The Collapse of US-China Relations and Its Xenophobic Consequences

Chinese President Xi Jinping, the object of widespread critique in American political rhetoric. Photo by UN Geneva.

On the day before Election Day, the White House released a statement reminding the public that Trump was the first to “recognize the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its threat to America’s economic and political way of life.” The statement was a capstone for a presidency which closed a Chinese consulate and dramatically burned its documents, waged a fierce trade war (partially from the blue-light battlefield of Twitter), and held the People’s Republic culpable for issues ranging from climate change to election interference. As such, it embodied a consequential, bipartisan, and growing recognition: the political value of vilifying China.

The United States sees China as both an untrustworthy, authoritarian surveillance state and a disease-ridden foreign world that represents an imminent national threat. No doubt the Trump presidency fanned this narrative, but rare consensus on both sides of the aisle has emerged on the need to confront China as a national enemy. Several paragraphs of the DNC’s current official policy platform, for instance, are specifically devoted to pushing back on China with respect to economic, security, and human rights concerns, referring to “the China challenge.” According to former White House trade negotiator Clete Willems, “being tough on China is what unifies us in a polarized nation right now. We’re polarized in our politics but we are not polarized on China.” As a result, US-China relations have deteriorated, marked by punitive and reactionary sanctions, increasing barriers to free trade, and tense military encroachment.

The same devices used to malign China, however, have evident ramifications for Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants within the US. The Trump presidency devolved into blatant racist name-calling; as the coronavirus devastated the US, Trump moved to enforce Chinese travel bans and adopt nicknames like “China Virus,” “Wuhan Virus,” and “Kung Flu” rather than implement domestic preventative health measures. While his rhetoric solidified China as the villain, the lack of immediate and effective policy to contain the pandemic ravaged the U.S. economy—the ramifications offloading onto Chinese-Americans and the Asian-American community more broadly. 

In the short timespan from mid-March to the end of June, the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council reported over 2100 individual anti-Asian hate incidents, including vandalism, racial slurs, and physical assault. In a particularly violent incident on July 14, an 89-year-old Asian woman was attacked and lit on fire outside her home in Brooklyn. As community leader Don Lee noted, the assailants “purposely picked on an Asian woman, Asian senior to commit this heinous crime.”

The impact of hate crimes, moreover, is far-reaching—members of the groups targeted can seldom change their behavior to protect or hide from perceived hatred, and the effects of broad threats create collateral networks of trauma within marginalized groups. A study published in November 2020 by the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that nearly half of Chinese-American parents and 70% of Chinese-American youth perceived Sinophobia regarding matters of disease and health in America, and that these heightened levels of perceived racism and discrimination were associated broadly with poorer mental health.

Of course, it would be presumptuous to imply that Trump invented this sort of anti-Asian racism. More accurately, Trump exploited preexisting Sinophobic tropes and emboldened those who advance them to further particular policy goals and strengthen his “America First” political branding. Importantly, widespread social “yellow peril” has historically been weaponized to advance anti-Chinese policies. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for instance, was the first American immigration law to target an entire ethnic group—and was enacted as injurious stereotypes of dirty and job-thieving Chinese immigrants, concentrated in Chinatowns, pervaded the nation. According to NYPD data, racially-motivated hate crimes against Asian folks increased by 1900% in 2020. This surge in anti-Asian crime coupled alongside increasing military and economic aggression against China should serve as a reminder of the long history of harm that intertwining social and political movements have wrought upon the Chinese-American community.

As we turn a national page to the Biden-Harris era, and reconcile with the flawed human rights records of the two, we must recognize that Sinophobia and anti-Asian xenophobia will not disappear with a simple party change. Biden’s open denouncement of systemic racism, his arguably more diplomatic record in foreign policy, and the stringent “accountability” of his administration promised to young voters may offer sources of hope for the Biden administration. Yet, as most experts have concluded, the anti-China political climate of today is likely to prevent Biden from pursuing a truly conciliatory foreign policy with Beijing.

NPR’s China Correspondent John Ruwitch explains that we may see more “discipline” with the new administration; on issues like the DPRK, climate change, and global health, the US might seek diplomatic, bilateral agreements with China. Fundamentally, however, the national stance is unlikely to shift. On the campaign trail, Biden was cautious not to appear soft on Xi Jinping, calling the leader “a thug” and airing his laundry list of human rights failures during the tenth Democratic debate. His campaign website’s trade policy individually named China, citing an intention to “[t]ake aggressive trade enforcement actions against China or any other country seeking to undercut American manufacturing through unfair practices, including currency manipulation, anti-competitive dumping, state-owned company abuses, or unfair subsidies.” Biden has made abundantly clear his intention to confront China in issues of trade, intellectual property, and human rights.

While it is undeniable that holding other countries, figures, and societies accountable for human rights violations is righteous and necessary, the campaign we have launched on China also uncovers the ulterior motives and hypocrisy inherent in those at the helm. In particular, and despite our tenuous moral standing, we have created a public enemy in China under the guise of genuinely making the nation’s leadership answerable to transgressions of human and civil rights. Our legislators pass measures to curb the overreach of the Chinese state while US police officers attack and detain peaceful protestors. Our media criticizes China’s aggression in the South China Sea while ignoring the American-made weapons in the hands of soldiers massacring Yemeni children. We condemn the authoritarian conception of Chinese governance, yet operate under scarcely democratic frameworks riddled with suppression and unpopular mechanisms.

This is not to say that China has not committed egregious abuses of human rights that ought to be addressed with concerted action (absolutely, it has), but rather that current US efforts to curb China’s reach cannot be explained in good faith by an interest in advancing global human rights. Indeed, the vast majority of US political rhetoric on China seems intended to propel two major claims: that China is stealing US intellectual property and that China’s rapid development has been fueled by unfair trade practices which threaten the US economically.

US-based companies like Apple have long alleged that Chinese companies such as Huawei and XMotors routinely attempt to steal American technologies and replicate them for domestic profit, potentially appropriating hundreds of billions of dollars from the US economy. 

Further, China’s mercantilist economic policy, one that heavily subsidizes companies at home, both discriminating against foreign producers and manipulating the yen’s value to make Chinese-imported products more appealing, has garnered multinational criticism for constructing an unfair global advantage. The demonization of China naturally propagates from these facts—but the virtue of China’s behaviors might be explained through their position as a nation historically exploited by Western powers. Although China’s GDP has grown remarkably in recent years, in reality it is still addressing its troubled past of geopolitical defeats, including the Opium Wars and one-sided, punitive trade demands during the nineteenth century.

Jeffrey Sachs, renowned economist, public policy analyst, and University Professor at Columbia, argues that the development strategy pursued by China has been espoused by many countries before it—including the US itself. “Countries that are lagging behind upgrade their technologies in many ways, through study, imitation, purchases, mergers, foreign investments, extensive use of off-patent knowledge and, yes, copying...” he argues, “this kind of competition is simply a part of the global economic system.” 

China’s aggressive infrastructural and technological investment strategy is not an attempt to crush the US with trade deficits but instead to improve the standard of living for its citizens. The US chooses to ignore this parallel positive development in smaller countries, but China, unnerving with its large population and single-party state, appears a larger threat. Nevertheless, demonizing China remains a simplistic way to conceive of the global power order while also absolving the US of its history of imperialism, war, and exploitation in the East.

China is not a perfectly moral nation, and neither American shortcomings nor geopolitical setbacks to China mitigate that reality—but there are reasons why politicians have placed a public target on China in particular. Strategic goals are achieved when people view the US as “democratic” and China as “authoritarian,” the US as “free and equal” and China as “repressive,” whether these characterizations have basis in truth or not. As a Chinese-American citizen, I beg others to recognize the importance of nuance in our critique of China. Western economic imperialism, political opportunism, and xenophobia—thinly veiled by pro-American sentiment and advocacy for human rights—is neither patriotic nor righteous and occurs all while violent anti-Asian racism incubates across our country.

For the US to confront global actors with the objectivity and moral high ground we claim to enjoy now, there must emerge a social consciousness around the way we perceive other nations, their leaders, their cultures, and their political systems. Instead, without regard for Americans with family and heritage overseas, those in public office have found a suitable rhetorical punching-bag in China. While the current climate in the US seems unforgiving on this front, it is critical that the new administration exhibit the moral clarity to demarcate where accountability for the Chinese government is merely a guise for the xenophobic demonization of a nation, its citizens, and its immigrants.

Julia Chang is a rising sophomore at Columbia College studying Economics-Political Science and Mathematics. She is passionate about social justice, law, and public policy. Outside of writing for CPR, you can find her drinking oat milk lattes, reading poetry (by Mary Oliver, of course), or finding the next cool restaurant on TikTok to annoy her friends into trying.