Opinion | How the US crushed the 'China Dream' in the West

By Tom Fowdy

On growing up, the anticipation of China's rise was a very exciting thing, and I firmly remember an era of optimism. With its GDP surging and overtaking all the other major economies of the world, the success of China was seen purely in optimistic terms, that is a colossal and entrepreneurial giant. It was often said "Chinese was the language of the future" and of course celebrated authors such as Martin Jaques published books such as "When China Rules the World."

Similarly, it was also anticipated in parallel that China's political system was destined to move onto a pathway of liberalisation, a Chinese man who attended a Mandarin language church in Newcastle Upon Tyne, near by hometown, was absolutely certain that one day China would allow foreign missionaries in to preach the faith, his words being. "China is opening up; it is only a matter of time." And of course, I also marvelled at China's success, what I did not anticipate, is how swiftly things would go downhill and how fast the world would change…

I type in "China" on the Google News Search Column now. It is no exaggeration to say that 100% of the articles I see are deliberately and explicitly negative. They range from depicting China's economic prospects in gloom and doom terms, acting as if it has just fallen off a cliff, spouting scaremongering, and mass hysteria about the "Spying" incident in the UK yesterday, lauding the foreign policy successes of the Biden administration to seemingly contain China, as well as claiming doing business in the country is a liability and a risk for American companies. Perhaps a decade or so has passed since the time period depicted in the first paragraph, but they truly fell worlds apart.

China is no longer lauded as the business hub of the future, in which the British government described as a "golden age" of relations with Beijing and sought to court its investment. Rather, a new agenda to demoralise, suppress, contain, and stagnate China is in full swing, led by the United States, which has poisoned the global media environment in insurmountable ways. For someone who China means a lot to, this has also toxified my own life. For daring to stand up for the truth and champion engagement with Beijing I have been vilified, harassed, and stalked in my own country, made a political pariah, and even pushed to the limit I feel I have to consciously self-censor and stay low.

I was of course too young to remember everything, but I still have glimpses of how the Western media was during the War on Terror Period and how consent was manufactured for wars based on pure lies such as Iraq. To say the least, this influenced me a lot. I learnt from a young age that Western governments base wars on pure falsehoods and scare people in order to fulfil hidden agendas. Then I saw it transition to Beijing, of which the past few years have opened my eyes further to the mass manipulation of the media by Western governments, in particular the United States. Bit by bit, my faith was stripped away. I once actually believed, my own country, the UK, would not be willing to follow America on this because I believed the economic opportunities posed by China were too important.

How wrong I was. I witnessed in breakneck terms just how fast a demonisation campaign over a pandemic, orchestrated riots in Hong Kong, a clear-cut propaganda campaign to accuse China of genocide, scaremongering over espionage and a deliberate provocation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait, would quickly instil hatred across western audiences to the point it was impossible to convince them otherwise, and would even hold contempt towards me for trying to do so. I had grown up remembering people who objected to the Iraq War and understood, as I note above, the lies. But with China, I feel as if nobody is willing to believe it and listen this time round and are happy to endorse this agenda.

In doing so, the US may not have "stopped" China, but they have demonstrated their true power to melt away decades of optimism with one of the most hateful campaigns imaginable. The era of globalization is over and we now live in a world of new geopolitical competition, wherein the sovereign choices of Western countries have been undermined by a possessive, spiteful and jealous hegemon. I have lost a lot of faith in humanity throughout the process of it all, as I have dared to be a lone voice attempting to push back against the gaping tides.

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:

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