It was Obama that pivoted to putting China in the "big bad" portrait frame, though at the time scary foreigner wasn't an important part of the incumbents political strategy.
China has also relatively recently gotten a more hardliner leader, which is bound to sour relations with "the West" to some degree as he imposes weird restrictions on human rights and reverses the trend towards openness of years prior.
But the US now has an openly racist and explicitly nationalist (in US terms) president, so open conflict with the primary enemy was guaranteed from the start. For deep ideological reasons it is necessary for the current administration that there should be conflict with the rest of the world. With this sort of focus by the administration the media reporting is bound to follow to some extent.
The US has had by far the most aggressive foreign policy in the last several decades. There's simply no contest. No matter what you think of China's track record, it is clearly focused on domestic control and internal security. A statement like "Chinese owned media will actively look to harm you and the place you live" is delusion, not borne out by any of the facts. A frightening example of how easily the state can designate new scapegoats.
The current administration sees China as a huge threat, the previous several administrations (republican and democrat) did not. Or if they did, they thought the way to deal with the threat was through economic cooperation.
I understand in the abstract why the US is freaking out about China as their economy is eclipsing the US and they are starting to create a competing international order to the WTO/IMF type deal with the belt and road initiative. However, I don't understand exactly what is triggering the national security establishment's (usually stupid and deadly) sudden paranoia about China.
Many people I know simply see these headlines and start to see China as an official enemy. I don't understand why we should see them that way at all. The official enemies of the US are typically brutalized in various ways and slandered in the media. It is difficult to know what is to be taken at face value.
China is the new big red threat, has been for a while now. No whataboutism about it, the US does the same shit but the fear of the other is still just as strong as ever.
I think you’ve got it backward. The likelihood is that the Obama administration treated China more like an ally and less as a hostile power than Trump has treated them.
China is America's enemy because they are achieving rival status and America can't just walk all over China like they do most South and Central American countries, its allies, etc. The bad stuff China does is just frosting on top for the narrative.
There's a lot of continuity between the Obama and Biden administrations, including foreign policy. If things were more stable back then, it's mainly because Obama just let China do whatever tf they wanted (occupying the South China Sea, hacking Google, planting Huawei spying equipment across the globe) and did nothing about it. Trump forced everyone to pay attention, no more free lunch for Xi.
That's not "schizophrenic". He dislikes China insofar as it harms US economic interests, not based on their internal policies. It's fully aligned with his motto of "America first" - first means before everyone, including the Uighurs.
Frankly, it doesn't even strike me as that different from previous administrations (it's not like the US particularly cared about what happened to the East Timorese, for example), he mostly just seems more short-sighted, by focusing on money rather than power.
The US point of view is more concerned about making enemies than solving problems. This is the Achilles heel of this country. For all its problems, the Chinese are engaged in the right approach: make alliances instead of war and improve their economy.
Chinese growth was slowing anyway. Now they have a convenient scapegoat for that, big bad America. The long-term consequences of deep hostility against America in the general Chinese population are hard to predict, but they are not going to be favorable to us.
The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today.
The change in attitude began with Trump. He was to first president to bring the threat of China to the mainstream political discourse. Since then, China is so objectively a threat to the U.S. economically, militarily and through their direct actions of manipulating U.S. businesses, countering our influence internationally, that bipartisian support was easy to flourish once someone actually took an anti-china stance.
The power of the Chinese market, low wage labor, sophisticated and concentrated foreign policy manipulation, and their stated strategy of "hiding their strength and biding their time" (until Xi), has worked to make the U.S. turn a blind eye. The problem of China has been present to any competent political scientist for a while now. But the amount of money incentives and ignorance on the part of U.S.
business and political leaders made it so they would in essence be bribed to ignore the issue.
Obama did a pivot to asia, with the TTP at its helm, but in reality after 8 years of presidency and negotatitions, the results were nothing unfortunately. TTP is debatable as a solution. Even with the TTP, the U.S. has been losing 300 billion a year to China in trade. Granted this results in cheaper products for us, but 300 billion dollar trade surplus for China is what funded the communist dictatorship growing military spending, leading to a military that can be as powerful as the U.S.'s one day. 300 billion each year is more profit that what all the U.S's top tech companies make each year combined. The rise of China is not a miricale, like Japan's, Koreas, and other early east asian miricales, it was bought by America's consumers and political inaction.
Some theory, although depressing admittely:
There is no government for governments, so each country lives in anarchy. Therefore nothing is off limits to get what you need to survive, including war.
Countries go to war and act in self interest because, if they are not strong, whoever is will likely use their power to exploit the other country.
A balance of power brings stability.
If there is 1 superpower, the world becomes globalized ( US after fall of soviet union). No world wars, because anyone who fights the dominant superpower will lose. This is called unipolar, one of the most stable and peaceful states for major powers.
Now when another power comes to rise, it is like a startup rising to crush the industry monopoly. Except, instead of having to battle it out economically, they can litteraly kill each other (or on the scale of countries, war).
The incentives for major war skyrocket
Britian was was the major power, they controlled 3/4ths of the world through their colonies and their unstoppable navy.
Then industrial revolution and trains led to the rise of land powers, and the rise of Germany's economy.
The rising powers, the disruption the balance of power eventually led to the world wars.
After that was U.S vs Soviet Union. The two sole superpowers after WW2 were on the brink of the nuclear war. for about 50 years.
The soviet union collapsed because communism with corruption was unable to keep up with captialism.
Now the U.S once the sole superpower, faces the rise of China. The chances of World War 3 are higher than ever, although they have calmed down from the high tensions of year or 2 ago.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it is important that we finally realize the immense threat that China is. Not just economically, but for our safety. Their goal is to be the top superpower, and to make the U.S. and anyone else bend to their will, as is every countries goal
US declared China as main competitor last year (as declared by VP pence), enforced high tariffs as punishment on China, and the US military is on high alert with China as the main enemy focus for years to come. Because they realized Xi Jing Ping the dictator was a paradigm shift.
Europe is now just doing the paradigm shift, urging its member states to act as a unified front against China. Something that Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, India, New Zealand, and Vietnam has started to do
That is the story if you read western media but it is important to remember that there is a massive world outside the west where that story is turned on its head: Here the US is a frail aging empire that just cannot handle the peaceful rise of China, and the idea of it no being the top dog, and thus lashes out in an increasing desperate manner.
So far the only person who has some balls to stand against China was Trump. Obama was grovelling to Chinese and Muslim brothers, he was a wimp and they treated him like a wimp. People in the west can lough as much as they want at Trump but he gets respect in the middle east and in Asia.
The United States‘ grip on the world is starting to get much looser. A strong China is seen as the reason, but there are many more.
The US is trying to build up an alliance against China, but I guess a lot of countries will want to stay neutral in that conflict. The Chinese government is doing horrible atrocities, but the US also isn’t the paragon it portrays itself to be.
China has also relatively recently gotten a more hardliner leader, which is bound to sour relations with "the West" to some degree as he imposes weird restrictions on human rights and reverses the trend towards openness of years prior.
But the US now has an openly racist and explicitly nationalist (in US terms) president, so open conflict with the primary enemy was guaranteed from the start. For deep ideological reasons it is necessary for the current administration that there should be conflict with the rest of the world. With this sort of focus by the administration the media reporting is bound to follow to some extent.
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