Opinion | Amid US hysteria over China’s rise, the world is in need of more voices of reason

Let me ask you: would you be foolish enough to persist in advocating a balanced-sensible approach to China amid this murderous coronavirus crisis, for which so many blame Beijing? In this poisoned atmosphere of global suspicion and recrimination, would you try to buck the anti-China fever, as I will here?

Especially if you are in Hong Kong, where the “one country, two systems” trope looks increasingly to be on a slippery slide into “one country and just shut up”. The round-up of anti-government critics and protest leaders, even if designed by the Hong Kong government to double down on security, only adds to the optics of an evil Beijing.

China is starting to lose a measure of international esteem, and one special person in particular needs to review the loss. President Xi Jinping pointedly allowed state intrusion into the business sectors, narrowed the intellectual broadband of its best universities, arrested anyone thought corrupt (or irritating), and tested the boundaries of China’s sea and economic adventures.

Though US President Donald Trump claims a good relationship with Xi, almost no one in Washington now publicly claims that China’s continued rise is good for the US. Almost anyone trying to offer a balanced view on China these days runs the risk of being viewed as unbalanced.