Opinion | In the US, China-bashing is rooted in myths of Western superiority
- Across the centuries, Europe propagated anti-Chinese stereotypes as a response to the perceived threats to European might
- In the US today, dehumanising myths about Chinese continue to drive the cultural belief that China is the enemy
In the United States, if the right and left agree upon anything, it is that China is the enemy, at a deep, cultural level.
As a historian with years of research on China myths, I believe a deep history of China-bashing can help explain its tenacious hold on the American mind.
THE CHINA THREAT
In his preface to the most influential 18th-century book on China, J.B. Du Halde said European explorers saw themselves as superior to everyone they encountered, but in China they found a populous nation with prosperous cities and a society so tolerant that religious wars were unknown.
At first, these reports were dismissed as fiction: “We could not believe that beyond so many half-barbarous nations, and at the extremity of Asia, a powerful nation was to be found scarce inferior to any of the best governed states of Europe.”