How the “Fake China Threat” is influenced by the US “military-industrial-financial-data complex” and how China is responding to it
By Andrew K P Leung, SBS, FRSA
Notwithstanding President Biden’s recent Beijing-friendly overtures, the looming US presidential election is set to heat up the widely-perceived “China Threat” as both political parties try to outdo each other on China-bashing.
According to a December 26 New York Times report, Donald Trump’s election campaign is mulling over a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods along with new rules banning American investments in China and Chinese purchases of U.S. assets.
Western media and bookstores are brimming with smearing narratives of China’s alleged plans to dominate the world, perceived trade and intellectual property transgressions, alleged human rights violations (including so-called “Xinjiang genocide”), military expansionism, territorial ambitions, speculative Taiwan invasion, and worse.
Opposed to the predominantly one-sided Western discourse, Joseph Solis-Mullen, a political scientist and author, calls these allegations The Fake China Threat (The Libertarian Institute, 2023).
He lists a barrage of works appearing thick and fast by prominent authors and intellectuals transforming China from global partner to public enemy number one, “gradually, and then suddenly”, quoting Hemingway.
These include Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as The Global Superpower (2015); Graham Allison’s Destined for War (2017); Robert Spalding’s Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept ( 2019); Bill Gertz Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China’s Drive for Global Supremacy (2019); Rush Doshi’s The Long Game : China’s Strategy to Displace American Order (2021) ; Elizabeth Economy’s The World According to China (2021); Robert Spalding’s World Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination (2022); Andrew Small’s No Limits: the Inside Story of China’s War with the West ((2022); Erich Schwartzael’s Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy (2022); Hal Brands and Michael Beckley’s Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China (2022); Grant Newsham’s When China Attacks: A Warning to America (2023) and Jonathan Ward’s The Decisive Decade: America’s Grand Strategy for Triumph over China (2023).
As a relatively lone and feeble voice (his “Fake China” book containing only 50 pages of text), Solis-Mullen boldly points out that these highly-respected intellectuals either work in or are affiliated with powerful U.S. or allied think tanks, some heavily funded by America’s “military-industrial-complex” (or some call the “military-industrial-financial-data (MIFD) complex”), including giant U.S. defense industry conglomerates.
The military-industrial-complex’s infiltration of American political power including media and intellectual discourse was ably exposed by Jane Mayer, an awarding-winning American journalist and author in her much-acclaimed book Dark Money: How a Secretive Group of Billionaires is Trying to Buy Political Control in the US (2016).
Regardless of the remarkable transformation of peoples’ lives under the Chinese Communist Party, the “China Threat” ignores that China has neither the capabilities nor the inclination to replicate the United States’ global military, technological, financial and media hegemony, supported by Western allies and ubiquitous American culture, as Michael Beckley enumerates in Unrivaled – Why America Will Remain The World’s Sole Superpower (2018).
The “China Threat” has so permeated America’s body politics that a record level of Americans (58%) view China’s world power as a critical threat to the United States, the highest level recorded in Chicago Council Surveys dating back to 1990.
Views about China has also severely plummeted in many other nations, according to PEW Research Centre findings of 27 July, 2023.
Western double standards, bias and prejudice aside, China’s global slide in public perceptions springs from a number of deep-seated genuine grievances. The following comes to mind.
First, trade and investment relationships with China have become somewhat one-sided in China’s favor, lacking sufficient reciprocity in market access. Italy’s latest decision to terminate partnership with the Belt and Road Initiative is a case in point.
Second, improvements notwithstanding, the protection of foreign investors’ intellectual property especially in high-tech businesses, still leaves something to be desired.
Third, owing to differences in national politics, China’s perceived “wolf warrior” tit-for-tat diplomacy has irked some governments and their electorates. Witness Australia’s anger with China’s severe trade sanctions in response to Australia’s calling for an international investigation into China’s Covid-19 outbreak origins.
Last, but certainly not least, China’s economy is now facing multiple severe headwinds, including a demographic cliff, housing and local government debt, youth unemployment, global economic slowdown, and obnoxious geopolitics fuelling decoupling or “de-risking” from China.
China is strengthening measures to address some genuine concerns poisoning relationships with the West, such as better market access, level-playing field, and intellectual property protection, with a view to creating, in President Xi’s words, “a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment”.
Foreigners are regularly welcomed in China, including about several hundred thousand foreign students. Recently, Alipay is partnering with travel service providers to launch special in-bound tour packages for international tourists. Xinjiang is now becoming a popular tourist destination. The more foreigners visit Xinjiang, the more the world will see through the West’s manufactured delusion of “genocide”.
Additionally, China is offering unilateral visa-free treatment on a trial basis to more and more countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia, and Ireland (during Premier Li Qiang’s most recent visit to Dublin.)
At the annual work conference on 29 December, President Xi told China’s foreign country envoys that they should tell the China story well and build more bridges with not only governments but also ordinary people.
Additionally, “Track II (informal) diplomacy” through dialogue between think-tanks and influential individuals could work wonders in mitigating the anti-China hyperbole. The extremely valuable work of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), China’s premier global think-tank, is a trailblazer.
At the end of the day, what counts in international relations is where other countries depend for economic livelihood and development. In this context, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest trading partner to 128 out of 190 countries and become the world’s largest manufacturer central to the global supply and value chain.
Even though not marked “Made in China”, numerous products have China embedded by way of materials, minerals, components, and logistics. Seven of the world’s top ten container ports are located in China, including Hong Kong.
At the Beijing Third Belt and Road (BRI) Forum for International Cooperation on 18 October, attended by 140 countries and 30-plus international organizations, President Xi vowed to bring about a multi-dimensional, high-quality, green, and integrity-based BRI, benefiting every participant.
Over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining China in the BRICS Group (which also includes Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa). Similarly, multiple countries also wish to become full-fledged SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Members, covering more than 40 percent of the world’s population. China has an oversized influence in both Groups.
Supported by its Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative, China is starting to actively broker peace and development across the globe. Coming to mind are China’s diplomatic role in the historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as in calling for a resolution of the Ukraine war and the Gaza humanitarian crisis.
China is showing the world by action and outcome that instead of an overblown “Threat”, it is actually a solution towards achieving shared prosperity for mankind, as President Xi’s holistic, people-focused New Year Speech seems to suggest.
Andrew KP Leung – International and Independent China Strategist. Chairman and CEO, Andrew Leung International Consultants and Investments Limited. He previously served as director general of social welfare and Hong Kong’s official representative for the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Russia, Norway, and Switzerland.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Credit: VCG