America's Leadership Position at an International Stage

After the Cold War, countries looked to the United States of America for guidance on how to control nuclear weapons. This is a common example of the United States of America setting an example and leading other countries into a new era. As a result of the fact that the United States of America is leading and increasing amount of other countries in many issues, it is their responsibility to take responsibility, and lead the other countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of abdication is “to fail to take responsibility for something” (Cambridge definition). If the United States of America were to abandon these issues that they are leading the way in, it would cause countries scrambling for power, and would lead to global unrest.

The United States of America is the backbone of international leadership in environmental issues, economic issues, and it’s crackdown on terrorism. If these issues are not addressed correctly, governments will go corrupt and abuse their power without anybody to enforce laws. If the United States of America goes quiet in the international stage, China will step forward to take control, which would be disadvantageous to all of us.

But first, before we can talk about China, we must talk about the moral obligations of the leadership position at an international stage. First, obligations cannot be derived from a desire to maximize benefits. The weirdness of nature of outcomes means that we cannot force someone to take an action based on what will happen afterwards. Human reasoning is infinite and there is no way for one person to determine the complete end results of their actions. There will always be external sources which aren’t considered in the process. The implication of this argument is all actions are permissible.

Although utilitarianism may be accurate, there isn’t any greater likelihood of one action giving more people pleasure than more people pain. That gives every single action the same impact, so we can’t determine which actions to prefer over others. Kantian ethics actually solve for this problem because only the intention of the actions are looked at those are quite easy to look at.Second, util is infinitely regressive. I may be able to look at the consequences of one action, but what about the action that is sparked due to taking that one action etc. An action can never be good or bad under util because it can’t be looked at through a single value of utility. Thus, we should look at this through a Kantian point of view.

However, we can’t use Kant in this point of view even though we should. Because showing that a principle of non-beneficence is impossible and is not possible to show that beneficence is obligatory because this thinking shows the fallacy that you deny the antecedent. Going with Kantian theory shows that there is no such thing as morality. Thus, there is no reason why we should advocate the converse of beneficence. We can never prove that we do not violate Kant’s categorical imperative, because if we deny that we did violate it, it would be the basis of a negative existential claim. Thus it is possible to prove that we do not violate Kantian thinking at all. So this brings up a question: If Kantian theory is the best way to measure things, and it is impossible to follow it, what do we do?

This dilemma has puzzled economists and scientists alike, yet we cannot find an answer to this. Thus, in the span of this essay, we should not try and measure things at all. We should look at this at an unbiased way, without looking towards any moral code. We can only look at maximizing the standard well being for the greatest amount of people in the world. This way, we can perceive everyone as equal. This is not the case at the moment, and under this ruling, we can think of everybody as equal. This means that everyone is evaluated as having the same amount of life which is going to the the most moral and fair way to judge our decisions.

Another reason is that this is the best way for humans to judge policy makers. Government officials cannot evaluate things on only a single instance or a specific instance. They can only look towards generalities, which means they can’t look at only one thing. If China were to take over the United States of America’s role in Bioethics, it would cause backlash from multiple countries including places like Kenya, Afghanistan, and Iran. China is moving ahead in multiple medical research including using embryos to try and cure diseases.

While this sounds good at first, China is not stopping to think about the consequences. While the United States of America is only beginning to look at this type of research, and conducting many preliminary trials, there are already eight clinical trials that are going on in China (1). They are diving headfirst into the abyss without knowing what’s in it. China is going into uncharted territory with nothing to stop them. If China is already doing that without international leadership, think about what will happen if they were to become the leader.

Their mind set will bleed off to other countries, which would lead to a third world war. Multiple countries with their only concern being power? That’s a recipe for disaster. China has always prioritized power over everything, which, in the long run, will not be beneficial to any country. China will abuse that power in other things, which leads me to the next point.

Chinese officials are already susceptible to bribes, blackmail, and corrupt money. Just only two months ago, a major city’s mayor just got charged with corruption.Sun Zhengcai, the mayor of Chongqing, was charged guilty of accepting bribes of over 27 million dollars along with embezzling money from two thousand two to two thousand seventeen. Sun Zhengcai was the youngest of the Chinese Communist Party, and was expected to lead the party before he was charged with bribery. Sun Zhengcai was sentenced to life in prison, but the price has been paid. He has given us a prime example of what would happen if China were to lead in an international stage.

This is just one example of the Chinese becoming corrupt when given the chance. They will do anything for money and power, even if it is illegal. If China were to take the lead in many different economic problems, they would make the problems worse, and just use the money that is supposed to help other countries and use it for themselves. This would increase the amount of power China would have had already, which would lead to a slippery slope of power.

China would then be able to take over the world. China has an iron grip on it’s people. This is not good. Any body who tries to stand up against the government corruption gets “silenced”. China sentenced a rights activist to eight years in jail last year, which is the harshest sentence to be passed so far in a government crackdown on activism. If anybody tries to oppose the Chinese government at the moment, they will be detained. If this were to happen at a global stage, China will be able to eliminate all of their enemies, which will lead to the downfall of the human race. If China were given international leadership, again, this will bleed to other countries. Along with that, opposition against this leadership group will disappear.

This however, is not the problem. The problem is that this will lead to a leadership where citizens have no free will. Any thought against the government will be squashed, and any free will will be gone. China will do anything for power, as established in the last paragraph. This includes shutting down the voice of opposition. Any free will will be gone, and this is definitely not the moral thing to do. I’ve talked about the corruption of China and how it will bleed to other countries: This simply isn’t the case.

China “exporting” corruption into poor, robust Kenya. Chinese companies are one of the biggest international contractors who bribe Kenyans to win stupid and not even real billion dollar shilling infrastructure contracts. The Transparency International has revealed that China has been “exporting” this corruption into Kenya, while other countries are turning a blind eye. This is bad because of the fact that no other countries are trying to stop China from doing this, yet they are getting away with it. If China were to do this at an international stage, corruption would be everywhere, and China would gain an extreme benefit from all of these efforts.

As a result of these multitudes of effects, America can not give up their leadership role at the international stage. If they do so, China would assume position, which would be horrible for everybody. It would cause corruption, and China would do anything to gain more power and wealth. Humans tend to be greedy, and China would be the worst option to take control over the international stage. Because of this, the United States cannot abdicate international leadership because it creates dangerous global instability.

This isn’t a matter of just America losing power, but a matter of the entire world. If the United States of America were to abdicate leadership positions in the international stage, the entire human race would become extinct. In order to make sure that the world does not go extinct or that power and corruption spreads into other countries, we must be sure that China does not get a leadership position in the international area, thus, America can not abdicate their position.