China does not respond well to what it sees as the self-serving argument that the colonialist and neocolonialist obscenities of the past represent a bygone era that “civilized” nations in the postwar West have long left behind. They point to the accumulated wealth of many Western powers as having been extracted from their former colonial possessions, for which no compensation has been offered to postcolonial successor states. As for the United States in particular, which claims it has never been a classic colonial power, China points to the long and checkered history of the Monroe Doctrine and
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