This undated file photo shows the Chinese National Flag and the US National Flag. (PHOTO /XINHUA)
At the London Headquarters of MI5 – the United Kingdom’s internal intelligence agency – on the banks of the River Thames, director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Christopher Wray and his UK counterpart, Ken McCallum, gave a joint presentation on what they claimed was an unprecedented economic threat from China.
In an invidious style – and content – redolent of former US Secretary of State and Central Intelligence Agency chief, Mike Pompeo, Wray made sweeping allegations that China “steals”, “cheats” and engages in “industrial espionage”, claiming Beijing was on a mission to dominate the world by obtaining the ins and outs of every industry before claiming their market share.
The speech was nothing more than the accumulation of the worst racial, cultural and McCarthyist prejudices against China originating in the US which has poisoned discourse concerning the country, as well as having led to a tidal wave of racial hatred and the innocent persecution of legitimate Chinese scholars and scientists
Unfortunately the event was given uncritical and favourable coverage by the British press, even if overshadowed by the ongoing collapse of the Boris Johnson government.
This speech was nothing more than the accumulation of the worst racial, cultural and McCarthyist prejudices against China originating in the United States which has poisoned discourse concerning the country, as well as having led to a tidal wave of racial hatred and the innocent persecution of legitimate Chinese scholars and scientists under the FBI’s notorious “China Initiative” – all of which was also conveniently omitted from coverage of this “presentation”.
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Whilst everything said was either false or extremely exaggerated, its consequences will undoubtedly poison legitimate avenues of research, exchange, collaboration and business between Chinese and Western institutions.
Since the era of former US president Donald Trump, the US has utilized racial caricatures and prejudices against Chinese people in order to garner support for geopolitical containment on the technology front, masking it with the acceptable – at least in the West – façade of anti-Communism.
However, one can find that such prejudices, in particular the notion that Chinese people are “inherently dishonest”, “cheat” and “steal”, existed long before Communist rule in China.
An infamous racist cartoon from 19th century Australia known as the Mongolian Octopus, published in a Sydney newspaper, stands as a historical benchmark on how many contemporary attacks leveled at the “Communist Party” have evolved from racist discourse.
The national flags of China and the United Kingdom flutter at World Expo Park in Shanghai on May 31, 2010. (PHOTO / IC)
Since the era of former US president Donald Trump, the US has utilized racial caricatures and prejudices against Chinese people in order to garner support for geopolitical containment on the technology front, masking it with the acceptable – at least in the West – façade of anti-Communism
The cartoon also depicted Chinese people as “dishonest, cheats, thieves”, deriding “cheap labour” and also attributing racial scapegoating for diseases. In this respect, little has changed with US and UK falsifications.
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Put together, all this knits together a wider body of discourse referred to as the “Yellow Peril”, which frames China and its people as undermining “civilization” and the values of the Western world. Again, in the modern era such discourse has evolved from explicit racism to masking itself behind the banner of Communism, yet for all intents and purposes it is the same.
The address by both directors was short on facts, but extremely high on fear, generalization, hysteria and the invocation of paranoia. If one listened to it without knowing this context, one might assume that no legitimate forms of interaction with China could feasibly exist.
This discourse also leans on the impression that every single Chinese person is pursuing subversive and illicit action in some shape or form.
Worst of all is this hate speech intentionally degrades and dismisses China’s achievements over the past 50 years and paints a falsified narrative that China’s economic rise has been at the zero-sum expense of the West – despite the fact that China authors more scientific papers annually, and publishes more patents annually than any other country in the world – a line originating with the Trump administration.
The address by directors of MI5 and the FBI was short on facts, but extremely high on fear, generalization, hysteria and the invocation of paranoia. If one listened to it without knowing this context, one might assume that no legitimate forms of interaction with China could feasibly exist
It pushes the assumption that China cannot innovate, that China’s own trade successes are merely the product of theft or “taking Western jobs”, that every Chinese person in the West is an agent or spy all acting as part of a coordinated conspiracy fueled by ill intent, and that of course, Western countries themselves have never had any true benefits in engagement with China.
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Above all, this joint address was filled to the brim with falsehoods, was hateful, inflammatory, unacceptable and thin on facts.
Neither of these institutions, the FBI or MI5, are known for acting in good faith, let alone representing the interests and concerns of ordinary people.
This speech will ultimately go down as a low point in the West’s relations with China and send as a demonstrative example as to how “Western deep states” are deliberately cultivating a poisonous atmosphere of hate and fear in manipulating public opinion against China.
The author is a British political and international relations analyst. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.