Western Projection: Creating Enemies to Maintain Power | Dr. Jan Oberg

## Academic Freedom and Misconceptions About Life in China The image many in the West hold of China—a grey, repressed society where open debate is impossible—collapses under the weight of direct encounter. The conversation with Dr. Jan Oberg underscores a simple but powerful corrective: go and see. First‑hand experience of Chinese cities, universities and villages, he reports, tends to unsettle media-driven caricatures. Tourists and visiting scholars return describing bustling high‑speed trains, clean stations, lively cultural life and people who are curious, hospitable and eager to converse. Those anecdotes do not deny the existence of political constraints or legitimate concerns about rights and governance; rather, they complicate the single‑note story that circulates in much Western reportage. Academic life, too, is more textured than stereotypes suggest. Conferences in China bring together a wide range of international scholars and local intellectuals, creating spaces for exchange that can be genuinely open and productive. The World Conference on China Studies, attended by hundreds from dozens of countries, demonstrates that China can host pluralistic academic dialogue—even on contested subjects like security and development. Oberg’s account invites Western academics to abandon passive consumption of second‑hand narratives and to prioritize direct engagement. For those invested in understanding a shifting global order, this is not optional curiosity; it is a strategic necessity. At the same time, the conversation warns against romanticizing everything. Visiting China altered impressions for many precisely because it revealed rapid socio‑economic transformation—lifted out of poverty, modernized infrastructure, and a pervasive sense of societal ambition. Those transformations do not erase repression, nor do they compel automatic endorsement. Rather, seeing the complexity of life in China provides a firmer basis for assessing its policies and makes it harder to reduce Beijing to a singular moral villain in distant editorials. ## Chinese Concepts of Peace vs. Western Militarism One of the most striking contrasts highlighted in the exchange is the conceptual gap between how China frames peace and how Western security establishments have tended to frame it. Oberg points to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, embedded in Chinese constitutional language and diplomatic practice, as an enduring intellectual commitment to negotiation, respect for sovereignty, and non‑interference. These principles shape diplomatic rhetoric and, arguably, provide an alternative logic for organizing international relations—one that prizes stability through mutual accommodation rather than constant competitive primacy. By contrast, the Western security paradigm—especially that emanating from NATO and U.S. strategic orthodoxy—often privileges long‑range deterrence, forward deployment and the threat of high‑tech force as guarantors of order. The conversation’s critique is not merely semantic: building security around the capacity to inflict violence at great distances normalizes arms races and encourages securitized responses to political problems. From Oberg’s perspective, China’s approach, imperfect as it may be, places more emphasis on institutionalized dialogue and economic interdependence as preventive tools against conflict. That difference is consequential: it suggests that peace policy can be integrated into statecraft as a proactive design principle, not merely a reactive project of arms control and post‑war reconstruction. The gap is also intellectual. Despite the resonance of non‑Western concepts of coexistence, peace and conflict studies remain underdeveloped in China’s academic landscape, according to Oberg. This absence is paradoxical and offers an opportunity: if China were to institutionalize peace research and nonviolence studies, it could broaden the repertoire of global peace practice and challenge a West‑dominated security imaginary. ## The Dominance of Western Narratives in Global Studies The conversation sketches a blunt diagnosis of academic hegemony: global international relations curricula remain overwhelmingly shaped by American scholarship. Textbooks, canonical theories and methodological habits tend to circulate from U.S. institutions to the rest of the world, while non‑Western intellectual traditions are marginal in syllabi. Oberg’s claim—that much of what students read comes from one intellectual context—should read as a provocation to decolonize knowledge production and diversify curricula. This dominance matters politically. A discipline trained primarily on Western canonical texts is likely to reproduce Western assumptions about sovereignty, intervention, and the legitimacy of force. It leaves students ill prepared to interpret different modes of statecraft, economic integration and diplomacy emerging from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The result is a perilous mismatch: Western publics make policy choices about relations with rising powers while understanding those powers through truncated lenses. The remedy is both simple and demanding. Universities should internationalize reading lists, invite scholars from a wider array of civilizational traditions, and encourage comparative methodologies that treat Chinese, African, and Latin American insights as primary, not supplementary. The conferences Oberg attended suggest this is feasible: global gatherings can create cross‑fertilization, but sustained change requires the slow work of curricular reform and institutional encouragement. ## The Belt and Road Initiative as a Peace Project Viewed through the lens of peace research, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) looks less like an imperial land grab than like a large‑scale experiment in connective infrastructure and mutually beneficial exchange. The conversation reframes the BRI as a strategy that, in principle, builds horizontal linkages—roads, ports, railways and economic corridors—that lower the transactional friction of cooperation. From a conflict‑prevention standpoint, fostering reciprocal dependence and equitable trade reduces incentives for violent contestation and creates layered interdependence. Critics in the West have emphasized risks—debt traps, geopolitical leverage, environmental costs—and those concerns are valid empirical questions for rigorous study. Yet Oberg’s point is methodological: interpreting connectivity primarily through the lens of power politics misses the peace‑building logic that undergirds many infrastructure projects. Where development and mutual investment are structured to be win‑win, they can create durable incentives against aggression. Conversely, when infrastructure becomes a vehicle for predatory terms or opaque governance, it ceases to be stabilizing. The BRI thus stands as a test case for an alternative security strategy: can economic architecture be designed to prevent conflict rather than merely prepare states to fight? If the answer is yes, then Western approaches that reflexively securitize economic ties will need to be rethought. ## Psychological Projection: Why the West Paints China as an Enemy A recurring theme in the conversation is the psychological mechanism of projection: an anxious great power tends to attribute hostile motives to rising competitors in ways that mirror its own insecurities. Oberg suggests that part of the hostility directed at China is less about facts on the ground and more about the West’s internal narrative needs—constructing an external enemy to justify military spending, alliance cohesion, and political primacy. Projection functions on several levels. Politically, framing China as an expansionist threat unites disparate domestic constituencies around a common external danger; militarily, it rationalizes investments in new weapons systems and global deployments; culturally, it simplifies a complex foreign society into a monolithic antagonist. Once e

Western Projection: Creating Enemies to Maintain Power The global center of gravity is shifting. One way we see this clearly is by the number of important conferences that are being organised outside the Collective West. My guest today recently visited two of those recently in China. Dr. Jan Oberg is joining us today again to discuss what he learned there. Links: Jan Oberg’s Article on China: https://thetransnational.substack.com/p/two-conferences- in-shanghai-reflections Jan's article on Trump’s Gaza plans: https://thetransnational.substack.com/p /trumps-gaza-peace-plan-a-cruel-joke Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00: 03:37 Academic Freedom and Misconceptions About Life in China 00:09:09 Chinese Concepts of Peace vs. Western Militarism 00:15:16 The Dominance of Western Narratives in Global Studies 00:19: 46 The Belt and Road Initiative as a Peace Project 00:24:25 Psychological Projection: Why the West Paints China as an Enemy 00:30:34 Western Solipsism and the Danger of Being "Number One" 00: 34:52 Managing the Decline of the Western Empire 00:39:10 BRICS, US Isolationism, and the Refusal to Cooperate 00:41:30 Lessons from the Cold War: Can Europe Regain Rationality? #Pascal The global center of gravity is shifting. One way we see this clearly is by the number of important conferences now being organized outside the collective West. My guest today recently visited two of those conferences in China. Dr. Jan Oberg is joining us again to discuss what he learned there. Jan, welcome back. #Jan Oberg Thank you so much, Pascal. It's a great joy to be here. And I suppose you want me to say a few words about these conferences—yes. #Pascal Because you were invited there, you attended, and they were related to peace and security. Could you maybe talk us through them a little bit? #Jan Oberg Yeah, the first one was a huge event with about 500 participants from 50 countries, all invited by China—the municipality of Shanghai, the party, and many other high-level participants and speakers. It was the World Conference on China Studies. And, you know, that wasn’t only focused on security. -- 1 of 16 -- It brought together a variety of perspectives on Chinese culture and society from people all over the world who study China, visit China—like me, and so on. But I was pretty surprised, because I want to emphasize that I’m not a China expert. I never was, and I never will be. My inroad to China, as you know, is that I’m interested in China’s way of conceiving peace through the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence—how they approach defense, how they conduct foreign policy, and how the Chinese have a vision of a better world, if you will, with the Belt and Road Initiative and all that. So there was ample opportunity to meet people who were, first of all, like-minded and curious about China—which we generally are not in the West. And secondly, to get a lot of input about what other people do who study China, including those who see China as part of a global transformation and as a security actor, also a peace actor. And third, what I think is important is that many other countries ought to do the same, because when you bring together 500 people from all over the world, it means dialogue. It means mutual learning. It means exchanging views and, if you will, handling differences in how we perceive things. And that, in and of itself, beyond the academic purpose, actually leads to some kind of peace. You know, a step toward peace is mutual understanding—listening to each other, having seminars, saying, “Oh, I disagree with you. I’m surprised you have those views. Explain them to me more.” And, you know, that happens both at the formal conference and also over dinners and breakfast in the morning at the hotel, things like that. So it was—I mean, I wish more countries would do the same. But of course, you have to have a lot of money to invite 500 people, right? And the other conference was the 10th-anniversary celebration of the Institute of China at Fudan University, which is run by Professor Shen Weiwei. #Pascal There’s this preconceived notion in the West that in an autocratic country like China, you can’t really speak your mind and there’s no genuine academic freedom—that you’re only free to say what follows the party line. What do you say to people who think that? #Jan Oberg Go there and see for yourself—that’s all I say. I mean, there are so many misconceptions, all stemming from the media. Ordinary citizens, including my neighbors and others, ask, “How can you go to a dictatorship? Why do you go there all the time?” And I say, “Excuse me, go there yourself and see, because that’s the only thing that’ll convince you.” And I tell you, Pascal, I haven’t met anyone who went to China, traveled around for two or three weeks—either with a tour group or individually, like I do—and came home saying, “Yeah, it was a terrible place. People were unkind. Everyone looked repressed and gray. It’s clearly a dictatorship, like Czechoslovakia during the Cold War or the Soviet Union.” #Jan Oberg -- 2 of 16 -- I've never met anybody who came home and said that. Everybody comes back and says, "It was totally different from what I read in the media. It has nothing to do with all those stories, you know." #Jan Oberg I'm not exaggerating, Pascal. I know lots of people who haven’t been to China, and they have very negative views. And I know even more people who’ve been to China, traveled around, had a reason to go there for business or tourism or whatever, and they come back with a completely different view. #Jan Oberg I'm not saying everything’s okay. #Jan Oberg I mean, that’s not the point. The point is—what I tell everyone I talk with—you don’t have to be pro- China, and you don’t have to be anti-China. But you do have to be curious about China, because it’s a fundamentally important country. For the future of the world, whether you like it or not, you’d better learn about it. And secondly, don’t learn from the media. It’s impossible to sit in the West and really learn about China—that much I can say. You have to go there. And the other thing is, it will enrich your life to meet the Chinese and see what they’ve accomplished over the last 30 or 40 years. It’s unique, as far as I can see, in human history. Now, I may sound over‑positive, but I’ve seen China in 1983, when I traveled around with a Danish cultural delegation. I saw the poverty, I saw the dirt in the hospitals, I saw the muddy roads. And today, forty years later, I see the incredible infrastructure—forty thousand kilometers of high‑speed trains. I see cleanliness everywhere. I don’t see a piece of paper lying around in a railway station. I see happy people, I see people consuming, I see people who have the basics. I see a country where there’s no more poverty. #Pascal You also went to the countryside. Sorry? You also went to the countryside. Yes, I went to the countryside. You still get a modern country. #Jan Oberg There are huge contrasts, but there’s nobody who suffers. There are people who live completely different lives from those in Shanghai, Beijing, or Hangzhou, or wherever. I went to a small village about 70 kilometers outside Hangzhou, with 1,500 inhabitants. I tell you, that’s a small place—the ancient village of Shen Ao, with 1,500 inhabitants. I stayed there for four days in a small hotel. And it’s the same there: people live a very good life. They live as handicraft people, they live on cultural -- 3 of 16 -- festivals, they live by cultivating the soil. But there’s nobody suffering, and people look happy, people are kind and helpful. Let me give you an example of one of—I don’t know how many—I’ve experienced like that while traveling alone. I always travel on my own, and I don’t plan where I go. The morning after I arrive, I tell the receptionists, “I’d like to go tomorrow morning and see the sunrise over the Fuchun River.” By the way, that’s another story, but it’s part of China’s art history and also the title of a modern film called *Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains*. That’s what inspired me to go there. I said, “I’d like to see the sunrise.” Since I’m a photographer, it was supposed to be a place where you see the mist and a special atmosphere and all that—but it turned out not to be so. I asked, “Can you get me a taxi tomorrow morning at five o’clock so I can go to the river?” And both of them said, almost in stereo, “You don’t need a taxi.” “We’ll take you there.” You know, five o’clock in the morning, the receptionist says, “I’ll take you there.” This is what you experience again and again in China. I’m not romanticizing—I can give you other examples. There’s no discussion; they’re very kind and helpful people. They speak a little—not in the village, but some people in the big towns speak English. They have English names, and they go out of their way to be helpful, kind, and to learn from you. That’s what’s so interesting: they want to learn about us, they want to connect with us. My wife once sat at the Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, and a lady came up and said, “May I sit here and practice my English with you? Where are you from?” It’s a totally amazing openness—something a Chinese person would not encounter in Sweden. #Pascal Now, I mean, we see all these negative stereotypes, right? And they’re getting worse and worse in Europe and in the US—especially when it comes to the social system, to stereotypes about the social system, and to stereotypes about security. So, when it comes to framing peace—and you’re a peace researcher, you’ve been doing peace research all your life—what struck you about how your Chinese counterparts or interlocutors framed peace and the future of humanity? #Jan Oberg Well, you know, the formal thing—which is also a reality—is that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, or the Panchsheel, developed by India and China, what is it, seventy years ago, are in the Constitution of China. That’s something you can’t run away from. It’s not just something they talk about; it’s built into the Chinese Constitution. Secondly, I think the Chinese have understood something that we really don’t understand—particularly when you look at Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan. I mean, I’m amazed, I’m dismayed, and I feel it’s tragic that the whole world can call that rubbish a peace plan—a peace plan! #Pascal -- 4 of 16 -- Let's come back to that later. #Jan Oberg But we’ll get to that, yes. So, the Chinese… I don’t know where it comes from, but that’s why it’s interesting to study. They’ve built peace into social actions, into the economy, into the way society is structured. They don’t have much of what I would call the Western “repair society,” by which I mean: first, we have a defense policy that says I can kill you thousands of kilometers away with offensive deterrence—long-range weapons. That’s NATO in a nutshell. That’s offensive deterrence from afar: if you don’t do what I say, I can kill you far away. Which will never—well, it should be pretty obvious—that will never create stability. Then we do that, we get an over‑armament problem, we get a militarism problem, and we get wars. And then we say, oh, we need disarmament and peace negotiations and all that, right? But what about doing the right thing from the beginning? What about building these things into dialogue, into consultations, into institution building—where we handle conflicts before they break out in violence? That’s a very important distinction: the one between conflict and violence. I’m not saying—and this is one of the things I raised in the conferences in China, both of them—I said, it’s amazing that among all the things you’ve imported to China—capitalism, the idea of a party, consumerism, Western art, Western music—and then you’ve changed them. You’ve given them, you know, Chinese characteristics. The only