I have heard a few Republicans call China the enemy, why is China the enemy?

China, Russia and the US are the big guys at the party. If any one of the three could conquer the land mass of one of the others, and have their money, forget it.

Part of the problem with China is that the US has been critical of their human rights violations. They don’t seem to be open to criticism.

So that makes them the enemy?^^^

They push us, we push them.

Good question.

It seems to me like people who tend to identify as Republican, also tend to be stuck in very antagonistic mindsets.

For them, there’s always got to be an enemy. Everyone else is always out to get their stuff. Welfare for them is all about the government taking their money to give to all those wicked lazy people who covet their hard-and-honestly-earned money.

For them, the 9/11 attacks weren’t just about US involvement in colonialist corporate oil exploitation, and messing with their culture and lifestyle in their part of the world – no, for them it made sense that it was because “they hate our way of life”.

And as arch-right-wing TV inciter & (fake)-personality hate show host Glenn Beck said about all other countries’ support for the US second invasion of Iraq and the Orwellian “War on Terror” and “Axis of Evil”: “You’re either for us, or you’re against us.”

I think it has something to do with cultural origins in the twisted parts of Christianity, which is very deeply buried in frameworks of good vs evil, us vs. them.

Oh, and Republicans (especially ever since start circa 1968(?) of the party’s Southern Strategy to court racists) tend to think of people they don’t relate to as likely enemies (q.v. Blacks, Mexicans, Arabs, Russians, and… Chinese) – apparently it makes it easier to group-dehumanize them?

Could also have a bit to do with American military thinking. Our armed forces tend to look for who the plausible opponents might be in future for our more-expensive-than-all-the-rest-of-the-world’s-put-together military.

And, there is also some element of factuality, in looking at China as a large world power that does have a military that could compete with our own, and that too looks at the US as a potential adversary, particularly as regards, say, Taiwan. The government of China is pretty good at marking off the checklist of “bad guy regime” qualities, too:

* world-threatening ecological abuse
* corrupt totalitarian government
* the nasty kind of socialist state
* genocide
* severely controls its own people
* awful treatment of people who don’t go along, ethnic undesirables, Tibet, Hong Kong, etc.
* state censorship
* massive army and WMDs

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is simply simple evil the way the treat their own people and the way they intimidate their neighboring countries. There is no free speech in China what so ever. And you are not allowed to practice any religion. You step out of line just a little and you will likely be executed or die in prison.

China also takes advantage of trade be devaluing their currency.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan escaped from China to tell the world about just how evil China is. The SARS-CoV-2 virus was man made in a Chinese lab and released on the world. And China is still lying about it.

As Ike warmed us in his famous farewell address, “Beware the military industrial complex”. Got to have some kind of booger man on the horizon to justify the money for the Pentagon and arms manufactuers. These little low instenity conflicts don’t do it for is. The Brits used to have fun with that stuff, but America likes to go big. Keep them cards and letters coming in folks!

I read an article not long ago in the South China Morning Post concerning China’s preparations for war with the U.S. Countries that aren’t our enemies don’t usually do that.

Hong Kong’s angle on the news is a different view on things from what we see in the major Western media..

…and yet, so much tech manufacturing happens in China. We’ll call them evil and label them as the enemy, but take full advantage of the cheap labor and lax labor laws.

China is stealthy, they dig in and entangle themselves wherever they can. They steal resources from developing countries, they exploit their own and their government is a ruthless oligarchy. They are quickly building up their military and are also a nuclear power. Their actions in the South China sea threaten global commerce as it’s a major trade corridor. The US and the rest of the world should be very concerned about China.

Tradition.

Not everyone view them as the enemy, but of those who do I would say because China is taking market share of electronics and technology. They are communists, and the US feels communism makes a country an automatic enemy. If China decided to hurt the US they could very badly. They do a lot of our manufacturing for not only things we can live without temporarily, but also things we cannot live without, people would die, like some of the medication our citizens are dependent on. The more extreme of the Evangelicals not only would harp on that the Chinese are communists, but that they are atheists, and that is bad for America and the world and the people of China. Also, the Chinese government is seen as inhumane. Now, we have part of the country believing China is responsible for covid, some sort of germ warfare.

Basically, the red scare.

If America thinks all countries should be democracies, then it follows that we think the communist countries think all countries should be communist, so if they took action it would be a threat to our very way of life and beliefs. We have to stay vigilant against that happening.

@Jeruba A Chinese-Australian facebook friend of mine (friend of a friend) posts things all the time about the US planning war with China. America is seen as the war monger. She posts a lot of things angry that America is trying to blame China for covid.

Because #45 told them so!!! The truth is that mainland China was our enemy until 1972 when then Republican President Richard Nixon did what was considered a monumental feat at the time & made peace with China. I just had to laugh every time #45 complained about the Dems being the ones who caved in to China; so 45 only undid the situation that the Reps put us in almost 50 years ago!!!

Well to paraphrase Mary Poppins, America likes the SuperCaliberFragmemtaiousHeavyHighExplosives, even though the casualty rate may be really quite atrosious.

One more thought. Smedley D. Butler wrote a tome in the 1930s, “War is a Racket”. It was his view that war only ever benefits arms producers and wealthy financiers. He advocated that American forces should be used solely in defense of our own nation. And Butler was a retired Marine Corps general and a two time Medal of Honor recipient.

Because SOMEBODY’s gotta be the villain, otherwise where’s the justification for the gargantuan war machine and the colossal treasure expended toward propping it up.

China is the enemy because they are Communists.

@Nomore_lockout Butler was obviously also an isolationist which history has proven doesn’t work. If the US had not got involved in WWII, we might all be speaking German now.

@kritiper Good point but he died in 1940. Would have been interesting to know his views post Pearl Harbor had he lived.

War is very profitable for many. Look at Halliburton whose CEO was non other than Vice President Dick Cheney!!!

War is always good for the economy. War got us out of the Great Depression.

But at what cost?

@Nomore_lockout The human cost doesn’t count as long as profits are at max,and people are working.
WE can always breed more people, money is the real important thing.