Last November, I spent twelve days in mainland China, touring coastal cities from Shenzhen to Shanghai and ending in Beijing. Prior to setting out on this, my first overseas trip, I was apprehensive. If I’m being honest, I felt it was my duty, as an American, to be suspicious of China. They are communists, after all, which must mean something bad. How many wars had my country fought in order to stop the spread of this…? I’m not sure what we feared. In recent rhetoric about China, we hear about stolen technology, stolen jobs, unfair currency exchanges and extensive surveillance of their citizens.
Basically, I was afraid to go, but ever so curious.
With the nudge of a very persistent friend who invited me to join her on a tour of peacemakers, it felt like a lifetime opportunity.
As I marveled at the whiz-bang skyscrapers of Shanghai, and flew through the atmosphere in a train going 250 mph to Beijing, I could literally see China leap-frogging over the United States. In their technology, their vehicles and their infrastructure. The advances were jaw-dropping. While my passport was scanned for rail transportation and some museums, I never felt under surveillance. It actually felt safer that identification was checked.
If you follow the news in China, and read about their leadership’s desires for collaboration and world-peace, you would wonder why the US government is talking about war with China. In Shanghai, I met Kevin Peng, an editor for a Shanghai media agency. I asked him to share his insights on how the United States went from giggling over our cheap finds at Walmart “made in China,” to blaming China for just about everything.
Julie: Kevin, you’ve previously lived in the United States for five years. You passionately follow American politics. Why do you think we are hearing these negative messages about China?
Kevin: First of all, I'm not a believer in any form of exceptionalism that guarantees long-lasting success unique to the rest of the world, including that of China and the United States. What I do believe is that in a modern, globalized, capitalist society—capital always flows to where it can generate the maximum profit. If you want to live a better life and earn higher wages, it means that the dirty, labor-intensive work must be left to others. This is what we once called "globalization"—a form of labor division where brains are concentrated in certain countries, while hands are concentrated in others.
Part one is when China took the ride with the WTO (World Trade Organization), financial capital and transnational corporations. We were invited. The door was opened for us to enter the economic globalization system. We made some household goods, some car parts, and some clothes in the beginning. During this alignment, China made a profit.
Part two is the aftermath. The American ‘establishment’ had offshored its manufacturing sector to China. China took over all the dirty labor with lower pay. That left America with a rust belt. The average American didn’t voluntarily give up their jobs to China, despite benefitting from the offshoring process with lower living costs. They indeed lost their jobs.
Just like J.D Vance said, America has a generation without a viable labor class.
Transnational corporations gained the most from the China-US trade profits. They are the middlemen; and incidentally, the donors behind the GOP and the Democrats.
If things had gone well, the average American wouldn’t have been a problem for the middlemen. With all the products made in China, Americans could just go to the service sector and be a bartender, or a coffee barista, and live paycheck to paycheck, but even so, live a relatively cozy life left over by the middlemen.
Until things went to hell. The 2008 crisis. The world was never able to recover from it. Later, the pandemic. And that leaves everything messed up, especially for the old money.
Average people can no longer afford their groceries thanks to inflation. The real culprit is the lack of distribution of the profits the middlemen received. The average American didn’t benefit from the profits. If you are one of those people, and you hear that China took your jobs, you’ll definitely buy this story.
Julie: Which seems hypocritical, but people forget how these situations develop over time. And now we are looking for someone to blame.
Kevin: You would think that when you leave the dirty work to others, you're supposed to live a better life. But in order to achieve this better life, you must secure certain higher-level types of labor for yourself. And while America designs cool AI models and iPhones in Silicon Valley, it doesn’t help the vast majority of Americans with their life.
In China, we believe you are supposed to lift people up, improve the working conditions, upgrade your industries and technologies and build up an infrastructure network to support your domestic production and market. But America didn’t have the same focus. You invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, started the Iraq war in 2003, and sent your money and weapons to Ukraine and Israel. You spend billions in election campaigns. And you still don’t have a functional, universal medical care system.
You can attempt to “Make America Great Again,” but every effort in that category is focused on deregulating labor rights and the work environment, otherwise you have soaring labor costs, thus making your products less competitive in the market—unless you impose tariffs on others. In my opinion, that's inevitable, and sometimes you just have to leave the job to others if you want to have a better life, which you believe you deserve. I'm totally fine with this mindset if the U.S. is straightforward about it and stops bragging about the superiority of their liberal democracy—because they're treating us no differently than slaves.
Julie: The war economy in the US is something invisible to many people. We have a form of taxpayer funded socialism through the military’s workforce: they receive healthcare, jobs training, housing and education to name a few. It’s sad that we can only justify giving these benefits for those employed by the military, but not civilians raising children or helping aging parents.
Then we have the corporations fueled by the Wall Street system and its insatiable appetite for profit. When the inevitable situation of overproduction occurs, the average American suffers. The workaround is to tell Americans that their taxes are too high or their government spending is corrupt—and that our much-needed social programs are to blame. Labeling the government as the villain only helps the corporate class and leaves the poor voting against their own best interests, which includes a healthy system of regulation.
And also, China. Let’s blame China for fueling mistrust and gaining public support for building more weapons “for protection.”
Kevin: It’s a strategy that is willing to sacrifice the lives of peace-loving Americans in a nuclear war with China.
Julie: That’s sobering. Not to mention the harm to the peace-loving citizens of China. Everyone I met was kind and generous and wanted peace with the United States.
Kevin: There's a saying in China reflecting our envy of the American Dream: "living in big houses and having steaks." That's why I think of my country in this way—if you want to climb up, you have to shift the costs onto someone who is cheaper. The only hope is that you treat them well and ensure that they, somehow, benefit from the spillover of profits.
Julie: And this brings us full circle. It’s not just an issue of America exploiting cheap labor and creating a ghost town for the working class. Any market driven system, without regulation, invites labor exploitation. Every country needs to examine this issue. Whether you call it messaging or propaganda, in the case of pitting the US against China, the goal is mistrust, because mistrust paves the way to harm others. Ignorance keeps the path open.
That’s why I wanted to see China for myself.
I would tell my fellow Americans that after my visit, I no longer fear China. We should congratulate them. It’s time to open our minds to the concept of a multipolar world where everyone contributes their unique resources. A world where we can all live in peace.
Let’s all rise with China.
Julie Ethan, MA in Peace and Justice Studies, is a deconstructing capitalist and mother of five grown children who now mostly feed themselves. From her San Diego HQ, she writes, striving to frame a global peace narrative that all humans can unite around.
Kevin Peng is a Shanghai-based media professional who previously studied in the United States for several years, primarily during the first Trump administration. His work focuses on analyzing social media trends related to both China and the United States.
Thank you for this very well written article. Why the pseudonym and not the name?