Who Threatens Whom? The 'Chinese Threat' and the Bush Doctrine

AuthorDong Chen
Pages31-49
Chinese Threat
31
VII JEAIL 1 (2014)
Dong Chen
Chinese threat is highly controversial in international academia. This article
attempts to expose the China threat and provide a comprehensive analysis as
to the extent of the so- called threat. The essence of the Chinese threat is based
on misunderstandings concerning Chinese culture, on ill- reasoned historical
     
Chinese culture, and on the inherent nature of expansiveness of the former. In
contrast, the Bush Doctrine (including the preemptive strike theory) poses an actual
threat to China, as does the US protection of Japan unconditioned on Japanese
admission and repentance for heinous war crimes committed during World War II.
Treating China as an equal is the best policy that could be employed by the West.
China    
while supporting the China threat ideology would have the opposite effect.
Keywords
Chinese Threat, Bush Doctrine, Chinese Culture, Christianity, Evangelical,
Axis of Evil
Who Threatens Whom?
The Chinese Threat and
the Bush Doctrine
Associate Professor of International Law at Sun Yat-sen University; Listed member of several key arbitration
commissions in mainland China. B.A.(Peking), Ph.D. (Xiamen). ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8219-9097
The author wishes to thank Professor Eric Lee, Professor Cai Congyan, Miss Lily Chen and Mr. Zheng Zhifan’s kind
help for reviewing the draft paper. All views and errors are attributable to the author. The author may be contacted at
cd1117@sina.com / Address: School of Law, Sun Yat-sen University, P. R. China, 510275.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2014.7.1.02
2014-05-23 오후 2:07:15
32 Dong Chen
I. Introduction
The term Chinese Threat has not been a novel wording for the past twenty years.
Its references date as far back to the nineteenth century, e.g., in Mikhail Bakunins
work entitled On Statism and Anarchism, which implies the tremendous and
dreadful threat from the East.
1
Wilhelm II von Deutschlands vivid cartoon The
Yellow Peril (Völker Europas, wahrt eure heiligsten Güter) depicted a common
European perception of China at the turn of the nineteenth century. (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Wilhelm II von Deutschlands vivid cartoon The Yellow Peril
2
When western and Chinese Christians were killed in China during the Boxer
Uprising,
3
the Eight-Power allied expeditionary force
4
invaded China and imposed
treaty terms, including a cash indemnity and grants for further occupation rights
of western powers. The core of the Yellow Peril theory lay in the fact that some
Europeans regarded yellow-faced Chinese as uncivilized and stupid locusts
causing great, albeit potential, threats to the civilized (western) world.
The Yellow Peril was reprised from about the mid-1990s through present,
with western politicians and scholars giving voice to the so-called Chinese Threat.
1 Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаил Александрович Бакунин, 1814-1876) is considered the most
influential figures of anarchism, and one of the principal founders of the ‘social anarchist’ tradition. See M. Bakunin,
On StatiSM and anarchiSM (trans. into Chinese, Commercial Press, 2013). For details on the idea of “the Yellow
Peril,” see An Chen, “Chinese Threat”: Sources, Essence of “Yellow Peril” and the Newest Hegemonic varieties, 33
MOd LegaL Sci. (Xiandai Faxue) 10-36 (2011).
2 See the introduction of ‘Yellow Peril’ , in the Baidu encycLOpedia, available at http://
baike.baidu.com/link?url=WeZEvy1lzuCwEwKcFQA7301YQqm0OroQxxCYcJDQO_cop4PO2vccnvxzvy99qtqA
tOFcHjFqTWthaQBDHTbevq (last visited on May 6, 2014). Prof. An Chen simplified the “Yellow Peril Theory of
Russian and German style.” See An Chen, supra note 1.
3 See generally J. eSherick, the OriginS Of the BOxer upriSing (1988).
4 This force consisted of France, Britain, the US, Japan, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
2014-05-23 오후 2:07:15

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