"China of today, (is) a legitimate contender to the U.S.-led world order," said The Diplomat, a Washington-based international online news magazine. "We have no choice but to co-exist with China."
BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- The United States should change the way it thinks about China, and reject the lie of its exceptionalism, The Diplomat, a Washington-based international online news magazine, has reported.
"China of today, (is) a legitimate contender to the U.S.-led world order," said an opinion piece authored by Gabby Green. "We have no choice but to co-exist with China."
As the 2024 U.S. election approaches amidst an increasingly polarized political atmosphere, the need to "do something about China" seems to be the one and only thing that Democrats and Republicans find on common ground, it said.
The American fear of China seems to have grown past the point of rationality. And such fear-mongering rhetoric regarding TikTok is not a response to any real development in China's conduct on the international stage, it is a "symptom of the United States' identity crisis."
From the outset of the Cold War, the U.S. identity has been characterized by an absolute belief in "American exceptionalism." Recognizing itself as "the defender of the free world," the United States must be defending the world from something, like how Batman needs a Joker, read the article. The conclusion is that American identity cannot exist without an enemy to define itself against.
The "China Threat" narrative then serves as a stopgap for the United States' existential crisis. This narrative serves as a distraction for the United States from a hard-to-accept reality that today's China, a legitimate contender to the U.S.-led global order, fundamentally challenges the concept of U.S. exceptionalism.
"The United States must fundamentally change the way it thinks about China. China is not, and never was, the United States to own, shape, define, or direct," the article said. "To meaningfully engage with China, the United States must reject the lie of American exceptionalism."■
