Opinion | How the US politicizes travel warnings
By Tom Fowdy
"Americans should reconsider travel to China due to the risk of wrongful detention, the US State Department warned in an updated travel advisory issued Friday." The level three warning, making China out to be a dangerous location, places the country in category shared by countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chad, Lebanon and Pakistan, all which are known for protracted political instability, insurgencies and high risk of violent crime.
If it wasn't obvious already, the travel warning is politically motivated, and is decided to incentivise "decoupling" from China by deterring businessmen, academics, tourists and other visitors by inciting a risk of danger. This is of course ironic and hypocritical, given US officials, such as Anthony Blinken and Nicholas Burns, pledged to continue "human exchanges" with the country, notwithstanding all the other policies they are currently implementing in order to make that increasingly difficult. The truth is, America doesn't want its people to visit China.
The United States is the most adept and skilful nation in the world in controlling its population via an appeal to a means of fear. As a federal democracy with a broad separation of powers, which ultimately requires the consent of the governed, US presidential administrations have presided over a centralization of power since the Cold War era through the ability to co-opt, organise and manipulate mass media to their own ends, aiming to invoke public fear on various issues and in turn manufacture political capital for policymaking.
US history is filled with such examples, from so-called "weapons of mass destruction", "to reds under the bed", to North Korea being about to nuke the United States and of course today's wave of mass hysteria pertaining to China. Be it the fear of apparent "Spy Balloons", infiltration at universities, TikTok and so on. The list is ever growing, and although a lot of this fear is provoked by Republicans, the US administration often chooses to embrace it for domestic political ends, as opposed to challenging it and carving out their own position, which of course negates the idea of so-called "guardrails" Anthony Blinken likes to pay lip service to.
And in doing so, the US State Department is one of the primary instigators of public fear in the United States. In this case, it is producing politically motivated travel warnings in order to incentivize the White House position on China. It does not want the country to become a hub for US investment, exchange, and study, therefore it will whip up fears of Americans being arrested, this is a common theme that it often repeats with countries who it deems antagonistic in some ways. But a sheer look at the numbers, particularly those before covid, would indicate that this is sheer nonsense and that the overwhelming majority of trips to China are trouble free.
Indeed, there are instances of foreign nationals being detained, including Australian citizen Chang Lei, as well as the notorious saga of the "two Michaels" in relation to Meng Wangzhou, but of course, the media often press certain assumptions regarding the "political motivations" behind such cases, while also automatically assuming that they "must" be innocent because of the subject country involved. Yet again these cases indicate high-profile exceptions, not the rule, and without speculating, every country has laws that must be obeyed and followed accordingly.
Either way, it is simply ludicrous to class China, an extremely stable country, in the same classification of risk as war-torn countries in Africa or the Middle East where foreign nationals actually are at risk of being captured by insurgency groups, and even if one can make a valid point about the cases above, it requires an obvious exaggeration and act of bad faith to exaggerate the given situation involved. Does China indiscriminately and randomly target foreign nationals or tourists? Purely on the basis of what their national governments might do? The US and the mainstream media want you to believe that narrative, but it is of course, deliberately misleading.
China is a safe place to visit. Like everywhere in the world, there are of course certain precautions you should take in respect to unique local circumstances, but maturity is recognizing this is all part of a wide co-opted campaign to isolate Beijing. The United States is a master of political theatre whereby it creates scenarios, frames China as the villain but then depicts itself as the ultimate solution. Don't buy it.
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.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | China needs to reincentivize consumption
Comment