Big lies have accelerated a more disturbing result: false narrative no longer comes from some factual fragments in the narrative identity, but become a complete lie.
Big Lie (Big Lie) has become greater.Trump's popularity followers' wrong statements on the manipulation and theft of the US presidential election in 2020 let the facts based on the factual accountability system.This also has a profound and long -lasting impact on Sino -US relations that are trapped in.
Chinese phobia is a clear manifestation of how big lies corrupt American political norms.Iriliax fear of China has been out of control.This contains many so -called threats facing the United States: the huge share of China's trade deficit in the United States; the worrying Huawei 5G network backdoor; the electric car and dock loading and unloading machines made in China;(Volt Typhoon) The vulnerability of hacking network attacks; and the potential violation of the Tiktok platform for the personality and privacy of ignorant American youth.
I have pointed out that these concerns are derived from some false narratives consistent with the Anti -China Anti -Political Amber.These narratives do not come out of thin air, but reflect the projection of distorted facts by academic psychologists' so -called "narrative ideas". This identity will reconstruct the "autobiography of the past."Unfortunately, in the United States, this past reflects a toxic and political category that can be traced back to the history of long -term ethnic and ethnic prejudice.Of course, as I stated in detail in the book, China is also difficult to blame, because it also adopts and publicize false narrative about the United States in order to achieve its own purpose.
When studying the destructive impact of false narrative on the debate of the US affairs in China, I emphasized the difference between the intentions of exerting the possibility of damage based on indirect evidence and guessing the intention of imposing damage.Exaggerated concerns about Chinese phobia belong to the previous situation.
For example, the US Minister of Commerce Raymond Dost asked people to imagine what kind of scene will be if Chinese electric vehicles incarnate their destructive weapons on the US highway.The Federal Investigation Commissioner Christopher Thunder warned that if China decides to activate its embedded malware, the key infrastructure of the United States will be attacked.Regarding China ’s concerns about the invasion of Taiwan in 2027, it reflects the pre -premonition of the head of the United States India Command Commander and Retired Navy Phil Davidson.These keywords -imagination, if and premonition, fully explain the risk of guessing.
However, this did not stop American politicians.At several recent hearing, the US House of Representatives and the Chinese government's strategic competition for strategic competition made people reminiscent of the red labels of the House of Representatives' non -US Activity Investigation Commission for the so -called communist sympathy.The House of Representatives likes the tendency to guess, and also prompted it to pass 25 anti -China bills recently.This is a rare series of legislative activities called "China Week" at the end of September this year.
Big lies have accelerated a more disturbing result: false narrative no longer comes from some facts -based fragments in narrative identity, but become a complete lie.
Look at the recent news reports that five mainland graduates from Michigan University are allegedly engaged in spy activities because of taking pictures near the US National Guard Training Experimental area participating in Taiwan's military personnel.However, these reports seriously exaggerated the facts: the five men were more than 50 miles away from the military base at that time, and their charges were not engaged in spy activities, but they lied to the police.
This news is basically fictional, but it is full of fear of Chinese.It led to a Republican Senate in Michigan, trying to cancel subsidies for the new battery component factories to cost US $ 2.4 billion (approximately S $ 3.171 million).However, Guoxuan Hi -Tech's largest shareholder is actually Volkswagen in Germany, not the Chinese government claimed by American politicians.The company has also become a election issue in Michigan.
Big lies also appeared in other terrorist incidents.Last year, the Director of the Federal Investigation Bureau, Christopher Lei, a deep anti -China Trump believers, warned: "The size of the Chinese hacker project is greater than the sum of all other major countries."
However, it may not be the case.According to the latest World Cyber Crime Index prepared by researchers in Oxford University, the world's largest cyber crime threats are from Russia, Ukraine, China, the United States, Nigeria, Romania, North Korea and the United Kingdom.Just.
I am not saying that China or other foreign forces should be ignored and potential threats to US cybersecurity composition.On the contrary, senior US officials must talk more about online hackers around the world, and acknowledge the role of their own countries in promoting such behaviors.
As lies replaced the truth, Chinese phobia not only destroys the most important bilateral relations in the world, but also leads to serious policy errors.Just as the US government has blamed Japan's trade deficit in Japan, and now he has shifted his anger to China, levying high imports on Chinese imported products, and may even have higher tariffs.Don't forget to rely on bilateral operations to eliminate the multilateral trading deficit generated due to insufficient domestic savings.
The result may be counterproductive, even self -destruction.The United States requires high cost -effective and high -quality green technologies to deal with climate change, but it is prohibited from Chinese production of electric vehicles.Excessive fear of online hackers in China also dominates the legislative agenda.
Under a big lie, when people's most important presidential elections in modern history are approaching, they cannot get enough facts.This leads to a deeper problem: what will happen next?Big lies have spawned a kind of atmosphere. In this atmosphere, facts are no longer a prerequisite for political speech and policy formulation.This will endanger the future of all Americans, and we can only want voters to keep this in mind when voting.
The author Stephen S. Roach is a teacher of Yale University, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Investment Company
English Original Title: Sinophobia and us Election Lies
All rights reserved: Project syndicate, 2024.
