Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Boeing, a leading global aerospace manufacturer, has recently been involved in a number of accidents, which are raising eyebrows around the world. Three months into 2024, various types of the company's planes have seen problems. These problems include a door panel blowing off, an engine fire, a tire falling off and a plane rolling off the runway.

The causes of these incidents are directly attributed to "quality control" that Boeing had once been so proud of. According to a New York Times article on March 11, the company passed 56 of the Federal Aviation Administration's product audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance.
 
Moreover, the myth over the death of John Barnett, a 62-year-old former Boeing employee and whistleblower who reported safety problems at the company, has also complicated the whole situation.
 
The Boeing Company, as well as its civilian and military aircraft, was once seen as a symbol of US hegemony after World War II. Now, Boeing, facing all kinds of problems, can be regarded as the epitome of the US hegemony, with its nuts and bolts having fallen all over the ground. 

The business and management of Boeing, like the US, are now based on the concept of neoliberalism. Without any hesitation, the focus of the company's operation was shifted from "quality control" to "profit creation." Therefore, safety inspections and quality control in the production process were treated as costs that needed to be minimized. 

In January this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk ripped Boeing over a filing that appeared to show the aeronautical giant two years ago began using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals as incentives for executive compensation after previously focusing solely on safety and quality controls. "Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening," Musk said on X.

A variety of factors have been added to a complex and sophisticated set of machinery. After a period of accumulation and under the stimulation of some contingencies, we are now witnessing an explosive surge of major security incidents from Boeing.

This is, in large part, a microcosm of today's US. Many often wonder why the US, which won the Cold War and became the world's only superpower, suddenly and consistently see a series of ridiculous strategies and policymaking in recent years. With the handling of various domestic issues like those involving abortion, drugs, guns and illegal immigration, and the decision-making of foreign and strategic policy, there has been a decline in Washington's capacity, an absurdity in policy making and execution, and ignorance in the political process.

Just like those changes at Boeing, this is a systematic presentation of, in the words of US political scientist Francis Fukuyama, "political decay." US politicians, addicted to the purely competitive game of elections, have increasingly put winning elections on the top agenda of their political careers. Symbolic and meaningless political claims and calculations to gain votes have systematically replaced long-term thinking based on the country's strategic needs and overall interests. Meanwhile, political slogans and labels that can achieve short-term sensationalism and chase clout have taken the place of actions that appear to be milder but more practical.
 
Boeing's frequently occurring safety accidents, as well as the increasingly absurd policies introduced by the US government from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, are the inevitable results of systemic and structural decay that has reached a certain level. It is, of course, an internal affair of the US, to figure out how to correct or even resolve such decay. For the rest of the world, which does not want to get dragged into undeserved disasters, it is becoming more and more important and urgent to take necessary preventive measures.

The author is the director of the International Research Institute of Global Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn