The Tiananmen Square Protests of June 1989 was a watershed moment in modern Chinese history. The crackdown though was an internal matter; nonetheless, its echoes were well felt in the Western world.
From Bi-polar to Pseudo Uni-polar
The Tiananmen episode happened just at the most important juncture of modern history, when the Soviet Union was collapsing and the almost 45-year long Cold War was dwindling. Consequently, the bipolar international system was preparing itself to embrace the unipolar world. A coming of age, where no power was powerful enough to stand in the way of the all-powerful, the US. Intrinsically, the US was in dire need of a pseudo-enemy to justify its global military presence and to maintain the system of alliances; the Chinese ‘power show’ just provided the opportunity. The policymakers in Washington, mostly consisting of Neo-Conservatives and Liberals, started their crusade in demonizing Beijing; hence reinvigorated the ‘China Threat’ debate. The history of the ‘China Threat’ can be traced to a few more decades back, when Communist Mao overpowered Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek in October 1949. Nonetheless, the early 1990s was the perfect time for the U.S. to bury the hatchet for the Soviet Union, and start a renewed rivalry in relation to China.
The China Threat
The ‘China Threat’ has momentously resonated time and again in the U.S. policymaking and academic circles, especially during the past three decades. It reached its climax with the Obama Administration’s calling for the Asia Pivot policy and an overt containment of China by placing the majority of U.S. troops in the Asia-Pacific region. However, during the 2016 US Presidential campaign, the ‘China Threat’ was given overblown emphasis when the then Republican candidate Donald Trump argued that “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country.” Later, the Republican nominee sworn in as the U.S. President in January 2017 and initiated an intense trade war with China, which its Democrat successor Joe Biden is pursuing blindly.
However, in the last quarter of 2019, soon after the eruption of COVID-19 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the US policymakers were overtly suspicious. The people sitting in Washington were greatly driven by the ‘China Threat’ theory, and the then President Trump presented a new dimension to the theory by arguing COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus.” I argue that the US policymakers were employing the time-tested narrative of ‘China Threat’ and were applying the same powerful logic in order to achieve strategic objectives.
The Seven Reasons
There are at least seven reasons for calling the COVID-19 as ‘China Virus’; now, let us deconstruct.
First, the strategic competition between the US and China is an open secret. Historically speaking, great powers cooperate as well as compete for relative gains and are eager in maximizing their share of world power. This inherent nature of great power relationship engages great powers in an intense security competition, and hence they willingly or unwillingly compete in one way or the other – the US and China are no exception. Consequently, calling the COVID-19 as ‘China Virus’ can be interpreted as the manifestation of such a strategic rivalry. Second, the narrative of ‘China Virus’ is targeted in hindering the international recognition of the BRI. It is to be remembered here that the power of BRI attracted North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members including Germany, France, and Italy. The ‘China Virus’ intends to shrink such recognition and the penetration of BRI in Europe and elsewhere. By doing this, the US would significantly alter the thinking patterns of BRI partners in entering into a partnership with China.
Third, the US has resorted to a calculated course in wearing down the Chinese economy which is dependent on exporting goods and products to foreign countries, by declaring it responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19 and calling it as ‘China Virus’. Fourth, the ‘China Virus’ is specifically aimed at maligning Chinese global image and portraying it as the exporter of deadly viruses. For a great power like China, a global benign image is a prerequisite for attracting new markets for fostering trade and its international standing. Fifth, the ‘China Virus’ is aimed at impeding the Chinese global outreach which in turn could have drastic effects on its politics, society, and economy. In other words, the ‘China Virus’ is a novel attempt in containing China and limiting it to its own geographical boundaries. Sixth, to generate a unique sense of fear among peoples of the world in relation to China and the Chinese people. At large, to persuade the world people in perceiving China and the Chinese people to be contagious and contaminated and avoiding the businesses owned and run by the people of Chinese origin. In this way, a racist and somewhat nationalistic segregation could be made possible by using stereotypes such as ‘China Virus’.
Finally, the ‘China Virus’ is a meticulous and well-calculated effort by the US to hurt the “China’s Peaceful Rise” by demonising Zheng Bijian’s theory. Bijian articulated that China aspired to rise peacefully without having hostile intentions against any nation of the world. For Bijian, China is like any other nation in the world, which is peace-loving and is willing to do its share in making the world a better and peaceful place. However, I argue that the theory of ‘China Virus’ is a targeted one for calling China to be the culprit in destabilizing and disturbing the world peace. Alternatively, it is aimed at demonizing China’s peaceful intentions by painting it as an evil empire.
Conclusion
The US foreign policymakers are always looking for creating new pseudo enemies to destroy. Contemporarily, they have instilled a tremendous amount of fear in the hearts and minds of their people regarding Russia and China.
For this policy to accomplish, now they are creating new narratives, spreading propaganda, and false information. One of the many ways to combat it is to learn from history and avoid such propaganda.
Muhammad Ali Baig – is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI), Pakistan. He is a Ph.D. candidate and a distinguished graduate of National Defence University (NDU), Islamabad, Pakistan, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
