The type of news materials and social media narratives from the media in the Western nations and how they are spinned lay credence to suspicions of sinophobia.
For instance, in the first week of June, some United States citizens began to trend on news media narratives of Chinese saboteurs crossing into the southern USA with a conspiracy to attack the country.
A senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, Gordon Chang said on Fox’s ‘Morning with Maria’: “There are certain Chinese coming in that are really disturbing. Packs of Chinese males of military age, unattached to family groups pretending not to speak English. These are probably saboteurs who are coming in on the first day of war with Asia.”
One Judgey Chicks claimed that China, in alliance with Russia, could be a serious conspiracy to sell off the US.
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Another claimed that China is “very likely exploiting border chaos to sneak military operatives into US, House Homeland Security Chair Warns Many of the Chinese nationals apprehended at the border have ‘known ties to the PLA’.”
It is obvious that the narratives in the West are as false and ludicrous as they can ever be. It could only have been motivated by inadequate information or deliberate sinophobia. The thinking that China wants to dominate the global economy and impose their ideological paradigm on the rest of the world.
A genuine response to these misconceptions is to reflect on the Chinese population of over 1.4billion people and their interest in global peace and prosperity through trade, mutual cooperation and assistance as a matter of enlightened self-interest. This population needs a stable world to sustain its productivity.
It is important that Western nations, including the US, engage China in an open way and shun all narratives triggered by paranoia. The world needs the harmonious relationship between its two biggest economies: USA and China.
Luckily, many European Union member states, such as Germany, are focusing more on the economic and trade relations with China in a more constructive manner. In April this year alone, China exported goods worth $9.11bn to Germany and imported $8.9bn worth from there also.
For purveyors of decoupling, US is China’s largest export market. BEA data shows that trade between both countries grew by 6.3 per cent year-on-year to reach US$536.8bn.
Any challenge in the global cooperation must be resolved in a peaceful, rules-based manner, rather than an atmosphere of tensions.
Uduak Edwards wrote from Karu, Abuja