The current wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States has been building for years. It started in the early 2000s, when US policymakers first raised national-security concerns about Huawei.&nbsp;
China’s national technology champion, the market leader in developing new 5G telecommunications equipment, was accused of deploying digital backdoors that could enable Chinese espionage and cyber-attacks. US-led sanctions in 2019 stopped Huawei dead in its tracks.
But Huawei was just the start. The US has since spiraled into a full-blown outbreak of Sinophobia – a strong word that I don’t use lightly. Phobia is the extreme or irrational fear or dread aroused by a particular object or circumstance.
Indeed, China threats now seem to be popping up everywhere. The US government has imposed export controls to cut off China’s access to advanced semiconductors – part of its concerted effort to stymie the country’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/artificial-intelligence-vs-human-stupidity">artificial-intelligence</a> ambitions.&nbsp;
The Department of Justice has just indicted a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group for allegedly taking aim at critical American infrastructure. Much has also been made of the purported risks of Chinese EVs, construction and dock-loading cranes and now TikTok.&nbsp;
Nor are the fears confined to technology. Several years ago, I wrote about America’s trade-deficit disorder, whereby the US government misdiagnosed a multilateral problem – a trade deficit with more than 100 countries – as a bilateral problem and punished China with tariffs.&nbsp;
Others have warned that Washington’s exaggerated claims of the Chinese military threat have, at times, bordered on hysteria as tensions mount in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
Of course, all this is only half the story. China is equally guilty of its own strain of Ameriphobia – demonising the US for its accusations of Chinese economic espionage, unfair trading practices, and human-rights violations.&nbsp;
Both phobias are related to the profusion of false narratives that I address in my most recent book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Conflict-America-China-Narratives/dp/0300259646">Accidental Conflict</a>. Notwithstanding this tit-for-tat blame game, my point now is different:&nbsp;
There is good reason to worry about an increasingly virulent strain of this phobia spinning out of control in the US. Not since the red-baiting in the 1950s, has America so vilified a foreign power.&nbsp;
Back then, a two-pronged congressional approach, led by US Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and the House Un-American Activities <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-destroyer-of-worlds">spearheaded an assault on alleged Communist sympathisers</a> under the guise of protecting Americans from Soviet espionage and influence.
Today, another politician from Wisconsin, Representative Mike Gallagher, has led the charge as chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party which, in an eerie parallel to the McCarthy era, has leveled a series of unsubstantiated charges against China. While Gallagher will retire from Congress in April, his legacy will live on, not just as co-sponsor of a bill that could lead to an outright <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/rattled-by-criticism-nepal-bans-tiktok">ban of TikTok</a>, but also as the leader of a congressional effort that has cast a long shadow over those who support almost any form of engagement with China.
The litany of US allegations is a manifestation of unproven fears wrapped in the impenetrable cloak of national security. Yet there is no “smoking gun” in any of these cases. Instead, it is all about circumstantial evidence of an increasingly aggressive China. At work is an unmistakable bipartisan politicisation of deductive reasoning.
For example, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a leading Democrat, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/china-cars-national-security-threat-investigation/" target="_blank">asks us</a> to “imagine” what could happen if Chinese EVs were weaponised on American highways.&nbsp;
FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Donald Trump appointee and member of the conservative Federalist Society, warns that Chinese malware could disable critical US infrastructure “if or when China decides the time has come to strike” (emphasis added).&nbsp;
And a former US counterintelligence officer has compared sensors in Chinese-made cranes to a Trojan horse. There are many what ifs and mythical parallels, but no hard evidence on intent or verifiable action.
What is it about China that has generated this virulent US reaction? In Accidental Conflict, I stressed that the US has long been intolerant of competing ideologies and alternative systems of governance. The claim of &nbsp;American exceptionalism seemingly compels us to impose our views and values on others. That was true in the Cold War, and it is true again today.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/staying-neutral-in-a-us-china-confrontation">Staying neutral in a US-China confrontation</a>, Project Syndicate
I also argued that excessive fear of China conveniently masks many of America’s own self-inflicted problems. Bilateral trade deficits may well reflect the unfair trading practices of individual countries – China today, Japan 35 years ago – but broad multilateral trade deficits stem more from chronic US budget deficits that lead to a deficiency of domestic savings.&nbsp;
Similarly, the technology threat is not only an outgrowth of the alleged Chinese theft of US intellectual property, it also represents, as I stressed in Accidental Conflict, America’s underinvestment in research and development and shortfalls in STEM-based higher education. Rather than taking a long, hard look in the mirror, it is politically expedient for US politicians to blame China.
As Sinophobia feeds on itself, fear starts to take on the aura of fact, and the dangers of accidental conflict with China intensify. By acting on these anxieties, America risks inciting the very outcome it wants to deter. Fears over Chinese aggression &nbsp;in Taiwan are a case in point.
The US can and must do better. Rather than excusing the excesses of Sinophobia as justifiable reactions to the China threat, US leaders need to avoid the low road and think more in terms of being the adult in the room. Global leadership requires nothing less.
In his first inaugural address in 1933, US President Franklin Roosevelt underscored the ultimate risk of this dangerous pathology with the memorable line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”&nbsp;
Amid today’s Sinophobic frenzy, that message is well worth remembering. © <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/" target="_blank">Project Syndicate</a>&nbsp;
Stephen S Roach is a faculty member at Yale University and the author of the forthcoming Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives (Yale University Press, November 2022).&nbsp;

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US afflicted with full-blown Sinophobia

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e879c7e80680e0af414jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="934"/><figcaption>Photo: Stefan Fussan/Wikipedia</figcaption></figure>In just four decades, China’s economy has achieved an unprecedented level of wealth and development, and, until recently, its upward trajectory of economic growth and prosperity seemed set to continue.But as political pressures and the coronavirus push many countries – particularly the United States – to embrace more nationalist policies, the heyday of globalisation soon could be replaced by a post-pandemic era shaped by national-security concerns and border controls.This is not good news for China, which would prefer that the world maintain the economic openness it achieved in recent decades. For that reason, China had been working hard to align its economic and trade activities with international rules and norms. But now it seems that China must prepare for a future characterised by higher trade barriers and restrictions.To this end, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan makes clear that the country will seek to reduce its dependence on external demand. The “dual-circulation strategy” announced in the plan instead emphasizes reliance on the country’s huge population. China also <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/china-builds-digital-and-medical-silk-roads/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plans to invest heavily</a> in cutting-edge sectors, such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, and work to achieve self-sufficiency in core technologies.Outsiders are deeply suspicious of China’s moves to increase state control over its economic development, such as imposing new regulations on tech companies and capital markets. They fear that the country is prioritizing its geopolitical objectives over the quest to build a market economy. Some even worry that China will return to the development model that predominated before Deng Xiaoping launched the country’s “reform and opening up.”These fears are overblown. China is unlikely to return to a state-controlled economy or enact isolationist policies. Instead, the increased role of the state in the economy and a shift toward self-reliance should be interpreted as a response to a changing – and, at times, hostile – external environment.This shift likely would have happened even if Sino-American relations had not deteriorated as they have, owing to China’s enormous population. Recognizing the potential of its own massive internal market, China’s leaders have long sought to increase domestic demand as a hedge against external changes. As for technological progress, a larger population implies more talent and higher returns for innovation.But, amid the retreat from globalization, China’s advantage may be even greater. In a 2018 paper, Klaus Desmet, Dávid Krisztián Nagy, and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg showed that in a world of restricted cross-country trade and migration, countries with large populations can provide <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/697084?mobileUi=0">more opportunities</a> to increase economic output through internal trade and specialization.The most populous countries are not necessarily the richest today, the authors note, largely because of migration. But if barriers to migration grow high enough, populous countries will outpace smaller countries in innovation, even if the latter are richer. Because long-run growth is driven by improvements in technology, this translates into a major economic advantage for countries with larger populations. This outcome highlights just how self-defeating America’s turn inward is: it’s clear that America’s success is thanks to migration and globalization.To be sure, China is facing strong demographic headwinds: its birth rate <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-23/china-s-record-low-birth-rate-underscores-population-challenges">dropped to a record low</a> in 2020. But the effects of this decline will take a few decades to have an impact. China’s demographics today give the country a significant advantage over the US in terms of human capital for at least the next 20 years. Projections of China’s future growth suggest that if China makes the most of this advantage – as it seems poised to do – the US will find it all but impossible to hamper China’s economic progress. Rather than thwarting China’s ambitions, America’s policies will encourage China to continue hedging its bets, including by rethinking its national-security strategy and shifting more resources to its science and technology sectors. In the worst decoupling scenario, the world’s two largest economies will end up dominating their own technology-supply systems, each with its own rules and standards.This is a distinct possibility. But visionary politicians should appreciate how much more could be achieved on both sides if the countries instead worked together. The US would be far better served by seizing the opportunities China’s rise creates. And, while China’s large population affords it a major advantage in a deglobalized world, it still has a lot to learn from more advanced economies, beginning with the US. China remains a developing economy, after all, with a per-capita GDP amounting to just one-quarter of the OECD average.More broadly, while a more populous country has a large domestic market to fall back on, that is no substitute for access to the global market. Likewise, ties to the outside world, including the sharing of knowledge and ideas, invariably accelerate technological progress. And an open and decentralized economic system that encourages market-led activity is far more conducive to the iterative process vital to the commercialization of innovation.It’s clear that China has much to gain from a more open global economic system. China’s leaders have emphasized that they are not abandoning the path of market-led development and returning to a closed economic model – and there is no reason to believe otherwise.Read Also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/climate-covid-19-and-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Climate, COVID-19 and China</a>, Rastraraj Bhandari© Project SyndicateZhang Jun, Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University, is Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, a Shanghai-based think tank.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161152/636d1e8a9c7e80680e0af415jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="90" height="110">

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US afflicted with full-blown Sinophobia

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