception party in which the emperor should personally serve them wine and food so as to corrupt their mind. These are what may be called the five baits.”
Such bribery is not an alien practice in Western metropoles, but to view such a practice as a means of deterrence is something which may not have occurred to us here in the West, given that we are accustomed to military and physical deterrence rather than deterrence through the appetites and through the mind. There are hidden powers who extend the bait to politicians here in Washington, and many have taken the bait. But the hidden powers then cover for the politicians who take the bait, as long as the politicians are being deterred from acting against them.
Hunter Biden, for instance, has made a name for himself for reasons which have not been fully disclosed by the mainstream media in the United States. One high level official who fights international hackers for the government and imprisons and interrogates them informed me that the reason for why there is such controversy surrounding Hunter Biden is because there have been photos of Hunter Biden found on the ‘Dark Web’ engaging in pedophilia. Hence, many politicians in Washington are thoroughly corrupted and are essentially compromised because they have “taken the bait” one way or another.
While covering for Hunter Biden, Donald Trump and George Santos are then made as a spectacle for ‘hush money’ and for fake checks and credit card skimming in order to distract from the fact that there has been no accountability for Hunter Biden or any mention for years now regarding the epic and monumental Ponzi scheme that was the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the bailout and insurance for which Barack Obama signed off on in order to appease his insatiable appetites. Nevertheless, we have now stated the core aim of the powers that be, namely, deterrence, and how deterrence is both complex and that deterrence is also a matter of who is the one deterring and who it is that is being deterred.
Adam A. Azim 