Pan, Chengxin. "The 'China Threat' in American Self-Imagination: The Discursive Construction of Other as Power Politics". Alternatives, Vol.29, No.3 (2004): 305-331.

Pan, Chengxin. "The 'China Threat' in American Self-Imagination: The Discursive Construction of Other as Power Politics". Alternatives, Vol.29, No.3 (2004): 305-331.

• The US foreign policy community is obsessed with China. The two dominant narratives are that China is either a strategic threat or an economic opportunity, requiring containment or engagement, respectively (305, 307). 
• These conversations about China are shaped by positivist views of international relations, a belief among China scholars that they are dispassionate and detached observers, rejection of critical perspectives, and a refusal to think from the other side about how China perceives the United States (305-306). The belief that China is a threat is taken as self-evidence (310).
• The concern in the US about China stems largely from anxiety about China's rise, in particular its economic expansion, which has seen the Chinese economy increase four-fold between 1978 and 2004 (307). Some fear that this economic success will be turned into military power (308).
• Economic anxiety about the rise of China is driven by the presumed effect of job losses in the American manufacturing sector and the trade deficit between China and the US, which is seen as reflecting a lack of competitiveness in American industry (307).
• Others have made concerns about Chinese culture, arguing that China is inherently a racist and ethnocentric power that see other countries as inferior. This notion has combined with democratic peace theory to claim that China, as a dictatorship, is likely to be belligerent and unpredictable. Democratization is viewed as another destabilizing process, likely to lead China to become bellicose before it becomes less (308-309).
• IR theory predicts conflict between rising powers and current hegemons, leading scholars to predict tensions and conflict between the US and China on the assumption that China is preparing to contest the America position in the global order (309-310).
• Ideas about containment frame China as a bully, or a potential bully, and demand that the US take 'rational' action to contain it by allying with Vietnam, Japan, Russia, and other neighbouring countries. The proposals on containing China always include plans for a war with China, thus calls for containment always contain the possibility of war with China (319-320, 325). 
• American identity is shaped by American exceptionalism, the belief that America is fundamentally different from other countries and is predestined to have a great and positive effect on the world. This belief, first encapsulated in John Winthrop's speech of a 'city on a hill', has been repeated by American politicians and diplomats continuously, including the Bush administration (311). This claim was originally made in terms of Christian duty and providential blessing, but has adapted to the modern age by acquiring scientific justification. Figures from the turn of the 20th Century justified American exceptionalism in terms of its continental power or the character of its population (311-312).
• This view positions the United States as the supreme model for society and the endpoint of historical development, implying that all other countries, including China, must be progressing towards the American system (312). Under this conception of the United States, American strategies concluded that any states which opposed the progression towards liberal democracy must be threats to the USA; this was originally Europe as a whole, then later the Soviet Bloc, and this sense has now been filled by international terrorism and, to some degree, China (312-313).
• China is not an objective threat to the United States. Its economic capabilities have been overblown and are unequally distributed. Moreover, other wealthy and large nations -- such as India or Australia -- are not considered threats to the USA. China stands out because, as a non-democracy, China's continued success forces the US to recognize that there are alternatives to liberal democracy, meaning that the American system is not the endpoint of history (313).
• The construction of self-identity takes place through the differentiation of self from others. This process of creating distinctions between self and others allows for categories of identities to be constitute. The invention of distinctions and separations between oneself and others is thus a necessary element of constructing identity. We understand ourselves in terms of what makes us different from others (314).
• American views on China, and American IR in general, is strongly influenced by neorealist theory, which asserts that all nations continually pose a threat to one another and that IR is a zero-sum game. Most US strategists, including those concentrating on China, have no background in studying China, but instead in strategic studies or IR theory. Their knowledge of China is limited to military capabilities and assumptions about its behaviour based on neorealist theory (315). These strategists declare that, since China is not a US ally, it may constitute a threat and the US should prepare for that possibility. This logic of uncertainty and unpredictability has become increasingly strong after the end of the Cold War, when the US lost its major enemy (316).
• Some neorealist theorists, such as Richard Betts and Thomas Christensen, argue that the sheer size and strength of China poses a threat to weaker US allies in the region. This means that, even if it is totally peaceful, China can, and should, still be viewed as a threat to US interests (317). Peaceful or cooperative overtures in Chinese foreign policy are dismissed as deceptions or derided as inconsequential compared to China's potential threat as an economic powerhouse (324-325). 
• These neorealists in government and thinktanks exert a lot of influence over US foreign policy. They are also supremely self-confident in their knowledge of China. In 1999, after China complained about the US accidentally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Robert Kagan declared that Chinese complaints clearly demonstrated that China views the US as an enemy. Dr. Kagan dismissed other opinions on the basis that Chinese only received news from government news sources and, thus, the public outcry over the bombing was orchestrated by Beijing  (316-317). 
• The core problem with the statements of the China 'experts' and strategists in the USA is that they refuse to recognize that Chinese identity and behavior is historically contingent and will change based on circumstances. Instead, they state that China will behave a certain way in the future because of some essential feature that they claim has to shape its foreign policy. Crucial, this means that US thinking about China fails to recognize that American behavior towards China will shape how China perceives its international relations and how it will engage with the US and the rest of the world in the future (318). If the US does not change how it views China, it may end up create an atmosphere of tension and prompting a war of containment to the disadvantage of both countries (325-326).
• After Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, America stationed the 7th Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to protecting the remainder of Jiang Jieshi's government and prevent the unification of Taiwan with Communist China. Decades of protecting the anti-communist Taiwanese government from China made the US think of China in menacing terms. This perception of China has persisted in US foreign policy after the normalization of relations with China in 1979, after which the US continued to give diplomatic and military support to Taiwan despite formal non-recognition. US support has bolstered opinion against reunification in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese government has pursued an increasingly independent foreign policy. After Taiwan rebuffed Chinese offers of cross-strait dialogue in 1995 and then President Li Denghui 李登輝 visited the US, China felt that Taiwan was flaunting their independence and decided to prepare the capabilities for a military reconquest of the island by testing missiles across the Taiwan Strait (320-321).
• This event was seen as enormously provocative in the United States and many hawkish scholars, policy wonks, and politicians use the tension over missile tests in 1995 and 1996 to support their claims about China being a belligerent state that poses a threat to the US and its interests (320).
• The US responded to Chinese missile tests in the Taiwan Strait -- designed primarily for domestic audience as a show of national strength, and to intimidate the Taiwanese government -- by sending two aircraft carriers into the Strait. This reaction shocked the Chinese, prompting an interest in understanding the American response. Chinese officials told one of Henry Kissinger's aides that they were rereading the work of George Kennan because they believed that the US was intent on containing China, and an anti-American book became a best-seller in China (321).
• US policymakers usually view the issue of Taiwan in neorealist terms, as an economic and military asset devoid of cultural and political meaning. They oppose the Chinese reconquest of Taiwan because they claim that Chinese acquisition of the island would further boost its economic power, thus destabilizing the balance of power through change. This claim has underpinned US policy towards Taiwan for decades. It also allows US strategists to avoid having to ask more difficult questions about why China seeks reunification (322).
• In 2001, a US spy plane collided with a US navy fighter over Hainan island, with the spy plane crashing on the island and the Chinese fighter being lost at sea. The US requested the return of its pilot and plane, while China demanded an apology for the mid-air collision and the death of their naval pilot (323).
• The Chinese response was understood through broad historical and cultural stereotypes. China's demand for an apology was not seen as a rational response, but a reflection of Confucian norms and values stemming from historical Chinese culture. Chinese actions were not evaluated in their own right (323).
• US media and strategists interpreted the scenario as evidence of Chinese aggression and hostility. What stands out is how the foreign policy community normalized American spying, along the basis of Cold War norms, allowing them to claim China was being unfair for not returning the American pilot without first receiving an apology. The incident convinced American hawks that more action needed to be taking to protect American allies in East Asia, prompting President George W. Bush to approve the sale of additional defensive weapons to Taiwan (323-324).
• China has taken a large number of steps to present itself as a friendly and peaceful country, including ignoring a number of American provocations, including both American objections to the apology letter sent in 2001 and America bugging a presidential jet to be delivered to China. China has been a major ally in the War on Terror, signed a number of non-proliferation agreements, sought to de-escalate tensions in Southeast Asia, and generally attempted to become good members of the international community (324).
• The logic of mutually assured destruction that prevented war between the US and USSR may not exist between the US and China. American development of missile shield technology will likely make China feel that its deterrents against US aggression are inadequate and prompt an expansion and improvement of its nuclear arsenal, which would in turn trigger a US response and a potential arms race (325).