The amygdala is a pair of neural clusters near the base of the brain that senses danger and can help warn a fight-or-flight response. A prolonged stress response can contribute to anxiety, causing people to perceive danger where there is none and become obsessed with worst-case scenarios.
America's collective national body is suffering from a chronic case of Chinese anxiety. Nearly everything the word “Chinese” stands for now triggers a fear response in our political system, clouding our ability to properly assess and contextualize threats. This has led the US government and US politicians to pursue policies based on repression and exclusion, which reflect the authoritarian system they are trying to combat.
Congress has taken steps to enforce the sale TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media application; Some states have requested restrictions Chinese individuals or entities owning American land and further Chinese researchers working at American universities; and the federal government has excluded certain things Chinese technology companies of competition in our markets. These measures are all for national security reasons, and it is not my intention to weigh the merits of each. But collectively they produce a United States that is fundamentally more closed — and more like China in meaningful ways.
If you are constantly anxious, no threat is too small. In January, Florida Senator Rick Scott said: legislation introduced that would ban the import of Chinese garlic, which he believes could be a solution threat to US national security, citing reports that it is fertilized with human sewage. In 2017, scientists from McGill University wrote there is no evidence that this is the case. Even if that were the case, it is common in many countries to use human waste, known as 'biosolids', as fertilizer, including the United States.
Most recently Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Elise Stefanik introduced legislation that would ban the Department of Defense from contracting with Tutor.com, a US-based tutoring company, on the grounds that it poses a threat to national security because it has been purchased by Primavera Capital Group, an investment firm based in Hong Kong. Their argument is that this could give the Chinese government backdoor access to the tutoring sessions and personal information of US military personnel who use the company's services.
The legislation does not mention that Tutor.com's is a student data is stored in the United States, that it has voluntarily submitted to a security review by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and that it has created additional levels of data security in coordination with the U.S. government. The bill also does not specify how exactly the Chinese government would gain access to Tutor.com's data or what use it would actually have for information about the tutoring sessions of U.S. military personnel.
Last summer, several Republican lawmakers cried angrily at the “Barbie” movie because a world map briefly shown in the background of a scene contained a dotted line. They took this as a reference to China's 'nine-dotted line', which Beijing uses to support its disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea. According to Representative Jim Banks, this “endangers our national security.” The map in the movie is obviously fantastic, had only eight lines and looked nothing like the Chinese line. Even the Philippine government, which has been embroiled in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea for years, rejected the controversy and approved the film's domestic release.
Of course, the United States must actively confront President Xi Jinping of China about his repression at home and aggression abroad. As a researcher of the Chinese political system, I am concerned about how Mr. Xi has made his country even more authoritarian; about increasing human rights violations in China, especially those that are targeted the Uyghur population in Xinjiang; about Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong hazards towards Taiwan, the increasingly close relations with Russia and his support for the war in Ukraine. America must remain alert to legitimate concerns about well-documented Chinese activities such as espionage and cyberattacks.
But should our policy makers really focus on Tutor.com, Chinese garlic or “Barbie”? Or should they focus on the more serious threats posed by China's authoritarian system, or the many other issues that meaningfully affect the daily lives of Americans?
Perhaps the most worrying effect is that concerns about China are slowly turning toward discrimination against Chinese Americans, a new phenomenon “Yellow Peril.” We've already seen how an initiative started during the Trump administration to crack down on Chinese espionage led to unfair surveillance of Chinese researchers and even Asian American government employees, leading to the program's termination in 2022. And we saw how xenophobia led to threats during the pandemic. and attacks on Asian Americans. There have also been numerous reports from law enforcement officials interrogate Chinese students and researchers travel to and from China because they may be agents of the Chinese state. Again, this treatment – being brought in for questioning by police or government officials – is something foreign scientists experience in Chinawhere it is euphemistically referred to as 'being invited for tea'.
Last year, state lawmakers in Texas introduced a bill that initially aimed to prevent Chinese (but also Iranian, North Korean and Russian) citizens and entities from purchasing land, homes or other real estate, citing security concerns food supply. Aside from the fact that Chinese citizens are not the Chinese government, the actual amount of US farmland owned by Chinese entities is negligible – never more than 1 percent of agricultural land in a certain US state as of 2021. The bill ultimately failedbut only afterwards substantial recoil from the Chinese-American community.
This Chinese panic, which is also being fueled by both the liberal and conservative American media, could affect the way average people perceive their fellow Americans of Chinese descent. Michael Cerny, a fellow China researcher, and I recently surveyed more than 2,500 Americans about whether Chinese Americans born in the United States should be allowed to serve in the U.S. intelligence community. About 27 percent said Chinese Americans' access to classified information should be more limited than that of other U.S. citizens, and 14 percent said they should be denied access at all.
This is overt racism, and while it is not the majority view, it is concerning that so many Americans are blurring the lines between the Chinese government and people of Chinese ethnicity, echoing the language of our politicians.
China is a formidable geopolitical rival. But there is no world in which garlic, “Barbie” or a tutoring site pose a meaningful threat to American national security. Labeling them as such reveals a certain lack of seriousness in our policy discourse.
If the United States is to compete effectively with China, it will require sound, balanced policymaking that protects U.S. national security without compromising core American values.
Let's take a deep breath.
Rory Truex (@rorytruex) is an associate professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, where he teaches courses on Chinese politics and authoritarian governance.
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