Take Nothing for Granted

Recently, a tariff storm launched by the U.S. president against nearly every country has completely changed the world we were once accustomed to. This change has suddenly plunged many people into hardship, and these days many have felt their adrenaline surge. Both outside and inside the United States, vast numbers of people have been affected by this policy, having already lost or being about to lose the means by which they used to make a living.

At the same time, the U.S. president has been chatting and laughing with several wealthy friends in the White House, boasting that his policies helped them earn billions of dollars in a single day. This scene is deeply unsettling: while ordinary people's livelihoods hang in the balance, financial oligarchs feast on the suffering of the poor, all while styling themselves as saviors. Such hypocrisy is nauseating.

But if we examine the roots of today's great upheaval closely, we may actually have reason to be grateful that the old world has been exposed. Eight billion people on Earth have somehow become hostage to the consumption habits of 340 million Americans, whose extravagant lifestyles were sustained by debts owed to the whole world. Now that those debts are unsustainable, they can still use this inertia of consumption to hold the world hostage, showing us who the real power lies with.

A pathologically narcissistic and rude U.S. president openly threatens and extorts the world, using harsh words to humiliate other leaders, acting with impunity and without decorum. This gives us pause for thought: must humanity continue to develop in such a distorted way? Must we risk everything to support debt-financed American consumption, only to be periodically exploited, bullied, and humiliated? Are the old rules still trustworthy?

In the past we did not reflect on this. Now that the crisis is before us, we should see that the social operating mechanisms we have long taken for granted are in fact pathological and harbor enormous crises. Because they are unfair and unbalanced, such a model is not sustainable in the long run. Once it blows up, everyone will suffer. No matter how economists glorify this mode of development, when the consequences of this distorted model reveal themselves, we will all have to taste the bitter fruit together.

The U.S. president is a gambler who now wants to play for high stakes, using this aggressive approach to force everyone to help absorb U.S. debt; if he succeeds, he can extort a huge sum. But if such a risky gambit fails, it will affect the livelihoods of countless households. Yet he has little choice: the imminent debt-repayment pressure on the U.S. government leaves him almost betting everything. His methods of extorting the world are indeed crude, but clearly the snowballing U.S. debt was a time bomb waiting to go off sooner or later; he has merely accelerated the timetable.

I suspect the second half of my life will witness another model of coordinated global development, though for now we cannot yet see what it will look like. What is certain is that, in the information age, no one can pull the world back into isolation, and people everywhere will no longer allow an unbalanced, unchecked development model to repeat itself.

The world has already changed irreversibly because of technological progress. People across the globe share one breath and one fate; a single thread pulled moves the whole body. No individual, and no country, can act recklessly while ignoring others' survival, or the whole world will rise up against them. After all, what difference is there between taking away someone's livelihood and committing arson and murder? When it comes to a battle for survival, who yields easily?

When former U.S. President Biden gave his farewell address, he remarked that the United States was heading toward oligarchy. His observation is correct: U.S. politics today is an oligarchy controlled by the president and his wealthy backers, and this oligarchy is influencing the whole world. But can this world really be controlled by a handful of greedy and willful oligarchs?

I doubt it. The people may float a boat, but they may also capsize it; popular sentiment can shake the foundation of any political order. However powerful the oligarchs, they cannot match the strength of eight billion people. The wrath of the many is hard to defy; once provoked, it is like playing with fire. The U.S. president's provocations have aroused strong resentment among ordinary people worldwide, and an even greater storm may be brewing.

Ancient Chinese people summed up the essence of politics in eight characters: a just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little. History offers no shortage of such lessons, past and present, East and West. If the silent majority of the world casts a vote of no confidence in this oligarchy, it will generate a force capable of sweeping everything before it, a force that will make these gluttonous oligarchs pay a terrible price.

U.S. Treasuries, the U.S. dollar, and U.S. stocks have all shown signs of being sold off. The silent majority is expressing, through its actions, its anger toward the president and his backers. The tariff war may yet topple a domino, triggering a chain of consequences different from what he expected, unleashing heaven-and-earth waves in world finance and politics that will not only bystanders but also swallow those who started it.

Such times of upheaval also teach each of us a lesson: none of us should take anything for granted in this world. The patterns we have grown accustomed to may harbor serious problems and collapse one day. We should think of danger in times of peace, remember that crisis may arrive at any moment, and continuously learn to improve our survival skills, building up reserves of knowledge and ability for the future. We must adapt at any time to a changing world and forge new ways forward, or we will inevitably be eliminated.