Recently, in Western public opinion, the “China threat theory” and the “China collapse theory” in the economic field have given rise to new forms of hype, including the “China overcapacity theory,” “China shock 2.0 theory,” “China peak theory” and “China being marginalized theory.”
After the “China threat theory” and the “China collapse theory” collapsed on their own, these new forms of hype have caused a certain degree of confusion.
The Global Times Research Center conducted a study of economic reports related to China published by 14 major media outlets in the US, the UK, France and other countries from January 1 to March 15. Among them, 72 typical negative economic reports on China were selected for in-depth analysis, forming a research report on “negative economic reports on China by mainstream foreign media.”
Through this report, it can be seen that the new forms of hype are not much different from the old clichés disparaging the Chinese economy.
Rampant smearing clichés
For instance, the “overcapacity theory” hype has become rampant. During US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to China, she expressed concerns multiple times about the “overcapacity issue” in China’s new-energy industries. Yellen and some other Western politicians and media outlets have been spreading this groundless guesswork.
They claim that, due to government subsidies, there is overcapacity in China’s new-energy sector, and this excess capacity is being dumped overseas at low prices, affecting the economies of other countries. Not only do the relevant data fail to support the claim of “overcapacity in China’s new-energy sector,” but also products such as Chinese new-energy vehicles are generally sold at higher prices overseas than domestically, and this has nothing to do with “dumping at low prices.”
There are also some Western media outlets trying to sensationalize a new wave of the “China shock theory” by hyping the “overcapacity theory” and claiming that surging Chinese-made new-energy vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and photovoltaic products, among others, in the international market may cause “China shock 2.0.”
What they selectively ignore is that, in recent years, China has continuously increased its technological innovation capabilities, promoted industrial transformation and upgrading and rapidly developed industries such as new energy, forming a competitive advantage in the global market.
This is originally the result of the normal operation of market economy laws, but now it is being slandered and targeted. This ridiculous Western slander is like a student who doesn’t study well but focuses on watching good students and insists that others are cheating on exams.
If the “China overcapacity theory” and the “China shock 2.0 theory” are variants of the “China threat theory,” then regarding the “China collapse theory,” what has been continuously spreading recently is the “China peak theory” and the “China being marginalized theory”. The so-called “China peak theory” cannot withstand scrutiny in terms of data and analysis.
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd once noted that Chinese consumer market is unprecedented in global economic history. In addition, with the strong US push to shut China out of production and supply chains, there is now a growing trend of “China being marginalized” on domestic and international social media platforms, which exaggerates the idea of China becoming increasingly isolated from the world.
These terms used to slander China’s economy have recently emerged in a concentrated fashion, representing a typical manifestation of Western countries such as the US using cognitive warfare to besiege China’s economy.
In the current complex international environment, the traditional dichotomy of peace and war no longer effectively describes and explains the reality of the international environment. Some scholars have proposed the concept of the “gray zone,” which refers to “intense political, economic, information and military competition between countries that does not escalate into conventional warfare.” As the “gray zone” spreads, cognitive warfare has become an important form of international competition.
The development of social media has increased the possibility of influencing public cognition and behavior through internet traffic, flow and content. Modern economies and financial markets are largely driven by the psychology and emotions of investors, highly dependent on information, confidence and expectations.
Participants’ expectations of future economic development and policy changes can also more or less affect the performance of stock, bond and foreign exchange markets, making the economic field more likely become a battlefield of cognition warfare.
Full-fledged US attack
Cognitive warfare is a kind of systemic engineering, involving different participating entities, different forms of communication, different forms of text, different media behaviors and different communication platforms.
For example, the US has at least 33 cognitive warfare units, distributed across multiple divisions such as the State Department, Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, with a government coordination mechanism as the central hub. Intelligence agencies are better able to directly undertake cognitive warfare tasks, and they are deeply involved in so-called “smear propaganda.”
The concentrated statements from the US on the “China overcapacity theory” are typical examples. In addition to Yellen, Jay Shambaugh, under secretary for international affairs at the US Department of the Treasury, stated that overcapacity in China is going to wind up hitting world markets. US ambassador to China R. Nicholas Burns expressed concern about China’s potential overcapacity. He said that China allows enterprises to export products such as solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs) at artificially low or even dumping prices through various subsidies, which would lead to unfair competition and disrupt the global trade system, according to media reports.
In recent years, US government-led cognitive warfare coordination has become more mature, focusing on “decentralization” and “flattening” as core principles, aiming to achieve linkages among multiple centers and levels, and proposing the so-called global model, which is to distort the perception of target countries by third-country audiences in global information and communication activities using their influence.—GT
