Genuine question: what the hell did China ever do to us? In repeated Gallup polls, when  asked “Who is the greatest enemy of the United States?” American respondents routinely pick China. Why? It’s a stupid question in general, I recognize; but really? China? I can think of 5 to 6 more zealously anti-American nationstates than China. Why do they get the status of enemy numero uno? Now, *obviously* There are a slew of very real critiques of the Chinese government that well informed, good faith people can weigh for themselves; I’m not so ideologically dense that I believe China to be some sort of communist (or state capitalist…) utopia. But, and forgive me for saying this, I refuse to believe that the average redneck is thoughtfully considering the socio-political ethics of Dengism when they accuse Chinese-American people of being spies. I do not think Donald Trump’s rampant anti-Asian statements were made with any form of genuine concern for, say, Uyger muslims—honestly, it’s grimly hilarious to consider that the only Muslims that the United States right wing seems to care about are the ones they can politically leverage to justify hating Chinese people. See: Gaza, Iraq, take your pick. 

So, why China? If not actual critique, then what makes Americans so… distrustful?

If we revisit those Gallup polls, an interesting correlation appears: it seems like this new wave of Sinophobia has spawned as a result of Covid-19. Look, I get it; “correlation does not mean causation” was drilled into my head by my biology degree, I’m not trying to overreach in my conclusion… But, just sticking to anecdotes, I remember specifically that Trump routinely called Covid the “China Virus”, or “Wu Han Flu’, or some other quip that was equally as brazenly racist. I don’t think it’s egregious to claim that the explicit statements of the singular most powerful man in the world can rile up racist sentiment in the populus—an aggravation that I don’t think we’ve fully recovered from four years later. So, are these polls reflecting a retaliatory inflammation of racism in our post-Covid world? Is that why China is America’s “nemesis”?

Maybe a little. But it’s more than that, I think. More than Covid, at least; after all, anti-Asian racism has existed in America long before our contemporary moment, and blaming everything on Trump is a liberal position that I can’t bear to imitate. The real factor in this attitude shift, at least from where I’m sitting, is tied to global politics. It seems that China, as a nation, is the singular largest threat to America’s global hegemony since the USSR, and I think that scares people. Now, for a hippy-dippy type like myself, globalized neoliberalism is nothing ww daStates—a dominance that I feel that all of us have grown numb to. As an American, I can probably kick my feet up in *most* nations on earth, and be pretty comfortably assured that I can be spoken to in English, and watch movies from Hollywood, and wear American brands. God knows there’s probably an American military base or McDonalds within 500 square miles of every square inch of the world; is that reality not worthy of some… introspection? Why is an Americanized world somehow a given, but one with growing Chinese influence a blight, a threat to global peace? Where have all those ultra-hustler types gone? I thought the spirit of competition is what made America “great”. A challenger is rising to the podium, and the response from the ruling class is… vulgar racism? Hilarious. 

Maybe the real “greatest enemy of the United States” is none other than America herself.