The Spectre of Communism in US China Policy: Bipartisanship in the American Subconscious

Abstract

Recent survey research suggests that, on average, Americans of all political stripes hold more positive attitudes towards the Chinese people than they do towards the Chinese government. This tendency appears more pronounced, however, among Republicans and conservatives, who are significantly more negative about the Chinese government than Democrats and liberals. 1 What best explains these two findings? In the wake of the January 2010 ‘Google Incident’ and the Obama administration’s announcement of continued arms sales to Taiwan, a February 1st People’s Daily Online editorial declared that ‘Cold War thinking’ continues to bias Americans against China. American ideology, it argued, is imbued with a ‘deeply-rooted hostility against and fear of ... communism’. 2 After 30 years of reform and opening, China today is arguably communist in name only. Could it be that communism is nonetheless what best explains American attitudes that are more negative towards the Chinese government than towards the Chinese people? Bipartisan American ambivalence about the Chinese government may stem in part from a common Liberalism, a celebration of individual freedom set against the idea of tyrannies or despotisms of either the left (communism) or right (fascism). Indeed, communism and fascism are often conflated in the American mind as totalitarianism—total state control and total loss of individual liberty.