Thomas Barfield, Professor and Chairman of the Anthropology Department at Boston University and author of Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History
"It takes this so for granted, it doesn't even realize it's doing it. But its enemies like China or Russia cannot figure this system out because they don't believe in clients, they don't have any clients. The Chinese in particular, you're either a client, a tributary or you're an enemy. China has no friends and will never make any, it doesn't know how to be an equal. It cannot conceive of being equal and that's a very different kind of political system."
This is a great conversation - very insightful in the current moment.
"China doesn't have any friends - they don't know how to be equals"
...or, more fully, from the transcript...
"It takes this so for granted, it doesn't even realize it's doing it. But its enemies like China or Russia cannot figure this system out because they don't believe in clients, they don't have any clients. The Chinese in particular, you're either a client, a tributary or you're an enemy. China has no friends and will never make any, it doesn't know how to be an equal. It cannot conceive of being equal and that's a very different kind of political system."