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Nah it's more than that. China is different. Really different. Our old adversaries the Russians/Soviets are like brotherly chums compared to the Chinese. China has always had a separate sphere of influence, distinct language, culture, religions, geography. It's way out there. Look at all the conflicts the West has had with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Those were not merely economic wars. There was ideology involved at every step. Go back thousands of years, and see the Assyrians evangelizing China (not so effective or memorable.) See the Jesuits and other missionaries landing in Asia and making some inroads, then getting expelled, persecuted, martyred. The big trouble is, with China, Americans have freely entangled ourselves economically with them for a long, long time. And this made for a tacit friendship, while we were fundamentally opposed in other aspects. But China patiently manufactured luxurious silk, delicious opium, cheap toys, and worthless crap to send us, and they Hoovered up all our debt, and our garbage and "recycling", and they bought controlling interests in businesses such as banks and whatnot. But an economic relationship is not a friendship, it's transactional, and hopefully it's equalizing, and our economic agreements have been stable enough, but they're not strong enough to overcome ideologies. So now you can see, perhaps, why Americans are scared and looking to extricate ourselves. I wouldn't say it's about "protectionism" because that has some negative or extreme connotations. I'd just say we're trying to be not so globalist, because the globalism eventually comes back to haunt us. |