{"id":161125,"date":"2020-05-18T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=161125"},"modified":"2020-05-18T05:31:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T04:31:55","slug":"corporate-media-setting-stage-for-new-cold-war-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/05\/corporate-media-setting-stage-for-new-cold-war-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Media Setting Stage for New Cold War with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

15 May 2020 – <\/em>Corporate media are laying the ideological groundwork for a new cold war with China, presenting the nation as a hostile power that needs to be kept in check.<\/p>\n

\n

\"WaPo:<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney (Washington Post<\/strong>,\u00a0 4\/23\/20<\/a>) says \u201cCovid-19 has exposed China\u2019s dishonesty for all to see.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Washington Post<\/b> (4\/23\/20<\/a>) ran an article by Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, the second sentence of which said, \u201cThe Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that, to a great degree, our very health is in Chinese hands; from medicines to masks, we are at Beijing\u2019s mercy.\u201d America, in this conception, is under Chinese domination, a tyranny that\u2019s evidently imposed not only by the Chinese government, but by Chinese people generally.<\/p>\n

Details like the US having more than 21 times as many<\/a> nuclear warheads as China, or the fact that it\u2019s the US dollar and not the Chinese yuan that underpins the global financial system, do not enter into consideration. Instead, because the US imports a great many goods made in China, Romney urged readers to understand China as Americans\u2019 oppressors, who implicitly must be resisted.<\/p>\n

Romney warned his audience that China has a \u201cgrand strategy for economic, military and geopolitical domination\u201d and thus \u201cThe West\u201d must \u201crespon[d]\u201d with \u201ca unified strategy among free nations to counter China\u2019s trade predation and its corruption of our mutual security.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said China is conducting an \u201calarming military build-up.\u201d Sure, the available evidence indicates that the US spends almost three times what China does<\/a> on its war apparatus, but \u201cAmericans should not take comfort in our disproportionately large military budget,\u201d Romney cautioned, because, supposedly, \u201cChina\u2019s annual procurement of military hardware is nearly identical to ours,\u201d though few know about this \u201coutside classified settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then he revealed China\u2019s supposed threat to America\u2019s \u201csecurity\u201d: \u201cBecause our military has missions around the world, this means that in the Pacific, where China concentrates its firepower, it will have military superiority.\u201d In other words, China is a danger because it \u201cconcentrates its firepower\u201d in the ocean nearest to it, while the US\u2019s divine right to empire<\/a> requires that its military saturate the globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The senator argued that \u201caction should be applied in national security sectors\u201d such as phone technology and medicine, and that \u201cthe free nations must collectively agree that we will buy these products only from other free nations\u201d as part of a plan to \u201cprotect\u2026our security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that China is a threat to Americans\u2019 security is baseless: China hasn\u2019t threatened to attack America, while the US has a massive military presence<\/a> in the Asia\/Pacific region. The Pentagon, with bipartisan support<\/a>, wants to engorge that menace with a $20 billion budget increase, and with offensive weaponry such as land-based Tomahawk cruise missiles that had been banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty until the US abrogated the deal. China, meanwhile, has no military installations anywhere close to the United States.<\/p>\n

Romney repeatedly called on \u201cfree nations,\u201d a grouping in which he included the US, to take on China. In doing so, he cast the potential conflict as a civilizational battle between freedom and dictatorship\u2014that the US has the highest prison population per capita<\/a> on Earth does not trouble the senator\u2019s framework.<\/p>\n

Romney also referred to China or its economic practices as a \u201cpredator,\u201d \u201cpredatory,\u201d or \u201cpredation\u201d eight times, making the US and its allies the supposed prey. \u201cToday,\u201d Romney wrote, \u201cBeijing\u2019s weapon of choice is economic: The tip of its spear is global industrial predation.\u201d China is \u201ca predator, unbound by the rules followed by its competitors,\u201d so \u201cwhen the immediate health crisis has passed, the United States should convene like-minded nations to develop a common strategy aimed at dissuading China from pursuing its predatory path.\u201d Romney is propagating a timeworn worldview in which deceitful, barbaric Orientals take advantage of innocent, rule-abiding Americans whose businesses never break laws or do anything that could be viewed as predatory.<\/p>\n

\n

\"WaPo:<\/p>\n

George Will (Washington Post<\/strong>, 4\/29\/20<\/a>) claims that \u201cmore than any particular policy outcome, Americans want a sense that their nation\u2026can adopt a robust realism regarding the Leninist party-state that is its principal adversary.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Washington Post<\/b>\u2019s George Will (4\/29\/20<\/a>) likewise said that it\u2019s necessary to \u201cstand up to China,\u201d advocating that the US adopt \u201ca policy of national strength\u201d toward the country. This is the language of war, suggesting that China presents a danger to the US that has to be met with American might.<\/p>\n

Will encouraged presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to \u201cpractice what he preaches about bipartisanship by associating himself\u201d with far-right Republican Sen. Tom Cotton\u2019s \u201cmeasured but insistent<\/a> support for an investigation into the possible role of a Wuhan, China, research laboratory in the coronavirus outbreak.\u201d By endorsing the racist<\/a>, warmongering<\/a> senator\u2019s proposed inquiry, Will is mainstreaming an extremely dubious conspiracy theory (Grayzone<\/b>, 4\/20\/20<\/a>) alleging that Covid-19 is a Chinese biological weapon unleashed, perhaps unintentionally, from a research lab in Wuhan.<\/p>\n

Will also seemed to endorse Cotton\u2019s<\/p>\n

question[ing]<\/a> of the visas for people from China to pursue postgraduate studies here in advanced science and technology fields: If Chinese students want to study \u201cShakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that\u2019s what they need to learn from America. They don\u2019t need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the very least, Will amplified and declined to question the notion that Chinese students doing graduate scientific research in America should be viewed with suspicion, implicitly because they might be engaged in piracy or espionage on behalf of the Chinese government, though no evidence is offered for this accusation. It\u2019s a perspective that imagines that the wealthiest<\/a>, most populous country on Earth might somehow be kept away from advanced technology\u2014though in the long run, the US has more to gain from Chinese research than the other way around (CounterSpin<\/b>, 5\/24\/19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s Financial Post<\/b> (5\/4\/20<\/a>) went a step further, saying that \u201cChina Must Be Brought to Heel,\u201d animalizing language that hearkens back to when Western powers actually did dominate China, and treated the nation to such delights as the Opium Wars (London Review of Books<\/b>, 11\/3\/11<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n

\"Fox<\/p>\n

Fox News<\/strong> (5\/4\/20<\/a>): \u201cPeople everywhere will demand that Beijing pay a price for the enormous loss of life and the incalculable damage done to economies around the globe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Fox<\/b> News<\/b> article (5\/4\/20<\/a>) went full fire and brimstone, calling for the US \u201cto avenge [the] deaths of hundreds of thousands\u201d that have been caused by Covid-19. Another Fox<\/b> article (5\/4\/20<\/a>) said it\u2019s necessary to \u201chold China accountable\u201d for the harm the coronavirus has caused, applauding Missouri\u2019s lawsuit against the country without noting one minor detail: US courts have no jurisdiction to sue China (Reuters<\/b>, 4\/21\/20<\/a>). Another notable barrier to US media revenge fantasies is that the US and China have the world\u2019s largest bilateral trade relationship<\/a>, something that the US is hardly in a position to break away from, with China\u2019s economy mostly up and running and the US\u2019s largely offline.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the Boston Herald<\/b>\u2019s Joe Battenfeld (4\/14\/20<\/a>) contended that \u201cTrump[\u2019s] Move to Hold China [and the] World Health Organization Accountable [Was] Long Overdue,\u201d a reference to Trump suspending funding to the UN\u2019s main infectious disease-fighting body. WHO gets 15% of its budget from the US; Battenfeld himself acknowledges that withdrawing this \u201ccould [incapacitate] the agency\u2019s healthcare initiatives\u201d; in other words, undermining global health during a worldwide pandemic is a good way to teach China a lesson.<\/p>\n

The author also endorsed the US \u201cimpos[ing] sanctions on China for its role in the spread of the coronavirus,\u201d the type of economic warfare the US is waging against several countries, causing untold death and misery (Jacobin<\/b>, 3\/26\/20<\/a>). Given the fact that China\u2019s largely Covid-free economy is likely to be in far stronger shape than the US\u2019s for the foreseeable future, however, it\u2019s doubtful that Washington will be in any position to impose sanctions on Beijing.<\/p>\n

Further problems abound with the idea that the Chinese bad guys have to be punished for Covid-19 by the American good guys. As historian Vijay Prashad (People\u2019s Dispatch<\/b>, 4\/23\/20<\/a>) demonstrated, the narrative of a Chinese-WHO coronavirus cover-up is itself profoundly flawed. And it\u2019s hard to see how China is to blame for the US\u2019s dismal response to the pandemic, which has been characterized by moves like the rejection of a coronavirus test approved by the WHO in January in favor of a test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that wasn\u2019t dispatched until February, and some of which didn\u2019t work properly once they were (Washington Post<\/b>, 4\/18\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Corporate media distortions and bombast are priming the American public to see China as a treacherous villain that has to be forcefully confronted, perhaps with violence. Presenting China\u2014and Chinese people\u2014as a threat to the United States and its people is that much more reckless at a moment when there is an \u201calarming surge in anti-Asian racism related to Covid-19\u201d (NBC<\/b>, 4\/16\/20<\/a>). But such considerations don\u2019t trouble those who are in the business of ginning up the hatred necessary for a new cold war.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gregory Shupak teaches media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto. His book, <\/em>The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media<\/a>, is published by OR Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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