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The rivalry (or coming war?) between China and the US (II)

Potential longer term safety worries for Chinese Americans

I have reported earlier about the issues relating to the title of this blog in the media http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-1142304.html . Recent events led me to worry about related personal safety for Chinese Americans as a matter of “collateral damage” of the rivalry. In particular, the killing of 11 innocent Jewish-Americans by a disgruntled anti-Semite person this past Saturday in Pittsburgh while they were attending church make clear that no one is exempt from such danger. Here are my reasons, rationales, and thinking.

1.  The rhetoric of the current administration seems to consider China as the new enemy of the US. In US politics, it is often convenient to have an enemy, potential or real, such as Japan, the Soviet Union and Russia, ISIS et al. This rallies the public behind the government.

2.  Historically, a dominant power and a rising power must learn to share wealth and influence. More often because of this, conflict and war results. The fact that the European countries and now the European Union got along with the rise of the US during the twentieth century is due to tradition, language, geography, and the accidents of WWII. Except for the geography of the Pacific Ocean, there is not the ingredients for peaceful give-and-take between US and China (in the modern era, geographical reasons are no longer that important).

3.  As education becoming more and more important in the modern world, many middle income jobs are being successfully replaced by computers and AI. These jobs will never come back. Thus, the less or uneducated group of people can no longer have the middle class aspiration and see the American Dream disappear before their eyes. Unfortunately as a developed country, education is not a strong suit or emphasized in the US. Consequently, this significant but not the majority group of US citizens (many Trump supporters among them) feel threatened or angered by what are happening to them personally.

4.  On the other hand, recent Chinese immigrants to the US (with the small exception of laborer restricted to small enclave as in the various Chinatowns) are highly educated almost universally with US graduate degrees. This group gets to enjoy the American Dream and many signs of the good life.

5.  Chinese culture also often have Chinese Americans behave as “not involved or aloof”. Mainstreaming or volunteering as a group is not in our blood. Even the term “华侨 (Chinese temporarily here) makes clear to other Americans that CAs are not “one of us”

6.  Combination of #1-5 can easily arouse anger and envy by this disaffected public group. With the President inflaming the sentiment and the easy availability of guns makes one person who has nothing but hatred to live for to easily exact “revenge” on his targets in a democratic and free country. Thus, I suggest this could be a real concern for CAs in the US in the near future or even present day.