On July 8, 2024, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson emphasized that China is the United States' top external threat and poses the greatest threat to global peace: “Congress must keep our focus on countering China with every tool at our disposal ... The House will be voting on a series of bills to empower the next administration to hit our enemies’ economies on day one.”
Starting from Sept. 9, the U.S. House of Representatives began voting on 28 China-related bills, covering issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chinese biotechnology companies, drones, electric vehicle battery manufacturing, the purchase of U.S. farmland and technological competition, all aimed at comprehensively containing China. Most of the bills were led by Republicans, but 15 received strong bipartisan support. With such a large number of China-related bills being voted on in a concentrated manner, the term "China Week" was coined.
In addition to the U.S. legislative branch, the executive branch has also identified China as its primary external rival. Clearly, confronting the perceived threat from China has become a core element of Washington's national security strategy. Several key periods and individuals are worth mentioning in the process of shaping China as America's main rival or adversary.
"The Rebalance to Asia" introduced by the Barack Obama administration highlighted growing concerns over China's expanding influence. During the Donald Trump administration, the 2017 National Security Strategy explicitly defined China and Russia as major competitors and strategic adversaries to U.S. interests, making the "China threat" one of the central topics in U.S. policy discussions. The Biden administration has further clarified and even strengthened its recognition of the threat posed by China.
In 2012, American political scientist and Harvard University professor Graham Allison introduced the concept of the "Thucydides Trap," suggesting that a war between the U.S. and China is inevitable. In 2017, he published the book "Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?," arguing that the tensions between the U.S. and China stem from the inevitable conflict between a rising power (China) and an established power (the U.S.). His view has had a wide-ranging impact and further reinforced the view that China is the primary threat to the United States.
It’s notable that during the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adopted the advice of his advisor, Miles Yu, who publicly declared China as the U.S.' top threat and specified that the enemy of the U.S. is the Communist Party of China rather than the Chinese people. Miles Yu is a Chinese American professor born in China and earned his undergraduate degree there. He is considered one of the key figures in shaping the Trump administration's policy toward China and believes that the United States should negotiate with China on all matters, including democracy and human rights, rather than only cooperating in areas that Beijing is interested in. He believes that China is currently in conflict not only with the U.S. but with the entire world.
Among the American public, China has also been widely seen as the top threat to the country. A Pew Research Center survey conducted on American adults from May 30 to June 4, 2023, showed that 50% of respondents considered China the top threat to the U.S., while only 17% viewed Russia as the primary threat. In the same surveys conducted in 2007, 2014 and 2019, China ranked third, second and tied for first (with Russia) on the list of the greatest threats to the U.S.
The United States' perception of external threats and the approaching voting day of the 2024 election are driving Washington to place China in a more scrutinized and criticized position. Although "China Week" is colored by the competition between Democrats and Republicans, it also highlights the current intense confrontation between the U.S. and China, at least from the perspective of the U.S. So, how do the U.S. and China perceive the current poor bilateral relations?
Graham Allison argues that China threatens the survival of the U.S. and the global leadership position that the U.S. has held since World War II: “They all wake up every morning thinking how they can take down America." This view has many supporters in the U.S. China is seen as the leader of an anti-American axis composed of Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and even Cuba. The threat that China poses to U.S. national security is even compared to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Criticisms of China in the U.S. often include unfair competition, non-compliance with WTO rules, intellectual property theft, invasion of American citizens' privacy, lack of freedom and human rights, and endangerment of both U.S. and global security.
Based on these perceptions, the U.S. has continuously proposed bills and measures to contain China, and as late as 2018, it began to pursue dealing with China from “a Position of Strength." This is precisely the key reason Beijing believes U.S.-China relations have deteriorated. China contends that, "The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength ... this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people.”
China believes that the dilemma in bilateral relations is entirely caused by the U.S. From China's perspective, the U.S. has failed to properly address China's development and rise, has interfered in China's internal affairs, and has undermined international peace, thus bearing full responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship between the two countries.
Given the two countries' diametrically opposed perceptions of bilateral relations, it is clear that the U.S. and China have not yet found a path to easing tensions, and their confrontation will continue and even intensify. Although the bills targeting China passed by the House of Representatives are still far from becoming official national laws and might ultimately not become law, the "China Week" itself has already demonstrated how bad Sino-U.S. relations are.
