My Take | Blaming China to evade its own responsibility is now America’s default mode
Chinese political philosopher Xiang Shuchen lays bare the cultural and psychological roots of America’s Manichean view of Beijing and its ‘evil’ ways
Donald Trump hasn’t even moved back to the White House yet, but he has already picked a fight with Beijing over America’s decade-old fentanyl crisis.
His nominated candidate for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, has claimed “China is attacking America” with fentanyl. Trump tweeted last month that he “will be charging China an additional 10 per cent tariff, above any additional tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States” until China effectively stopped fentanyl shipments to the US.
But why go all ballistic against the Chinese rather than building on and expanding a new deal they have made with the outgoing administration of Joe Biden?
In September, at Biden’s request, Beijing agreed to expand the banned list of precursor chemicals used in making the drug as well as stepping up operations against money laundering tied to the drug trade in Mexico.
Trump, of course, has an incentive to discredit or undermine everything his Democrat predecessor has done. But blaming China for America’s problems at home and abroad has long been a bipartisan exercise, and the latest spat over fentanyl is characteristic of Washington’s preference for confrontation over cooperation.
Chinese political philosopher Xiang Shuchen has written about why America is willing to forgo what Beijing likes to call “win-win” for a Manichean fight with “evil”. That’s often to the incomprehension of the more pragmatic – or cynical – Chinese.
