{"id":2660719,"date":"2026-09-14T09:11:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaign12-11-like-9-11-was-a-disaster-for-the-west\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:20:22","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaign12-11-like-9-11-was-a-disaster-for-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaign12-11-like-9-11-was-a-disaster-for-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"12\/11, Like 9\/11, Was A Disaster For The West"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaign12-11-like-9-11-was-a-disaster-for-the-west%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2660719&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the meaning of china&#8217;s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001, highlighting it as a pivotal event in the shift of global power and the decline of Western dominance. In 2001, China&#8217;s economy was modest compared to major Western nations, but over the past 25 years, it has grown exponentially, surpassing these countries combined in GDP and becoming the world&#8217;s largest exporter of goods, including both cheap and high-end products. This rapid growth has been facilitated in part by China\u2019s strategic use of WTO rules, including illegal subsidies, market restrictions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senior-partners-at-firm-hired-to-review-lincoln-project-scandal-have-donated-thousands-to-group\/\" title=\"Senior Partners at Firm Hired to \u2018Review\u2019 Lincoln Project Scandal Have Donated Thousands to Group\">intellectual property theft<\/a>, and forced technology transfers, enabling Chinese manufacturers to flood Western markets with inexpensive goods and contributing to the decline of western manufacturing industries. <\/p>\n<p>The article criticizes Western leaders for their naivety and overconfidence, believing that integrating China into the global economy would catalyze political and social liberalization akin to democratic values. Promises made by officials like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush about economic liberalization leading to greater freedoms and genuine societal transformations have proven misleading. Instead, China has exploited these assumptions for its own strategic gains, illustrating that political and cultural changes cannot be assured solely through economic integration. the piece reflects on the flawed optimism surrounding China\u2019s WTO accession and questions the effectiveness of Western policies rooted in idealistic notions of social engineering through trade.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On their 25th anniversary this week, the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are being widely remembered as representing the beginning of the fall of the West from undisputed global hegemon to the status of a declining, if not an outright dying, civilization. But an arguably more significant event in this slow demise occurred precisely three months later, on Dec.11, 2001: the People\u2019s Republic of China <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/business\/1702241.stm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">joined<\/a> the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n<p>In 2001, China\u2019s economy was still smaller than those of key major economies such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and France. A quarter of a century later, it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldometers.info\/gdp\/gdp-by-country\/\">dwarfs<\/a> all four nations\u2019 combined GDP. China\u2019s economy is now <a href=\"https:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/reports.aspx?country=CHN%2CUSA%2CLDC&#038;series=NY.GDP.MKTP.CD&#038;source=2&#038;utm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">well over<\/a> ten times larger than it was in 2001. It became the world\u2019s largest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2010\/jan\/10\/china-tops-germany-exports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">merchandise exporter<\/a> in 2009, and no longer just of cheap plastic goods, but also of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/video-looting-suspects-target-home-depot-high-end-store-in-l-a-on-black-friday\/\" title=\"VIDEO: Looting Suspects Target Home Depot, High...End Store in L.A. on Black Friday\">high-end items<\/a> such as cars and consumer electronics. <\/p>\n<p>In part, this growth has been achieved via a regime of officially sanctioned double standards. While benefiting from other WTO members playing by the rules, Beijing has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/education\/learn\/reading\/what-happened-when-china-joined-wto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">performed tricks<\/a> like providing domestic firms with illegal state subsidies, placing onerous taxes on foreign firms to deny them easy access to Chinese markets, and engaging in acts of intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese manufacturers, able to pay their employees lower wages, were then able to evade former trade barriers to flood the West with their products. This then led to further decline in the West\u2019s own manufacturing industries, with American and European factories shuttering. All this is well-known now, with hindsight, and, for those with eyes to see, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epi.org\/publication\/issuebriefs_ib137\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">utterly foreseeable<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n<p>So why did those Western leaders who oversaw China\u2019s WTO accession <em>not <\/em>see the obvious? They were blinded by severe delusions about the disappointing realities of human nature.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Trading Places<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Allowing China to become a WTO member was not simply about economics, but a gigantic and hubristic exercise in attempted social engineering. There is a parallel between political leaders\u2019 post-9\/11 fantasies about the transformation of Muslim populations in Afghanistan and Iraq magically caused by American troops landing there, and equally naive fantasies about the magical transformation of the Chinese people, effected by global free trade rules and Western-style capitalist practices likewise landing there.<\/p>\n<p>Looking back at rhetoric from the tail end of the Clinton administration in 2000, when Clinton and his staff sought to persuade Congress to grant China permanent normal trade relations, one can see a clear parallel with rhetoric from the subsequent Bush administration about the potential civilization-transforming effects of the war on terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov\/2000\/03\/2000-03-08-remarks-of-the-president-on-china.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">speech<\/a> President Clinton made to a Johns Hopkins University\u2019s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington in March 2000 has aged badly not only in terms of its economic predictions (\u201cWe\u2019ll be able to export products without exporting jobs,\u201d and \u201cWe\u2019ll get valuable new safeguards against any surges of imports from China,\u201d Bill incorrectly promised), but even more so in terms of its woefully outdated forecasts about the fundamentals of human nature. As Clinton fondly waffled:  <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products; it is agreeing to import one of democracy\u2019s most cherished values \u2014 economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people \u2014 their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise. And when individuals have the power not just to dream, but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say \u2026 [Once this happens] the genie of freedom will not go back into the bottle. As Justice Earl Warren once said, \u2018Liberty is the most contagious force in the world.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This was a full 20 years before the Chinese state later globalized the coronavirus, of course.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>War On Terror Or War In Error?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There was even a direct parallel with the laughable war on terrorism\u2013era line that exposure to Western economic and social norms would spontaneously liberate Muslim women abroad. Chinese women don\u2019t literally wear burkas, but, promised Clinton\u2019s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, WTO membership would help them throw off such metaphorical headscarves nonetheless: <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Increased trade and investment will also increase contact with foreigners, including Americans, and deepen ties with trading partners who live under very different systems in Hong Kong and Taiwan. That kind of openness should especially help to improve the status of women in China, by giving them new opportunities and by making it easier for them to compare their experiences with those of women in other countries around the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Twenty-six years later, the number of women currently serving in the top level of the Chinese politburo is precisely the same as the number currently serving in the Taliban Council of Ministers: zero.<\/p>\n<p>Following his post-9\/11 invasion of Iraq, on Nov. 6, 2003, Clinton\u2019s successor George W. Bush gave a <a href=\"https:\/\/millercenter.org\/the-presidency\/presidential-speeches\/november-6-2003-remarks-freedom-iraq-and-middle-east\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">speech<\/a> on democracy in the Middle East, in which he began by talking about how WTO-enabled liberalization of the national economy would supposedly boost democracy there:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>China has discovered that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/economic-freedom-falls-in-the-u-s\/\" title=\"Economic ... Falls in the U.S.\">economic freedom leads<\/a> to national wealth. China\u2019s leaders will also discover that freedom is indivisible \u2014 that social and religious freedom is also essential to national greatness and national dignity. Eventually, men and women who are allowed to control their own wealth will insist on controlling their own lives and their own country.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Bush was clear that similar economic reform in the Middle East would produce corresponding results: just change a nation\u2019s socioeconomic doctrines, and the people will change alongside them. Simple \u2014 in theory. In practice, it\u2019s all rather more complicated. The rhetoric from Clinton about China and from Bush about the Middle East tells fundamentally the same lie; all we have to do is change these countries\u2019 corrupt or backward institutions, and they will then automatically become us as a matter of pure political teleology.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t so. Different peoples have different cultures. Giving them unfettered access to our institutions just gives them a chance to undermine them from within. Realistically, China has not become more like us since that largely forgotten dark day of 12\/11, it just exploited this adolescent occidental illusion for its own, geopolitically divergent, ends.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Steven Tucker is a U.K.-based writer whose work appears regularly on both sides of the Atlantic. His latest book is &#8220;Hitler\u2019s and Stalin\u2019s Misuse of Science.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s WTO entry marked a pivotal shift in Western decline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1354,"featured_media":2660720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/38130166875_bae9a5c3c6_k-e1789167661856.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[4164,20976,4919,6039,3841],"class_list":["post-2660719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-disaster","tag-geopolitical","tag-history","tag-terrorism","tag-west"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/38130166875_bae9a5c3c6_k-e1789167661856.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660729,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660719\/revisions\/2660729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2660720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}