With the 2024 election on the horizon, the question of containing the ‘China Threat’ has once again entered the public’s mind; the spread of which the establishment played no small role in. Indeed, in May 2021 — only a few months into Biden’s term — his Asia Czar, Kurt Campbell, made a profound declaration: ‘the “era of engagement” with China is “over”’. Following the gravitas of this statement, a year later, FBI director, Christopher Wray, labelled China the biggest long-term threat to [American] economic and national security.
Unsurprisingly, the American public’s perception of China has, to say the least, been negative. In a manner that harkens back to the Red Scare of the 1950s, witch-hunt-like investigations into individuals allegedly holding ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accuse those targeted as having ‘infiltrated’ American society, supposedly under sinister pretences – or, in other words, Chinese people. Perhaps there is no better example of this paranoia shown than in the recent viral video of Senators incessantly grilling TikTok CEO, Shou Chew, on his CCP ties, despite his being Singaporean.
In a time where it seems popular and almost commonsensical to bash on China, perhaps we should step back and consider how we got to this point. Why has China become an existential threat to American democracy? And most importantly, where did this ‘China threat’ narrative come from, and why is it so pervasive in the current political climate? Such questions lead us to an examination of America’s perennial identity crisis.
America’s Post-Cold War Identity Crisis
The bedrock on which modern American identity sits on is inherently unstable, and China’s rapid ascent has brought this instability to a head. This bedrock is American exceptionalism: a facet of American identity that is particularly pertinent in its foreign policy. For the larger part of recent history, America has positioned itself as the divinely ordained leader and defender of the ‘free world’. This identity gained traction at the end of the Second World War when the Truman Doctrine positioned America as the leader in the global crusade against communism. The eventual collapse of the USSR and, subsequently, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe proved once and for all, at least to the American consciousness, the triumph of their political system and the fact that it was, as Madeleine Albright (in)famously proclaimed, the ‘indispensable nation’. Or to borrow Francis Fukuyama’s words, American democracy, the liberal democracy it represents, was proven to be, in the end, the one and true form of government to which all nations must converge.
Yet, such grandiose proclamations only reveal a deeply insecure and anxious nation, concerned for the stability of its own identity. After all, identity, at its core, is a relational concept. To identify as exceptional, one must identify what they are exceptional from. The end of the Cold War left a void in the fabric of American identity: for almost two generations, American exceptionalism had been secured in opposition to the ‘scourge’ of communism. With the Soviet Union’s collapse, America suddenly found itself without an enemy to justify its indispensability. It was amid this period of soul-searching that America soon found a new enemy to preoccupy itself with: China.
Lifting China Up?
The Nixon-Kissinger rapprochement with China in 1972 marked a new era for US-China relations. Gone were the days of the ‘Red Menace’, and peaceful coexistence became a real possibility. But, despite its optimistic tone and hope for change in the US’ aggressive approach to China, rapprochement was still undergirded by the belief that an exceptional America was guiding China towards its predestined path. This same belief had also existed before the establishment of the PRC, marking a reversion to earlier infantile representations of China.
For a large part of history, China has existed in the American mind as somewhat of a little brother, a fledgling nation America ‘graciously’ took under its wing. China was an ‘opportunity’, both in the economic and soft-power sense. The American relationship with China justified its own sense of exceptionalism by positioning China as – under the guidance of America – slowly but surely moving toward modernity (that is, an American system of socio-economic governance). This reinforced the idea that America represented the apex of modernity, and its system of socioeconomic governance was the ‘final stage’ of development. As Senator Kenneth Wherry proclaimed in 1940, ‘we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas’.
For a variety of reasons – including a series of domestic and international setbacks that Mao faced in the 1960s putting his socioeconomic model into doubt – race-driven paternalism toward China resurged in the 1970s. This belief was a key driving force for rapprochement and formed the basis of foreign policy toward China in the decades to come. As China watcher, Michel Oksenberg, reflected in 1989, ‘our strategy toward China since 1971 has been to…integrate it in the international community…Our expectation that a forthcoming posture toward China would prompt its leaders gradually to accept and abide by international standards of behaviour’ – obvious code for the ‘standards of behaviour’ set by an American-led world order. The fall of communism in Europe, and both Taiwan and South Korea’s democratisation in the late 20th century powerfully reaffirmed this belief in China’s eventual convergence.
In other words, China was viewed almost as a spiritual successor to the Soviet Union – unfinished business from the Cold War – not only in terms of its potential threat if left unchecked, but also of its inherent flaws and thus the inevitable collapse of its communist government. China’s rapid economic development was seen to be simply incompatible with its communist leadership; the strong consensus was that with development would come the eventual collapse of the CCP. The belief that China was on track to embrace the American Creed was a key driver of foreign policy in the late 20th and early 21st century.
The (Second) Loss of China
Yet, contrary to these expectations, China did not disown its communist government. Under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms (‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’), China experienced unprecedented economic growth, and, by the 21st century, became a legitimate contender to America’s post-Cold War hegemony. Efforts to place China on the ‘right’ course of development now seemed increasingly futile. Not only had China defied expectations by failing to become more American, but Xi Jinping’s new brand of Chinese nationalism brought with it a resolute objection of Western models of governance.
At the same time, America’s claim to the title of ‘leader of the world order’ looked increasingly fragile as the world quickly grew tired of American post-Cold War triumphalism. Attempts at democracy promotion were belied by failed experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The devastating consequences of the Global Financial Crisis (which had its origins in the American subprime mortgage crisis) called into question the stability of the American domestic and global economic system, further eroding the pillars upholding American exceptionalism.
America’s almost two-century-long ‘civilising’ mission in China, clothed in the politically-correct language of freedom and democracy, had collapsed. In its place, the ‘China Threat’ took hold – allowing America to maintain the narrative of its ordained unipolarity, its exceptionality, in the era of a Rising China China was meant to ‘realise’ the inferiority of its communist government and cede to America. What China was not meant to do was become an equal. For the first time since the Cold War, China was seen as a legitimate threat to American security, an ‘Other’ that needed to be contained. Here, China is understood to be a threat not just in a material sense, but to the core facets of American identity. And so as seen brazenly in Obama’s Pivot to Asia strategy and his declaration that America “is, and always has been, a Pacific power”, American exceptionalism was reasserted with full force in the precipice of its collapse.
China and Blue Collar Americans
Whilst the foreign policy establishment rejoiced at the post-Cold War American world order, frustrations from the ‘Rust Belt’ – a constituency consisting of predominantly white, blue-collar voters – festered. Rapid globalisation mixed with America’s unique lack of industrial policy saw economic losses disproportionately concentrated on this community. In the first decade of the 21st century alone, American manufacturing jobs had declined by one third. Immigration and multiculturalism were beginning to cement themselves as bedrock aspects of American identity, spurring racial fears of loss of ‘traditional America’ and the impending ‘white minority’.
At the same time as American manufacturing waned, China underwent rapid industrialization. Racial fears suffused with economic anxieties, and the coincident rise of China’s manufacturing industry was blamed for the decline of American manufacturing. What’s more, the ‘elite left’ were complicit in this destruction, the left who during the Clinton and Obama administrations had so willingly and persistently ‘engaged’ with China to the apparent detriment of their fellow Americans. Failed promises by Democrats to crack down on unfair Chinese economic practices hurting blue collar workers (both Clinton and Obama are guilty of this charge) certainly did not help rebut this accusation. It was precisely this resentment over ‘elite betrayal’ that, in part, helped Trump secure the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s China Threat Narrative
Trump effectively tapped into working-class disillusionment to reawaken dormant narratives of a ‘Red China’ seeking to destroy ‘Traditional America’. During his campaign, Trump attributed the relative decline of American industry to a rising China, famously declaring, “we can’t continue to allow China to rape our country”. And during his administration, Trump followed through: tariffs targeting intermediate goods imported from China were quickly imposed in order to ‘protect’ the domestic manufacturing industry. The ‘China Threat’ of the Trump presidency echoes back to the McCarthy era of the Red Scare; just as McCarthy saw Truman’s ‘moderate’ response to the Communist takeover as dangerous abetting of anti-American communism, today’s Rust Belt sees internationalist policies of engagement with China as evidence of the elite having ‘sold out’ their community. This iteration of the ‘China Threat’ narrative leaves no room for engagement or influence, instead portraying China as an ultimate evil hellbent on destroying America.
Although today’s ‘China Threat’ narrative appears to mark a clear break from establishment-driven internationalism in favour of Trump-era nativism, it is rather its legacy. The narrative is the continuation of foreign policy predicated on preserving American exceptionalism. Rapprochement was premised on the ill-founded belief that China would eventually adopt liberal democratic principles. This belief justified American exceptionalism by keeping China beneath America in the hierarchy of nations. And it is for this same reason that China’s divergence from its ‘intended’ path of development so offended the American foreign policy establishment. For it meant that American democracy was no longer the sole and necessary path which all nations must undertake to be prosperous. And, simply, that America was not the exceptional country it had thought itself to be. Rather than confronting the distasteful fact that the People’s Republic was here to stay, the establishment rather doubled down on its commitment to American exceptionalism, now painting China as the enemy. At the same time, building resentment from blue collar Americans – both aided and abetted by the establishment’s ignorance to this constituency – has propelled the ‘China Threat’ narrative into an all-encompassing form that mirrors McCarthyite fear-mongering.
Today’s China threat narrative represents the two faces of American identity: one that sees America as the rightful leader of the world order, and another anxious to preserve ‘Traditional America’. The ‘healthy internationalism’ of the establishment is not too different at its core from Trump-era nativist anger toward China; both originate from a devoted mission to protect the key tenets of American exceptionalism. In the era of Biden, it appears the ‘China Threat’ narrative is here to stay unless some serious introspection takes place on both sides of the political aisle. It is time for America to confront the malaise of its own exceptionalism.