“Half of Belgium sees the US as a bigger adversary than China”, reports EuroNews.
The poll also found that China is viewed less negatively than the US. Between 40% and 44% of respondents described China as an adversary. However, very few Belgians consider China an ally, with many respondents choosing the option “neither ally nor adversary”.
Despite that, concerns about Beijing remain. Nearly 60% of respondents said they believe a Chinese military attack on Taiwan is likely in the near future, reflecting continued unease about China’s growing military influence.
The survey also suggests that Belgians generally feel secure within their own country. Only a small minority believe Belgium itself could face a direct military attack, with 12% of respondents in Flanders and 21% in Wallonia expressing that concern.
At the same time, respondents supported greater European independence in both defence and economic policy. More than 80% said Europe should become militarily self-sufficient, while a majority backed stronger European responses to US trade measures and tariffs.
The poll also found strong support for limiting foreign influence in Belgian affairs. Nearly 90% of respondents said Belgium should not allow the US to interfere in its domestic matters, reflecting recent controversy surrounding comments made by the US ambassador to Belgium.
Despite growing scepticism towards Washington, Belgians remain broadly supportive of Western institutions. Around 80% said Belgium should remain a member of NATO under all circumstances. Many respondents view the alliance as a collective European security shield rather than an instrument of US influence.
Like it or not, the opinion of an increasing proportion of Belgians as revealed in this survey is shared by other European countries. Like it or not, the corresponding opinion of an increasing proportion of Americans is “Okay, bye”.
Quite possibly, this is all just a spat that brought on by the fact that, to use Scott Alexander’s formulation, Xi’s China is the “fargroup” you hardly ever think about, whereas Trump’s America is the “outgroup” whose antics irritate you every day.
But if these attitudes are real, the Belgians and other Europeans need to get equally real about the cost of the changes they say they want. “More than 80% said Europe should become militarily self-sufficient”. Europe being militarily self-sufficient would make Belgium safer, but also poorer. It would require more Belgians to be ready to fight and die for their country at a moment’s notice. I am not sure they even realise that that is what Trump has been asking them to do for years.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Absence make the heart grow fonder.
(You can probably see where I’m going with this.)
Only a small minority believe Belgium itself could face a direct military attack
Why should they? Military invasion has never happened to Belgium, I mean except The Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II all of which turned Belgium into a swimming pool of mud and blood, mostly foreign blood.
Of course they don’t because they live under the shield of the American military, as they beat us over our heads with their begging bowls.
On the other hand it is reciprocal. We Americans sleep restfully in our beds knowing that the Belgian Army is there to help if an invasion comes our way.
For many Europeans, gratitude is not an easy attitude to have to those they consider their déclassé inferiors.
I have a Hagar the Horrible cartoon where Hagar is in the Doctors office and says “Doctor. I want to lose weight. I’ll do anything”.
The Doctor says “Well, give up beer, cut down on food and do more exercise”.
“I meant anything within reason … “.
Now, apply that logic to Belgium (and Europe) going self sufficient in defense. They would need to cut the social security payments to the “refugees” and that is as likely as me flapping my ears and flying like Dumbo the elephant.
In short, it isn’t going to happen.
In Belgium, as in many nations, if someone tells the truth – they risk being fined or sent to prison. For example a Catholic academic, and former Member of Parliament, has recently been convicted of the “crime” of telling the truth about migrant crime – the court did not dispute the truth of his statements, but held that telling the people the truth about the migrants would inspire “hatred” (even though the man spoke quietly and used reasoned language) – and that this was a “crime”.
Nations who accept this “hate speech” doctrine, i.e. which punish telling the truth as a “crime”, are hard to see as allies of the United States. They may still be allies, but the relationship is strained – strained as their principles are opposed to the principles of the United States (for example in the United Kingdom both the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights would be considered, by the local branch of the international establishment, “Crime-Think”).
As for public opinion in Belgium – as people are punished for telling the truth to the public, and rewarded (with good jobs and so on) for lying to the public – the condition of public opinion is not surprising. Indeed what is surprising is that so many people in Belgium still resist the indoctrination.
The international establishment wish to harm Western peoples (that has been so for many years) – but fear that if Western peoples realized this they would resist, so the establishment reward people who lie to the public (reward such liars by giving them good positions and so on) and punish people who tell the public the truth. It is a logical approach – if you start from the international establishment starting assumption that Western nations (Western peoples) need to go.
The leading non Western power is the Communist Party Dictatorship (tyranny) that is the People’s Republic of China.
The simple answer is that Belgians – like most other Europeans – should not be too concerned about either the US or China. What they should be worried about is the appalling mess their imbecile leaders have made of their nation, by admitting millions of third world colonisers, including around 1m Muslims.
Marius – if Belgians speak against what is happening to their country, they get punished.
The get fined – or sent to prison.
“The future belongs to those who turn up for it” – a saying that Mark Steyn has often cited, or as the French used to say (before they were punished for saying it) “demography is destiny”.
Look at who most of the children are in cities such as Brussels, or Vienna, or Birmingham – it is, perhaps, too late to do anything, the West may well already be a dead-man-walking.
It is a two pronged attack – it is not just the mass immigration, which goes back to the 1960s (and the immigrants were invited-in in many of these nations – shades of Vortigern inviting in the Germanic tribes), it is also the campaign to reduce the fertility of Westerners – via the Social Revolution.
Some people understood the threat early and tried to prevent it, for example President Charled De Gaulle in France, but they were replaced by people who were either fools or knaves (or both), such as Presdient Pompidou in France (the horrible Pompidou center in Paris is a suitable memorial to this person), or Chancellors Brandt and Schmitt in Germany – who allowed the “guest workers” to bring in their families, or Chancellor Merkel who invited in endless migrants – promising government benefits and services, in what seems to have been an almost religious hatred of her own people.
Think of how Edward Heath sacked Enoch Powell from the Shadow Cabinet in 1968.
The death of the West was not achieved in a brief period of time – this project has been going on for many decades, as have laws to force it down the throats of the public (attacking Freedom of Association and Freedom of Speech) – such a the 1965 Act in Britain, and all the other Acts after it.
Again – two prongs, not just mass immigration, but also the active undermining of society (for example the family) that has been going on since at least the 1960s.
As for the People’s Republic of China – it is a vicious tyranny with plans (rather advanced plans) to dominate the world, but at least its rulers wish China to remain China – to remain Chinese.
Link to paper. Some references removed for readability.
“In 2013, defense spending – including pensions – amounted to just 1% of Belgium’s GDP, with 77% of the budget allocated to personnel costs due to the structural effects of reduced funding. This prompted The Financial Times to describe the Belgian military as an “unusually well-armed pension fund””
“A budget increase has been adopted with the goal of raising defense spending up from 1.3% in 2024 to 2% of GDP by 2029, then to 2.5% by 2034. Likewise, the number of active service members is expected to rise to 29,100 by 2030.”
Plamus – it is much the same with other Western nations, including the United Kingdom. And the idea that are going to be real increases in military capability is Moonshine.
There is no economic foundation for nations such as the United Kingdom (or Belgium) to really increase their military strength – the Welfare States gobble up everything.
So there are no “common values” – not even Freedom of Speech, and the Western European nations do not have much military capability, so the “alliance” is not on solid ground.
The West still has a technological edge – so its aircraft are more effective and, for example, the drones the Ukrainians use sometimes have AI – whereas the Russians have to rely on manual operators (sorry film fans – but “Skynet” is better than “John Connor” and his chums, and the rather short and elderly Mr Putin does NOT make a very convincing John Connor), but that is about it.
The People’s Republic of China is closing the technological gap – partly by their own efforts, partly by industrial espionage.
The real danger to China appears to be demographic – it has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, although not as low as South Korea – which appears to be committing suicide.
“Then let in mass immigration” – the Chinese are not stupid, immigrants (especially from hostile populations and belief systems) are NOT the children your nation (people – folk) failed to have.
And, no, inviting them to your palace or castle and taking part in their rituals, does that change that.
WRT why does the Western establishments allow mass immigration:
I think it best to think in terms of incentives.
— What incentives does the US establishment have?
Easy: illegal immigrants can be trusted to vote for the establishment (ie the “Democrats”). No matter that, legally speaking, illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote: what matters is whether they do vote.
— What incentives do other Western establishments have?
This is more difficult.
I submit that the main incentive is that, the more troublesome immigrants there are, the better the establishment can justify censorship of any views threatening to the establishment itself (under the pretext that such views are threatening “vulnerable” minorities).
That is because there is no need for censorship to “protect” immigrants, when immigrants cause no trouble.
This hypothesis has some empirical support from the UK, after Blair rubbed Brits’ noses in “diversity”; and from Germany, after Merkel opened the floodgates.
Belgium is… Belgium.
Although it’s far from the only factor, a major reason for mass immigration in the west is big business lobbying for it – for cheap and/or more easily controlled labour. Pretty much any time any restrictions are even suggested business lobbies are up there with leftists complaining that without mass immigration the economy will apparently collapse.
Even the supposedly ‘based’ Elon Musk seems to think huge numbers of Indian tech workers are absolutely economically essential and went berserk when he was called out about his support for H1B1 visas.
I would imagine that Musk doesn’t think that Indian Hindu software developers, engineers etc are a problem. He’s worked with them.
So I share Musk’s annoyance. It was an early sign of the fractures in the MAGA coalition.
I can speak a bit from experience since I have had an H1B visa, although I am currently a US Citizen. I think the challenge with them is that the rules aren’t really enforced very strictly. The premise is that it is to fill gaps in the workforce that can’t be filled from local talent and the rules require the employer to pay the employee the same rate they would have to pay a local person. However, neither of these rules are particularly strictly enforced. When I first got mine I had an interview at the embassy and the lady who talked to me did ask something like “what special skill do you have that cannot be found in the United States”. Now as it happens I did have some particular rare and special talents, but from the way she asked it is plain that it was a pro forma question and I could have told that I was an expert in turning on the computer and I knew how to use a mouse and keyboard and that would have been sufficient. And for sure I was probably paid 20% less than a local with the same skillset.
So insofar as those rules apply you are filling a slot that cannot be filled locally, and that is pretty important in the types of companies that hire them (I think 80-90% go to 10 companies, all computer and electronic companies, Amazon, Microsoft etc.) In our present environment there is a huge dearth of people with high level skills in AI or chip design for example, and not allowing these people access to the US job market actually costs American jobs for the opportunities their employers lose.
But the unfortunate reality is that they are used to let in cheap, run of the mill programmers and designers (for the most part) and consequently they do have the exact effect people fear — namely downward pressure on wages and filling slots that Americans could take up. FWIW, I think it is a false economy, and part of the whole mess of disfunction in how large companies are run. This is particularly true in my field of software where the difference between a good engineer and a great one is 10x or perhaps more than 10x. Or to put it another way a single Rockstar programmer can generate the productivity of two teams of half a dozen “good” people. You can be sure that Mr. Rockstar is not paid ten times as much though, because that is not the way the corporate world works. And the difference between a bad one and a good one? Honestly, the bottom 20% you’d be better off paying them to stay home since their net contribution is often negative. Another side effect is that corporations are FULL of people who really do almost nothing at all, which I have never really fully understood, though I have some theories.
A lot of it comes from the arrogance of middle management where the effects of poor performance are distant enough from the management decisions that many middle managers (much like civil servants) measure their success by the size of their budget and the number of butts on seats rather than by their contribution to toe company’s bottom line. So H1B’s are cheap butts, even if they often don’t do much.
But FWIW, this gross disfunction was on its way out even before the AI revolution hit. Amazon and Walmart are perhaps the prime examples. Their IT systems are so very good that the people at the top can skip a lot of the middle managers and actually understand what is going on at the executive level rather than relying on information filtered and skewed through a dozen layers of middle managers. This is really at the root the reason why both these companies blow away their competition. Amazon’s excellence in this was so great they spun it off into a whole other business of AWS that now generates the majority of their revenue.
Of course AI and robotics totally flips these things on their head. So we will have to wait to see what happens. Regarding Musk in particular, his companies are notorious for having really excellent people top to bottom with brutal performance expectations, measurements and quick turn around with the poor performers. Which is why they have been able to do some of the most remarkable things.
A nation that can (or will not) train its own engineers and so on, is a dying nation.
The idea that the United States has to import computer specialists from India shows, if true, how American education has collapsed.
As for “cracks in the MAGA coalition” – this is not over H1B visas (which have become a bit of a scam), it is over foreign policy.
The Tucker Carlson types (who, privately, always HATED President Trump – as the leaked e.mails show) want an alliance with Russia and China and with the Islamic world (Jewish Americans to be sacrificed in order, Tucker Carlson and co fondly believe, to get on better terms with the rising Islamic population in the United States).
Tucker Carlson and co are now open in their support for the dictatorships in Russia and China and for their support for the Islamic world – including inside the United States.
And do not dismiss such people Johnathan Pearce – both Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly (who has, repeatedly, called Jews a “cancer” and argued that they control the American government) have a big (very big) on-line following – millions (yes millions) of people follow them. They (Carlson, Kelly and so on) believe they have hitched their star to the rising powers – China and Islam (even thought Muslims are not treated very well inside China – indeed Muslims are treated with terrible brutality in China), that the old powers, such as American Classical Liberalism (limited government, basic liberties, and all that) are dying – and that they (Carlson, Kelly and so on) must not be chained to dying things (dying things such as Western civilization).
They were never really “MAGA” as they always, at least in private, hated Donald John Trump – but they are important.
And although they support Mr Putin, he is not really the rising power they have in mind – they have in mind both China and Islam (in spite of the contradictions in supporting both).
TBF more Belgians have been shot or bombed by Americans than by Chinese. Most of them may have been collateral damage from the two world wars and some of them may have been in the SS Charlemagne.
On the other hand, if we assume that the Huns were Chinese, the last time anyone in Belgium had to worry about them was in 451AD. And the Belgians won that fight.
Now if the study had looked at the French…
Antoine Clarke – the Huns were not Chinese, indeed the Chinese hated Steppe peoples.
As for being shot and bombed by Americans – are you suggesting that Belgium should have been left under the rule of National Socialist Germany? And France as well?
The present decline of Belgium and France (and other European nations) is not the fault of the United States – the European establishment (and the American establishment is much the same) INVITED-IN the populations that are now gradually destroying some Western European nations.
For many years a question was – “in the future will Brussels be French or Flemish?” – now we know the answer, in the future, eventually, the city presently called Brussels will be neither French or Flemish – it will be Islamic. Ditto other parts of what is presently Western Europe – including parts of what is presently the United Kingdom.
This is not the fault of the United States – which has its own problems.
As for military forces – over the weekend it was admitted that Royal Navy submarines are not fit for conflict.
It is much the same in other Western European nations – their military forces are weak and their “values” are not compatible with the American Bill of Rights (the European Union, and the establishment generally, makes that very clear – and is proud of it, proud of its hatred of Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties).
So what is the basis of this alliance?
Why do Tucker Carlson, Megyan Kelly, and so on, behave the way they do?
Tolkien’s character “Saruman” tries to justify such conduct with the following words….
“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand: and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.”
This is how they try and justify their support for Mr Putin, and for Islam – and for the People’s Republic of China Communist Party tyranny.
Except that, apparently, the Chinese see Chinggis Khan as a Founding Father, because he started the process of re-unifying China.
Snorri – I did not know that.
As you know – Genghis Khan killed more Chinese than any other person apart from Mao – who murdered even more Chinese than the Genghis Khan did.
So, I suppose, it might make sense for a tyranny that has Mao on its currency to also revere Genghis Khan.
The Communist Party tyranny in China has a deep hatred for the Chinese people.
🙂
I am not sure that Chinggis Khan killed more Chinese than any other person except Mao. I have seen an estimate that his grandson Kubilai killed many more; because he conquered the South of China (completing the re-unification). The South was much more populous than the North, conquered by Grandad.
(I might add that Chinggis had an at least superficially valid motivation for invading the North, which is more than i can say for Kubilai.)
Also, the Manchu killed an awful lot of people in their later conquest.
The history of China is a bloody history. Wars, and civil wars, might not have been as frequent as in Europe, but they often killed half of the Chinese people, or even more.
You may well be correct Snorri.
Although the Great Khan may have reduced the population of the world by tenth – very impressive for hand weapons such as sword, although most of the deaths were caused by starvation – burning of crops and destroying irrigation systems.
Mao was even more destructive – and his insane tyranny (his mixture of Marxism with his own personal mental illnesses – such as his command that everyone try and make steel in their back yard, and his war-on-birds – which led to plagues of insects) is revered by the Communist Party tyranny which controls China – his picture is on the currency and many other places, and their “legitimacy” comes from his conquest of China.
A conquest that would not have taken place without the traitors (and they were traitors) in the American bureaucracy – who first ordered Chang to call off the Manchurian offensive in 1946 (which was succeeding) and, later, cut off all supplies to the Republic of China military and critical time.
Treason, treason, treason – conspiring with enemies who wished to enslave the American people, not “just” the Chinese people.
And no one was punished.
Martin:
“In the west”?? Is there any western country other than the US of A where that is the case? (There might be, but i’d have to see evidence.)
And even in the US, we have to make a distinction between H1B immigration and plain illegal immigration. It is a safe bet that the vast majority of H1B immigrants have much to lose from illegal immigration.
Snorri and Martin.
I do not disagree that “big business”, the Corporations, have supported mass immigration – but I doubt it is really about their commercial interests, after all major corporations go along with the minimum wage laws – so they do not get any real benefit from “cheap labour” and the migrants tend to go on government benefits and/or work in other enterprises (such as the drug trade – or pimping as with the rape gangs in Britain). And migrants do not tend to be very “controllable” – they tend to be rather aggressive (for example the vast, armed, gangs in the United States from Central and South America – which have thousands of members).
Major Corporations (corporate bureaucracies) support mass migration “Diversity and Inclusion – Death to the West!” for the same reason that supermarket tannoy systems blast out (all through June) corporate support for LGBTQ…… and other “Woke” causes, it is nothing to do with the commercial interests of the Corporation – it is all to do with university educated Corporate bureaucrats pushing the causes they are expected to push
“If we do not support various leftist causes the leftist activists will come and make trouble in our supermarket” (or some other Corporate “business”) is part of it – but it is also the case that university “educated” corporate bureaucrats (like government bureaucrats) just do this stuff, they support the leftist causes they are expected to support – including mass migration Death-to-the-West stuff.
Thinking that vast corporate bureaucracies are business enterprises just like Mr Jones the butcher or Mr Smith the grocer, was one of the great errors of the late Milton Friedman – as was his belief that they operated on behalf of individual “Aunt Agatha” style shareholders – hence his (mistaken) view that Corporation Tax was “double taxation” as Corporations were just the servants of these individual shareholders.
F.A. Hayek pointed out that most corporate managers have little contact with customers, and that (at least not fully) the interests of the Corporate managers are not really about the long term profitablity of the enterprise.
This is why, for example, the recent attacks on family owned manufacturing enterprises in Germany (via inheritance tax and so on – which did not use to be so bad in Germany as it is in Britain and the United States) are so depressing – the Corporate bureaucracy model (with “ownership” being in the hands of other corporate bureaucracies – such as Pension Funds) is not a good one.