The view of China as a strategic rival has taken over the American political mainstream, with leaders largely choosing confrontation over cooperation.
Opposition to China is one of the few uniting causes for a polarized America, Zhang writes. Credit: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons (left); Adam Schultz/Biden for President, Creative Commons (right)
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SHANGHAI – Last month, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee officially backed the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, which labels China a strategic competitor in a number of areas, including trade, technology, and security. Given bipartisan support — exceedingly rare in the United States nowadays — Congress will most likely pass the bill, and President Joe Biden will sign it. With that, America’s antagonism toward China would effectively become enshrined in U.S. law.
The Strategic Competition Act purports to highlight supposed “malign behaviors” in which China engages to attain an “unfair economic advantage” and the “deference” of other countries to “its political and strategic objectives.” In truth, the bill says a lot more about the U.S. itself — little of it flattering — than it does about China.
The U.S. used to take a sanguine view of China
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