Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A marker of mature statecraft is the ability to assess international challenges and devise appropriate responses with prudence, dispassion and proportionality. Despite many decades of global leadership, however, American diplomacy remains given to bouts of adolescent hysteria.

This reflex has more to do with domestic politics than the realities of international competition. The Trump administration's alarmist rhetoric about China offers a case in point.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy asserts that as China rises, its leaders seek the "displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence." Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton have each issued panicky public assessments of the China threat that appear designed to prepare the American public for the demands of renewed great power confrontation.

President Harry Truman established the model for such "sky is falling" rhetoric when, on March 12 1947, he sounded the opening bell of the emerging Cold War in a speech to a joint session of Congress. In the days leading up to the speech, Truman considered how to rally the public behind a grand struggle against the Soviet Union. Truman consulted with Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who offered a clear answer - Truman must "scare the hell out of the country" by underlining the communist threat to the American way of life.

The task of whipping up public support for a confrontational foreign policy has never been solely the province of the White House. Arising from World War II, a bipartisan foreign policy establishment - what President Dwight Eisenhower once referred to as the "military-industrial complex" - has mobilized at critical moments to rally support for higher military spending in response to varied purported threats.

The most storied among these was the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). First established in December 1950, the original CPD consisted of a bipartisan group of national security professionals who sought congressional support for the recommendations of NSC-68, a strategic planning document that called for a tripling of US defense spending.

Whereas the first CPD's aims were in sync with those of the Truman administration, a second CPD launched in 1976 set itself in opposition to the perceived dovishness of both the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations. The 150 notables that formed the revived CPD sought to undercut détente with the Soviet Union and reverse the military drawdown that followed the Vietnam War.

Stung by these criticisms, outgoing President Ford took the extraordinary step of appointing a "Team B" of conservative defense experts from outside government to prepare a report paralleling the CIA's normal efforts.

Dominated by CPD members, "Team B" produced an assessment of Soviet capabilities and intentions considerably more pessimistic than that prepared by the CIA's regular "Team A." CIA Director George Bush subsequently ordered "Team A" to "substantially revise its draft" to produce "an estimate that in all its essential points agreed with Team B's position." This paved the way for a series of alarmist intelligence reports that, according to a reappraisal conducted by the CIA in 1983, overstated the Soviet threat.

A third iteration of the CPD emerged in 2004 with the mission of rallying the American people to support a campaign against "radical Islamists" who "threaten the safety of the American people and millions of others who prize liberty."

The most recent iteration of this group - now called the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) - was unveiled in Washington DC, on April 9, 2019, featuring remarks by Senator Ted Cruz, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon.

The CPDC claims that Chinese leaders seek to "weaken and ultimately defeat America" and "subvert Western democracies" in order to clear China's path to "global hegemony."

While China's rise presents the US with difficult challenges, the over-the-top rhetoric of the current anti-China campaign emanating from both the White House and the CPDC remains vastly exaggerated. The military and ideological threats posed by China today pale in comparison with those posed by the former Soviet Union. Far from seeking to export revolution or overturn the existing international order, China seeks reform of and greater status and influence within that order.

In political terms, however, these efforts to once again "scare the hell out of the country" make perfect sense. Hawkish advocates of increased military spending win domestic support by amplifying public perceptions of external threat.

Yet these periodic scare campaigns, by presidents and by groups like the CPDC, pose real dangers. Most obviously, they unnecessarily exacerbate international conflict.

Once the public is fully mobilized, moreover, it can be difficult to dial down the fear once a president finds it expedient to do so. At present, there is little indication that the American public is ready to sign up for a Manichean struggle with China. The recent chill in US-China relations could thus give way to a deep freeze that works to the detriment of the peoples of both countries.

The author is professor of political science, Drake University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn 
Newspaper headline: Perilous for US to hype present danger