Often in life, we create our own enemies through paranoia and reaction. People do it all the time, and so can nations.
China-US relations have often been complicated by different perceptions. In Beijing they envision 'China's peaceful rise'. In Washington they see a threat.
In May, Robert Kagan, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote: 'The obvious choices would seem to lie between ceding American predominance in the region and taking steps to contain China's understandable ambitions.
'Not many Americans favour the former course, and for sound political, moral and strategic reasons.
'But let's not kid ourselves. It will be hard to pursue the latter course without treating China as at least a prospective enemy, and not just 20 years from now, but now.'
Has such drum-beating by US analysts fed into White House thinking? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said: 'the Chinese military modernisation looks outsized for its regional interests, and so to comment on that is not to suggest that we believe China is becoming an adversary, but simply to say that is something that has to be watched ... the US is going to continue to improve its own military capabilities so that the balance in the Asia-Pacific is maintained'.
Her words paralleled a US$4 billion arms sale to Taiwan.