Almost 90% of the American public hates/dislikes China. Of course politicians are climbing over each other to oppose China.
What I keep seeing from China's leadership and intellectuals are talks about American politicians needing to match words with actions. Accurate, but it doesn't paint the full picture. The problem is not just US politicians. It's American society as a whole.
The US public has always needed an enemy to divert from their daily problems; as the US declines, this need becomes even more acute.
The deep state thought they could channel this energy against China and made it their mission to do so throughout the Trump years in order to keep China in its place, but they overestimated their position. In their arrogance, they thought China would surrender and sue for peace once threatened with economic war. Then they thought the same when China was hit with the virus.
But China didn't. It grew more powerful, while the West was hit just as hard by the virus. Then came the Russia-Ukraine war, which also didn't work out quite like the West had planned.
Now they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, with a declining economy, a proxy war that's in danger of escalating, and a China that refuses to talk to them and which is becoming more adversarial by the day. All the while, they've worked the American public into a rabid rage, where they'll accept nothing less than total victory over China.
The US has, essentially, no choice but to walk head long into conflict, because any US politician who now suggests cooperation would be condemned as a traitor, and would bring ruin to his own party. All the while, they've created the same dynamic in China where any Chinese politician who shows weakness by accepting US demands, would similarly be condemned as weak. A return to cooperation, now, would require a miracle - it's already a path of no return.
