My Take | Must the United States demonise China?
- Simply existing as a prosperous power is enough to make China an enemy, which must be isolated, contained, if not destroyed, like a disease. Hong Kong is but another factor in this hegemonic calculus
“She goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colours and usurp the standard of freedom.
“The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit …” – John Quincy Adams, 1821
America has always needed an enemy. China is but the latest in a long series of “monsters” in need of destruction. What Adams, the sixth US president, famously warned against has long ago become the blueprint for the United States’ engagement with the world.
Every post-war president, including Donald Trump, went into office trying to follow Adams’ wise advice but ended up doing the opposite. When you have a democracy, public opinion must be managed or manufactured.
When you run a national security state, you must control your own citizens domestically and use all your powers, hard, soft and sharp, to bring to heel allies and rivals alike. Disobedience demands punishment, which can range from relatively bloodless sanctions to outright invasion and war.