The Tiananmen Square Protests of June 1989 was a watershed moment in modern Chinese history. The crackdown though was an internal matter; nonetheless, its echoes were well felt in the Western world.
From Bi-polar to Pseudo Uni-polar
The Tiananmen episode happened just at the most important juncture of modern history, when the Soviet Union was collapsing and the almost 45-year long Cold War was dwindling. Consequently, the bipolar international system was preparing itself to embrace the unipolar world. A coming of age, where no power was powerful enough to stand in the way of the all-powerful, the US. Intrinsically, the US was in dire need of a pseudo-enemy to justify its global military presence and to maintain the system of alliances; the Chinese ‘power show’ just provided the opportunity. The policymakers in Washington, mostly consisting of Neo-Conservatives and Liberals, started their crusade in demonizing Beijing; hence reinvigorated the ‘China Threat’ debate. The history of the ‘China Threat’ can be traced to a few more decades back, when Communist Mao overpowered Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek in October 1949. Nonetheless, the early 1990s was the perfect time for the U.S. to bury the hatchet for the Soviet Union, and start a renewed rivalry in relation to China.
The China Threat
The ‘China Threat’ has momentously resonated time and again in the U.S. policymaking and academic circles, especially during the past three decades. It reached its climax with the Obama Administration’s calling for the Asia Pivot policy and an overt containment of China by placing the majority........