Trump Is Trying to Put Us on War Footing with China. It’s Up to the Left to Stop It. – On the dangers of the Right’s new China scare

The Trump cam­paign and the Nation­al Repub­li­can Sen­a­to­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for­mal­ized their sino­pho­bic strat­e­gy in April. First, blame Chi­na for the pan­dem­ic, dein­dus­tri­al­iza­tion and the opi­oid cri­sis. Then, accuse Biden and oth­er Democ­rats of all but sur­ren­der­ing to Bei­jing. Plus, vow to restore U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing while impos­ing sanc­tions on Chi­na, the biggest eco­nom­ic rival to the Unit­ed States. This dem­a­goguery has ener­gized the party’s base and direct­ed atten­tion away from Trump’s fail­ures, allow­ing the GOP to go on the offensive.

Anti-Chi­na mes­sag­ing, echoed in rightwing media, is all over the president’s 2020 cam­paign ads. Amer­i­ca First, a pro-Trump super PAC, has spent mil­lions of dol­lars in swing states to attack Biden as sup­port­ing China’s rise and for label­ing the White House’s Jan­u­ary trav­el ban as xeno­pho­bic. Ads call the for­mer vice pres­i­dent ​“Bei­jing Biden.” A spon­sored web­site claims the Biden family’s ​“cor­rupt ties to the Chi­nese elite raise seri­ous ques­tions about Biden’s ethics and the secre­tive motives for his weak stances on China.”

Sim­i­lar pos­tur­ing has per­me­at­ed the rhetoric of Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate. One spot for Sen. Martha McSal­ly (R‑Ariz.) accus­es Biden and McSally’s oppo­nent, Mark Kel­ly, of ​“sell­ing out to Chi­na.” One for Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑Iowa) says,“We rely on Com­mu­nist Chi­na for far too much, from tech­nol­o­gy to med­i­cine. So I’m fight­ing to bring it home.”

This brand of sino­pho­bia, por­tray­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­da as pro-Chi­na as much as pos­si­ble, has metas­ta­sized beyond dis­cus­sions of dein­dus­tri­al­iza­tion and the pan­dem­ic to include such pro­gres­sive pri­or­i­ties as cut­ting the bloat­ed U.S. mil­i­tary bud­get and tran­si­tion­ing to clean ener­gy. Trump even claimed the Paris cli­mate accord ​“would have crushed Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ers while allow­ing Chi­na to pol­lute,” call­ing it ​“one more gift from Biden to the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Party.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Right has spu­ri­ous­ly attacked Black Lives Mat­ter as a Chi­nese plot. Lau­ra Ingra­ham of Fox News sug­gest­ed the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty (CCP) ​“has its hands in the riots and the cur­rent push to desta­bi­lize Amer­i­ca,” while Chad­wick Moore appeared on Tuck­er Carl­son Tonight to argue Chi­na is fund­ing the move­ment. Raheem Kas­sam, a col­lab­o­ra­tor of for­mer White House strate­gist Steve Ban­non, declared Black Lives Mat­ter is ​“lay­ing the ground­work” for a ​“CCP invasion.”

Con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries like these help but­tress the Right’s ​“blame Chi­na” nar­ra­tive. In an MSNBC inter­view in ear­ly July, Navar­ro claimed ​“the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty is respon­si­ble for every bad thing we’re expe­ri­enc­ing” while sug­gest­ing the coro­n­avirus is a ​“delib­er­ate” attack. Nation­al­ists also argue the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion is run by agents of the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment who col­lud­ed to ensure the virus spreads — a the­o­ry that ulti­mate­ly led Trump to with­draw the Unit­ed States from the orga­ni­za­tion, jeop­ar­diz­ing inter­na­tion­al efforts to con­tain the pandemic. 

Beyond mere rhetoric, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is imple­ment­ing aggres­sive pol­i­cy that reshapes and inflames the U.S.-China rela­tion­ship. The White House has imposed tight restric­tions on Chi­nese jour­nal­ists in the Unit­ed States, declared an end to pref­er­en­tial eco­nom­ic treat­ment of Hong Kong and sanc­tioned Chi­nese offi­cials involved with the per­se­cu­tion of eth­nic Uighurs and oth­er Mus­lims in the Xin­jiang region. More recent­ly, the White House forced Chi­na to shut down its con­sulate in Hous­ton and float­ed plans to impose a trav­el ban on mem­bers of the CCP and their fam­i­lies, which could affect as many as 270 mil­lion peo­ple.

Per­haps most alarm­ing is the increase in U.S.-China mil­i­tary activ­i­ties. In the South Chi­na Sea, two U.S. Navy car­ri­er groups held exer­cis­es for the first time in more than a decade. This year’s Sen­ate debate over the U.S. mil­i­tary bud­get includ­ed mul­ti­ple com­pet­ing pro­pos­als to increase anti-Chi­na spend­ing by bil­lions of dol­lars. Mean­while, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has threat­ened to engage Chi­na (and Rus­sia) in a new nuclear arms race, with head arms con­trol nego­tia­tor Mar­shall Billingslea promis­ing the Unit­ed States would spend its adver­saries ​“into oblivion.”

These actions have only suc­ceed­ed in antag­o­niz­ing the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment, whose anti-West­ern nation­al­ism increas­ing­ly mir­rors anti-Chi­na sen­ti­ment in the Unit­ed States. Fur­ther provo­ca­tions risk retal­i­a­tion that the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is like­ly to answer in kind, lock­ing the coun­tries in a feed­back loop of bel­liger­ence and brinks­man­ship. Esca­lat­ing pres­sure to pick a side threat­ens Uighurs, Hong Kongers, Chi­nese Amer­i­cans, and oth­ers caught in between. It also serves the Repub­li­can elec­toral strat­e­gy: As long as the U.S.-China con­flict deep­ens and remains in the head­lines, the GOP can dri­ve vot­ers and increase the pow­er of its xeno­pho­bic campaign. 

This rise in sino­pho­bia is not just a cyn­i­cal ploy; it reflects a deep­er shift with­in the U.S. elite toward con­fronta­tion with Chi­na, dri­ven by mil­i­tarists and eco­nom­ic nation­al­ists who insist the Unit­ed States is locked in a zero-sum strug­gle with Chi­na for pow­er and glob­al growth. 

Sur­round­ed by U.S. mil­i­tary bases and allies, Chi­na is attempt­ing to estab­lish itself as a region­al mil­i­tary pow­er, a devel­op­ment the U.S. secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment per­ceives as a threat to its dom­i­nant posi­tion in the Pacif­ic. The size and rapid growth of the Asia mar­ket ​“increas­ing­ly defines glob­al pow­er and com­merce,” argues promi­nent Asia pol­i­cy fig­ure Kurt Camp­bell, mak­ing U.S. pri­ma­cy essen­tial to ​“spur domes­tic revival and ren­o­va­tion [in the Unit­ed States] as well as to keep the peace in the world’s most dynam­ic region.”

Sen. Mar­co Rubio (R‑Fla.) — in con­trast with Trump, whose trade war against Chi­na in 2018 led to a reces­sion in the U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor and a spike in farm bank­rupt­cies — offers a dif­fer­ent, more sophis­ti­cat­ed vision of anti-Chi­na eco­nom­ic nation­al­ism. The sen­a­tor con­tends that con­fronting Chi­na is key to improv­ing the sta­tus of U.S. work­ers, even as his pol­i­cy pro­pos­als care­ful­ly avoid min­i­mum wage increas­es or stronger labor rights. Instead, Rubio’s poli­cies fea­ture tax breaks, sub­si­dies and oth­er con­ven­tion­al­ly pro-busi­ness demands. For Rubio and his ilk, mak­ing U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing more com­pet­i­tive with Chi­na requires an inten­si­fi­ca­tion of work­er exploita­tion, keep­ing costs low and prof­its high.

The white nation­al­ist fac­tion of the White House shares these broad­er aims while pur­su­ing more bla­tant­ly racist pol­i­cy. Led by Stephen Miller, the fac­tion has used the U.S.-China trade war to lob­by (unsuc­cess­ful­ly) for a total ban on Chi­nese inter­na­tion­al stu­dents, and is almost cer­tain­ly behind the pro­posed trav­el ban on CCP mem­bers and their families.

These cur­rents are push­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty away from the free-mar­ket fun­da­men­tal­ism that defined it for decades, embold­en­ing Repub­li­cans to declare them­selves cham­pi­ons of so-called reg­u­lar peo­ple and the com­mon good. That these pol­i­tics are inher­ent­ly racist and exclu­sion­ary has not stopped some puta­tive­ly pro­gres­sive com­men­ta­tors from embrac­ing them. Matt Stoller, for exam­ple, author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monop­oly Pow­er and Democ­ra­cy, express­es admi­ra­tion for the eco­nom­ic nation­al­ism of Sens. Rubio, Josh Haw­ley (R‑Mo.) and Tom Cot­ton (R‑Ark.), along with Peter Navar­ro, U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Robert Lighthiz­er and Tuck­er Carl­son. In effect, Steve Ban­non is get­ting what he has want­ed for years: a par­ty for which ​“the eco­nom­ic war with Chi­na is every­thing” and can be used as a focus for its polit­i­cal realignment.

The worst-case sce­nario is that these trends con­verge to pro­duce a mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion with Chi­na, per­haps as an Octo­ber sur­prise aimed at chang­ing the dynam­ics of the pres­i­den­tial race. As The Nation​’s defense cor­re­spon­dent Michael Klare argues, the South Chi­na Sea is an espe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous locus of ten­sion, where ​“the U.S. mil­i­tary is pro­ceed­ing down an extreme­ly dan­ger­ous path, and one very like­ly to lead to mis­cal­cu­la­tion and war.” Shock­ing­ly, Rep. Ted Yoho (R‑Fla.) pre­dict­ed as much in a July inter­view with the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er: ​“There will be a clash … peo­ple will die.”

Repub­li­cans are not alone in pur­su­ing anti-Chi­na mes­sag­ing. For a num­ber of years, com­men­ta­tors from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum have argued the ​“Chi­na threat” could be used to uni­fy an increas­ing­ly unruly pop­u­la­tion. Of course, unit­ing the coun­try around a for­eign threat invari­ably invites big­otry — a real­i­ty that racist respons­es to the pan­dem­ic have thrown into stark relief. Sad­ly, this has not pre­vent­ed Democ­rats from push­ing their own ver­sion of sinophobia.

The Biden campaign’s ini­tial response to Trump’s attacks was to cut an unabashed­ly bel­liger­ent ad claim­ing he would have forced U.S. med­ical per­son­nel into Chi­na ear­ly in the out­break, dark­ly inton­ing the pres­i­dent ​“rolled over for the Chi­nese” by allow­ing 40,000 pos­si­bly infect­ed trav­el­ers into the Unit­ed States after impos­ing his trav­el ban. 

A large num­ber of Asian Amer­i­can and pro­gres­sive groups harsh­ly crit­i­cized the ad, in an open let­ter to the Biden cam­paign, for ​“play­ing to right-wing nation­al­ism and fan­ning anti-Chi­na sen­ti­ment.” (Full dis­clo­sure: The authors of this arti­cle are sig­na­to­ries.) But Biden has made only cos­met­ic changes in the weeks and months since. After Trump’s Rose Gar­den speech in July, the Biden cam­paign issued talk­ing points reaf­firm­ing the con­ser­v­a­tive premise that Chi­na must be held account­able for the pandemic.

Although Democ­rats claim to oppose ​“the trap of a new Cold War,” in prac­tice they give promi­nence to inter­na­tion­al ten­sion rather than chart paths for coop­er­a­tion. This atti­tude risks entrench­ing sino­pho­bia as a defin­ing fea­ture of U.S. pol­i­tics, endan­ger­ing pro­gres­sive pri­or­i­ties by favor­ing so-called nation­al secu­ri­ty over, for exam­ple, action on cli­mate change and work­ers’ rights. Per­haps Demo­c­ra­t­ic oper­a­tives see their pos­tur­ing as doing lit­tle more than defus­ing a potent Repub­li­can talk­ing point, imag­in­ing that a Biden admin­is­tra­tion would safe­ly pur­sue a more mod­er­ate approach to Chi­na (as for­mer Pres­i­dents Bill Clin­ton and Barack Oba­ma did) after the elec­tion. Such assump­tions, how­ev­er, may prove ill-found­ed if the pub­lic begins to asso­ciate Chi­na not with low-cost exports and boot­leg DVDs but mass death and U.S. eco­nom­ic collapse.

Pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, Amer­i­cans were already under siege by abstract forces dif­fi­cult to grasp in their immen­si­ty. From work­force casu­al­iza­tion to the opi­oid epi­dem­ic, fears of scarci­ty to an acute sense of eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al insta­bil­i­ty, mil­lions of Amer­i­cans were already feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble and con­fused. Anti-Chi­na Repub­li­cans prey on such feel­ings, giv­ing them a human face — a for­eign face — and offer­ing xeno­pho­bic vio­lence as a sub­sti­tute for gen­uine secu­ri­ty. Polling data indi­cates this mes­sage is tak­ing effect, with a rapid increase in pop­u­lar antipa­thy toward China. 

If Democ­rats accept this basic anti-Chi­na propo­si­tion, they ulti­mate­ly risk los­ing their cur­rent elec­toral advan­tage. Stok­ing a fear of for­eign­ers strength­ens Trump’s hand, as his entire polit­i­cal iden­ti­ty is found­ed on xeno­pho­bia. If Trump’s best path to vic­to­ry this Novem­ber is to make the elec­tion about Chi­na, then Biden is blun­der­ing into a trap.

But even if the dis­as­trous Repub­li­can response to the pan­dem­ic secures a large 2020 vic­to­ry for Democ­rats, sino­pho­bia could reorder Amer­i­can pol­i­tics and embold­en the forces of reac­tion. A left-lib­er­al alliance has the chance to break Repub­li­can pow­er once and for all, end­ing a years-long paral­y­sis in U.S. pol­i­tics that has stymied any pro­gres­sive agen­da. If Democ­rats refuse to look beyond Novem­ber, how­ev­er, then they risk win­ning a bat­tle by ced­ing to the Repub­li­cans the ter­rain on which the war will be decided.

And in the process, Democ­rats risk a per­ma­nent break with Chi­na. Such a devel­op­ment would nour­ish anti-Asian racism in the U.S. and could trig­ger a fright­en­ing new era of mil­i­tarism, xeno­pho­bia and large-scale inter­na­tion­al vio­lence, extin­guish­ing pro­gres­sive momen­tum. What’s more, a new Cold War would ren­der impos­si­ble the nec­es­sary inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion to con­tain future pan­demics and cli­mate change. Even if we were to some­how avoid a hot war, tens of mil­lions of peo­ple could become the col­lat­er­al dam­age of a pro­tract­ed conflict.

Pro­gres­sives are ani­mat­ed by equal­i­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty, essen­tial val­ues that could resolve this bur­geon­ing U.S.-China pow­er con­flict, yet the U.S. Left appears ill equipped for the task. For all the ground­break­ing domes­tic pol­i­cy ideas, the Left lacks a glob­al vision. Pro­gres­sives may reject nation­al­ism, but their think­ing has turned inward just as sure­ly as that of their right-wing counterparts. 

Still, a left­ist analy­sis can help us under­stand the recent inten­si­fi­ca­tion of nation­al­ism. Where reac­tionar­ies view U.S.-China ten­sion as racial­ly or cul­tur­al­ly dri­ven and lib­er­als see it as a clash between democ­ra­cy and author­i­tar­i­an­ism, pro­gres­sives must under­stand that our glob­al sys­tem has pit­ted these two coun­tries against each other.

In the 1990s and 2000s, a neolib­er­al vision of free mar­kets, inte­gra­tion and cos­mopoli­tanism flour­ished in both coun­tries. The Unit­ed States and Chi­na com­ple­ment­ed one anoth­er in the glob­al econ­o­my; growth was achieved through coop­er­a­tion. Since the Great Reces­sion, how­ev­er, faith in this sys­tem has steadi­ly erod­ed amid slug­gish growth world­wide, fuel­ing nation­al­ist move­ments across con­ti­nents. Those nation­al­ist move­ments have, in turn, pushed pol­i­tics in a sharply author­i­tar­i­an direc­tion in not just the Unit­ed States and Chi­na, but India, Turkey and many oth­er coun­tries. It’s not just Chi­na that has set up con­cen­tra­tion camps to iso­late those con­sid­ered for­eign and dan­ger­ous — the Unit­ed States has its bor­der camps and the Euro­pean Union its refugee deten­tion sites.

Since the 2008 eco­nom­ic cri­sis, Chi­nese lead­er­ship has accel­er­at­ed its devel­op­ment strat­e­gy, aimed at end­ing China’s eco­nom­ic sub­or­di­na­tion to the West. Chi­na increas­ing­ly threat­ens the dom­i­nance of Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions in such high-val­ue sec­tors as robot­ics, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and biotech­nol­o­gy, even as the Unit­ed States becomes depen­dent on those sec­tors to sus­tain its own eco­nom­ic growth.

If these nations find them­selves on a col­li­sion course, nei­ther hom­i­lies about world peace nor promis­es to return to a bygone era are like­ly to alter their tra­jec­to­ries. The source of this con­flict is not racial, cul­tur­al or even polit­i­cal. It is the prod­uct of an increas­ing­ly dys­func­tion­al glob­al econ­o­my, and only by expos­ing this sys­tem can we find a way for both sides — along with the rest of the world — to sur­vive and flourish. 

What is the role of the Left in achiev­ing such a transformation? 

First, we must ensure the defeat of Trump and the GOP in Novem­ber. While sino­pho­bia is now com­mon in both par­ties, the Repub­li­can ver­sion is unequiv­o­cal­ly more con­spir­a­to­r­i­al, des­per­ate and volatile. A Biden admin­is­tra­tion would not cre­ate an alter­na­tive to the new Cold War of its own accord, but it would pro­ceed more cau­tious­ly and be more recep­tive to pres­sure from pro­gres­sives — if pro­gres­sives mar­shal the req­ui­site sup­port with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

The Left must offer a clear and com­pelling alter­na­tive to the grow­ing U.S.-China con­flict and a path beyond the decay­ing glob­al neolib­er­al order. In the short term, this path includes inter­na­tion­al coor­di­na­tion to com­bat the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic; doing so has the poten­tial to counter anti-Chi­na sen­ti­ment among vot­ers, accord­ing to a Morn­ing Consult/​Politico poll from May. When asked to choose between work­ing with Chi­na to defeat the virus or hold­ing Chi­na account­able for its role in the pan­dem­ic, par­tic­i­pants favored coop­er­a­tion over con­fronta­tion by a 28-point margin.

Beyond the cur­rent cri­sis, we must demand the Unit­ed States part­ner with Chi­na (and all oth­er coun­tries) to end cli­mate change and glob­al inequal­i­ty through coor­di­nat­ed, pub­lic invest­ment, and by strength­en­ing the pow­er of labor around the world. Such an agen­da could restruc­ture glob­al growth, dis­man­tling the U.S.-China con­flict at its source. 

At the same time, pro­gres­sives must affirm the rights of those threat­ened by the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment — the Mus­lims of Xin­jiang, Hong Kong pro­test­ers, jour­nal­ists and oth­ers. The U.S. Left has, so far, allowed the Right to lead on these issues, which is not just a betray­al of our prin­ci­ples but a strate­gic error. We must make the case that a more coop­er­a­tive, less antag­o­nis­tic stance toward Chi­na may, in fact, open up more space to pres­sure the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment. As for­mer Oba­ma advis­er Ryan Hass and oth­ers have argued, the U.S.-China rela­tion­ship has become so adver­sar­i­al that Chi­na sees no ben­e­fit in yield­ing to U.S. demands.

Strength­en­ing democ­ra­cy in Chi­na and beyond will not be achieved through direct attacks on the CCP’s author­i­tar­i­an­ism, espe­cial­ly when the Unit­ed States has ignored (if not active­ly sup­port­ed) sim­i­lar abus­es from Brazil to India and Sau­di Ara­bia. Instead, we must build a move­ment of transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to neu­tral­ize the nation­al­ism and author­i­tar­i­an­ism unleashed by our glob­al eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Only then can we begin the dif­fi­cult work of forg­ing a bet­ter world.

As a 501©3 non­prof­it pub­li­ca­tion, In These Times does not oppose or endorse can­di­dates for polit­i­cal office.