My Take | What used to be called ‘the yellow peril’ is now ‘the China threat’

Surface rationality can be profoundly irrational. That’s why, of the many books and essays about the West’s confrontation with China, I find Jack London’s notorious short story, The Unparalleled Invasion, and his essay, The Yellow Peril, exceptionally illuminating.

A Sinophobe and deep racist, London was very much in touch with the “id” of the West, or more specifically, that of the Anglo-Saxon civilisation, as opposed to its surface “ego”. In the story, a coalition of Western powers articulates a seemingly rational case for war to wipe out the whole Chinese race which has grown too threatening. Yet, behind their cold-blooded calculations, it’s really paranoia and fear that have suddenly seized their leaders.

London wrote: “China was at last awake … She had transmuted Western culture and achievement into terms that were intelligible to the Chinese understanding … China’s awakening, with her four hundred millions and the scientific advance of the world, was frightfully astounding. She was the colossus of the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain tones in the affairs and councils of the nations … and the proud Western peoples listened with respectful ears.

“China’s swift and remarkable rise was due, perhaps more than to anything else, to the superlative quality of her labour … For sheer ability to work no worker in the world could compare with him. Work was the breath of his nostrils … Liberty, to him, epitomised itself in access to the means of toil … And the awakening of China had given its vast population not merely free and unlimited access to the means of toil, but access to the highest and most scientific machine-means of toil.”

These passages, with a few phrasal differences, appear in both the essay and the short story. With a few more up-to-date changes, they could have been written by an anti-China hawk today from the US, Britain, or Australia.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is one of the few non-hawks in Washington, made this scary but no doubt accurate observation this week. “You come to my Republican caucus and you’ll hear the beating of drums,” he said. “These are drums for war with whomever, but primarily war with China. Everything is about war with China … My goodness, shouldn’t we be talking about how to avoid war with China, not making it inevitable? The more you rant and rave, the more you make your policy more explicit for war … the more dangerous and less leverage the US has in the situation.”