American values are in decline

On January 6, the U.S. Capitol was captured by rioters. Demonstrators and police clashed violently, causing one death and many injuries. This incident exposed the weakness of democracy and human rights in America.

It is worth pointing out that the siege of the Capitol is not entirely unexpected, but an inevitable result of the development of American politics in the past years. American values were questioned in all countries including the West.

After World War II, a series of so-called universal values, which the U.S. had strongly advocated, were seen as the cornerstones of the global order. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the influence of the American value system reached its peak. However, history had not evolved in accordance with America’s original visions and plans. The United States, taking advantage of its global dominance, has long installed their interpretation of values around the world, while many developing countries found it difficult to make their voices heard.

In recent years, this situation is changing. One reason is that the value system which the U.S. advocated did not always come off with positive economic and social impacts, therefore its role model effect and influence in the world fell sharply. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the poor enlarged and social stratification entrenched. People are not optimistic about their future. Polls show that most Americans have lost their confidence and trust in American political elites and believed that they did not represent American people. In the U.S., people’s dissatisfaction with American democracy has become a common phenomenon, and that is why populism prevails in American society. From the beginning of 2020, when the COVID-19 virus spread across the globe, the United States, which used to claim itself as most-democratic and paying the highest attention on its people, was facing the most severe situation with more than 20 million confirmed cases and near400,000 deaths while the number are still piling up.

On the other hand, what the United States has done was a full illustration of its double standards and hypocrisy, which further weakens its global influence. Democracy and human rights are only enjoyed by a group of American people. The United States took the liberty of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and subverted their regimes. Many countries, such as Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, have suffered enough from power politics. In the Unites States, African-American groups have lived under discrimination, which has triggered the "black lives matter" protests. Although it failed to satisfy its own people, the United States is still judging and playing out its double standards on other countries. Populism is prevalent in American society, but the government continues to promote unilateralism and set obstacles to free trade and foreign investment, which obviously violates the American values it preaches.

In essence, the fact that the American value system has been able to leverage the world for so long is not because of its universality, but because of the strong American strength in military, economy, technology, and science. In the past 10 years, however, the large-scale financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis broke out across the world. Faith in the invincibility of American economy is collapsing. As the U.S. tries to suppress Chinese private enterprise Huawei, it has obviously realized the big challenge ahead.

Collapse of American values is rooted in decline of the overall strength of the United States. Hard indicators such as GDP, manufacturing capacity, and technological strength can explain this fact. But soft power, especially international influence of its values, is a fundamental problem.

It is recognized by all that the chaos in American politics are just the symptom of America’s problems, not the cause. Social and political problems have run deep in American society. The US-dominated world is gone.

The United States has long been advertising its values, and now it’s time to learn the truth and pay the price. American value system is neither a quick fix, nor a contemporary Bible. More self-examination, less prejudice; more tolerance, less rejection will be good to the US itself, and the world will be better.

Contributed by Zhang Jian, Assistant President of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, and concurrently Director of the CICIR Institute of European Studies

Translated by Ren Meiqi