Opinion | How Mass Paranoia is used to Push Anti-China Protectionism

By Tom Fowdy

Yesterday, a number of British right-wing and Conservative linked tabloids began pushing a claim that “China could be spying on us through domestic appliances such as the fridge”. The article, citing a dubious report by a Washington D.C based think-tank, Observe, Orientate, Decide, Act (OODA)” claimed that through microchips embedded in “Chinese made appliances”, the country’s ruling Communist Party could potentially “spy on us” by handing “data back to Beijing”.

To put it bluntly: The claims are nonsensical with no serious evidence to support them whatsoever, and constitutes deliberately invoked paranoia in the view to pushing US backed protectionist objectives against Chinese products, the same that has been used against Huawei, amongst others. The United States deliberately and insidiously uses ruses such as this to undermine China, which are then recycled to the press and conveyed without any scrutiny whatsoever.

America is a master of using the process what is called “manufacturing consent” in order to meet its geopolitical objectives. That is, using the close coordination between think-tanks, designated experts and mass media in order to create a mechanized narrative which organically produces public support for its specific policy goals, which then subsequently creates political space for it to act upon. While commonly, this is attributed to the selective weaponization of human rights discourse, when this is not applicable it resorts to fabricating so-called “national security threats” through the invocation of speculative fears about a given company or service.

This was most notably done with the US campaign against Huawei, which began in 2018. The United States proliferated unfounded fears that the company was a “national security threat” that allowed Beijing to access data and relay it back to Beijing (a frequent line of attack), despite no evidence ever proving such. The United States simply wanted to hobble the company and cripple China as a technological and strategic competitor. Therefore, even when allies such as the United Kingdom continued evaluations that Huawei was not in fact a threat, the US ignored this and continued to force through its narrative until it was able to pressure the government into U-turning.

The US has since found that the weaponization of the McCarthyist theme of “espionage” has been able to work time and time again in discrediting Chinese companies and products of its own choosing. There has been no limit to the ludicrousness of how this logic is applied, such as for example when US senators claimed that Chinese manufactured subway cars were also an “espionage threat” in a bid to try and place barriers to American cities importing them from China. Likewise, this rhetoric has been groundlessly pushed in relation to TikTok, where scores of US state governments has banned its official usage.

Now, this dubious think tank OODA is attempting to push the claim that Chinese made fridges and household appliances are in fact spying on you. Again, the same “guilt by association” logic is weaponized whereby any perceived technological link to Beijing, indirectly so to speak, is deemed complicity and an automatic risk, even though there is never any evidence to do so. The real goal of course is to attempt to undermine China’s manufacturing, in particular its rise in high-tech consumer goods, and promote US based “America First” protectionism by provoking such fear against Chinese products, potentially laying the ground for potential restrictions or bans against them.

A similar, but different example, is how a US government funded think-tank in 2021 sought to link the Chinese manufacturing of solar panels to allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang, which of course was proliferated large-scale by the press in the view to preparing for a legislative ban that was passed later that year. This is just one example as how the United States weaponizes an “industry of smears” in order to discredit and undermine its opponents, and this case is no different. In both cases, the motivation did not concern “national security” or “human rights” it concerned American commercial interests to supplement protectionist goals.

Sadly, the western public will take this paranoia at face value, as the British right wing press in particular has dominance over public opinion and whosoever they tell people to hate, will be hated. We can only hope that one day people will wake up to what is really going on.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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