Commentary: Time to end the "China Threat" mindset

BEIJING, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Talking about the "China Threat" has long-been a way for confused ideologues to grab attention, but such claims are clearly out of date, indicative of a zero-sum-game attitude and cold war mentality.

Former White House strategist Stephen Bannon was the latest in a long line of people to ramp up the China Threat rhetoric, in a speech at the J-CPAC political summit in Tokyo earlier this month, making groundless accusations based on pure conjecture.

Bannon argued that the United States was now a tributary state of China after decades of acquiescence on China's economic development, and that changes were now taking place as China was being pressed on trade deficit between the two countries.

It is absurd to say that the United States, which has the world's largest GDP, a strong U.S. dollar and considerable influence on the world stage, is a tributary state to any country by economy.

On the contrary, it is the United States that has been taking advantage of its own economic hegemony, and pointing fingers at China's economic interests.

The United States has disregarded WTO rules and refused to drop its "surrogate country approach" in anti-dumping investigations, by labeling China a non-market economy.

As for trade imbalances between China and the United States, the latter should reconsider its trade policy to make full use of its competitive advantage, such as expanding high-tech exports to China.

While the United States has a deficit with China in goods trade, it had a surplus in service trade of 55.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, about 40 times that of 2006.

Bannon also called on the United States and its East Asian allies to unify to constrain China's "frightening," "audacious" and "global" ambitions.

By painting China as an imaginary enemy, based on a fabricated China Threat, Bannon's agenda is clear: to unify U.S. allies, undermine China's relations with its neighbors and justify American hegemony.

As western countries have played such a leading role in the economy and technology in recent history, many of their politicians seem to have developed a sense of superiority and seem unwilling to treat certain non-western countries equally.

With a cold war mindset, they have a prejudiced attitude to the socialist politics, ideology and values, and wrongly see China's development as a threat.

China, however, has always followed a path of peaceful development and has never sought hegemony or engaged in expansion.

History has shown that China's development will bring more opportunities to other countries, not threats.

In the past five years, China has contributed a series of plans on international relations, global governance, economic globalization and security cooperation under the framework of "building a community with a shared future for mankind."

Those plans are being translated into action, especially in terms of open cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Nothing can stop China's rejuvenation, but a rising China will not become a threat to world peace and development. China will continue its efforts to contribute to global development and uphold international order.

In addition, China is pushing for a bigger say for developing countries to improve the global governance system against hegemony, unilateralism and power politics.

It is now time for commentators and politicians to face reality, give up the paranoia, attention-seeking and misplaced jingoism, and bring an end to the China Threat mindset. Enditem