正如白宫最近的一份报告所强调的，在华盛顿优先考虑的国家级威胁当中，中国一直首当其冲并处在中心位置。新冠疫情更加快了美国政策制定者决心同中国展开大国竞争的步伐。稳获民主党总统候选人提名的乔·拜登亮出他“对华强硬”的凭证，以平息特朗普及其支持者对他与美国竞争对手过于友好的指责。这些指控是共和党选战策略的一部分，其目的是将新冠大流行归咎于中国初期的掩盖，同时指责民主党对中国态度软弱，譬如，指责乔·拜登不支持特朗普早期对中国实施的旅行禁令。通过特朗普有影响力的支持者所鼓动的高压运动，这些指控达到了荒谬绝伦的高潮。他们指责拜登与中国串通一气，要为“偷走我们的工作”和“杀害我们的人民”负责。由于美国公众舆论更容易接受特朗普政府的受害人阴谋叙事，加上中美关系恶化，即使拜登出任总统，似乎也不会对美国的对华态度有重大影响。

事实上，正如上面提及的白宫报告所阐明的，特朗普政府的对华政策是以“全政府”反击为前提，其基础是运用美国所有的力量，包括反情报和战略传播。在这位美国总统原始的唯利是图本能背后，是一个强大的国家安全机构试图提升美国的实力和军事威信，同时扩大对抗性言论，对敌国友邦施压要它们服从美国的目标。来自军方的负责东亚安全和外交事务的官员数量如此之多，就反映了这一逻辑。例如，在2019年，退役准将戴维·斯蒂尔维尔被任命为国务院负责东亚和太平洋事务的助理国务卿。同年，美国国防部任命了一个新的副部长助理，专门负责中国事务，一名（鹰派）中国问题专家也被提升为副国家安全顾问，这在美国国家安全委员会历史上尚属首次，证明了中国的重要性。国家安全委员会的马特·波廷格接连在四位风格迥异的国家安全顾问手下服务，说明他在制定美国对华战略方面居核心地位。

早在新冠疫情爆发之前，美国行政机构就已经改变用语，为的是对中国及其“一带一路”这样的标志性政策发动一场全面传播战。在这一过程中，政府立法部门也相继出台由国会主导的《国防授权法案》、《亚洲再保证倡议法案》、《香港人权与民主法案》、《维吾尔人干预与全球人道主义联合应对法案》。最近，参议院两党投票支持《外国公司问责法案》，表明国会在遏制中国的议程中发挥了重要作用。

不过，特朗普政府的所作所为已经突破2017年之前华盛顿酝酿的对华政策反思。例如，它提出的国家安全预算是自伊拉克战争最激烈时期以来最高的，而且由于疫情明年还会进一步增加。经济民族主义和强大的国家安全机构意味着特朗普政府会采取对华高压策略，尤其是当国家经济委员会主任加里·科恩等更为务实的声音离去之后。他们的策略力度远远超出了安全困境下适度的行动与反制，也超出了美国政府所宣称的“通过实力”来制服中国的经济掠夺与胁迫，更不用说总统对经济让步的粗暴索取。与白宫报告作出的保证相反，中美合作或者磋商的空间已经所剩无几，美国决定中止中美战略经济对话就是明证。

其实，特朗普的国家安全班子和一些经济鹰派人士都具有强烈的反华意识形态倾向。他们相信，中国共产党从事的邪恶活动目的是输出其专制治理体制，诱使发展中国家陷入新殖民主义“债务陷阱”的外交困境，通过经济掠夺让富国市场空心化，并通过实行强权来破坏自由民主。基于这种极端判断，特朗普政府的国家安全班子及其高级经济官员的所作所为已经超越了华府内部对中国抱怀疑态度的两党和官僚共识。

由于这种判断带有恶意的国际意图，美国政府对付中国的药方当中就需要有一种新的策略，类似于苏联时代的遏制。其结果是，美国政府采取了一些七拼八凑的严厉遏制政策，这些政策可以让经济（局部）脱钩。日本分析人士就准确地意识到，一个主张“政权更迭”的极端鹰派集团的存在，在一定程度上意味着美国政府会发起全方位进攻，同时存在的还有支持削弱中国的“遏制派”，和承认有必要与中国保持接触的“平衡派”，然而后一派在政府中几乎见不到。不过，美国政府中的国家安全鹰派与主张“美国优先”的经济民族主义者关系有些紧张。

以上这些意味着什么呢？如果对美国政策制定者判断与应对中国挑战的这种评估是准确的，那么，中美对抗就真的有失控危险。因此，人们必须认识到，疫情所引发的美国战略传播和经济攻势不仅是特朗普及共和党的一种选战工具，也是安全困境中下零和逻辑的一个副产品。最大化地判定对方的恶意意图（及能力）促使抵制行动变得夸张，反过来又会助长对方的不安全感。而且，中美经济与宣传互动的恶性循环有可能令敌意明朗化，因为两国的公众舆论都开始变得轻信妖魔化的东西。特朗普政府在把中美关系单一界定为与一个邪恶的战略竞争对手打交道时，对于自己想要什么应该慎之又慎，因为很可能如愿以偿。赤裸裸的大国对抗会让我们所有人更穷、更不安全，尤其是在疫情期间。

As stressed in a very recent White House report, China has been front and centre in Washington's prioritization of states-based threats, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated US policymakers' embrace of great power competition with China. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, has displayed his “tough-on-China” credentials to defuse Trump and his supporters' accusations that he is too friendly with the US' competitor. These accusations are part and parcel of the Republican Party's electoral strategy aimed at blaming China for causing the COVID-19 pandemic through an initial cover-up, and accuse Democrats of being soft on China – for instance by accusing Joe Biden of not supporting Trump's early China travel ban. These accusations have reached their grotesque climax through heavy-handed campaigns supported by influential Trump supporters that have accused Biden of being complicit to China, responsible for “stealing our jobs” and “killing our people”. As US public opinion more readily embraces the Trump administration's conspiratorial narratives of victimhood, and as US-China relations worsen, it looks like a Biden presidency will not make a big difference in the US posture towards China.

In fact, as the afore-mentioned White House report spells out, the Trump administration's China policy is premised on a “whole-of-government” pushback, based on the employment of all sources of US power, including counterintelligence and strategic communications. Behind the US president's crude mercenary instincts, an empowered national security establishment sought to increase US strength and military credibility, ramp up the confrontational rhetoric, and exert pressure on friends and foes alike to comply with US objectives. The high number of officials in charge of East Asian security and diplomatic affairs hailing from the military is indicative of this logic. For instance, in 2019, retired Brigadier General David Stillwell was nominated Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State. In the same year, the Department of Defense's inauguration of a new deputy assistant secretary position with exclusive oversight over China matters and the promotion of a (hawkish) China specialist to the ranks of deputy national security advisor, a first in the history of the US National Security Council, testified to the importance assigned to China. Matt Pottinger's uninterrupted service at the NSC under four very different National Security Advisors also testifies to his centrality in crafting the US' China strategy.

Well ahead of the COVID-19 crisis, the US executive office had also changed the language register to wage an all-out communication war against China and its signature policies, such as the BRI. In the process, the legislative branch of government has followed suit by promoting the Congress-led National Defense Authorization, the Asia Reassurance Initiative, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy, and the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response Acts. The recent bipartisan vote at the Senate in favour of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act is indicative of the important role played by Congress in the China pushback agenda.

Still, the Trump administration has gone above and beyond the rethink on China policy that was brewing in Washington DC ahead of 2017. For instance, budget proposals for national security have been the highest since the height of the Iraq War, and—pandemic allowing—they are set to increase further the following year. Economic nationalists and a hyper-empowered national security establishment have informed the Trump administration's heavy-handed strategy towards the Middle Kingdom, especially after the departure of more pragmatic voices, such as director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn. Their strategy went well beyond action/reaction dynamics proper of the security dilemma or the US government's stated goals of taming Chinese economic predation and coercion “through strength”, not to mention the president's more profane extraction of economic concessions. Contrary to the White House report's reassurances, there was little room left for US-China cooperation or consultations, as evidenced by the US decision to shut down the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

In fact, Trump's national security team and some of the economic hawks held a strong anti-China ideological bent. They were convinced that the Chinese Communist Party engaged in malign activities aimed at exporting its autocratic system of governance, ensnaring developing countries into neo-colonial “debt trap” diplomacy, hollowing out rich markets through economic predation, and sabotaging liberal democracies through sharp power. In light of this maximalist diagnosis, the Trump administration's national security team, as well as senior economic officials, acted above and beyond the China-sceptical bipartisan and bureaucratic consensus within the Beltway.

Since the diagnosis is of malevolent international intent, the US government's prescription to deal with China demanded a new a strategy somewhat similar to Soviet-era containment. As a result of that, the US government embarked into a patchy, heavy-handed policy of containment, qualified by (partial) economic decoupling. Japanese analysts correctly recognized the presence of a fringe uber-hawkish group that favored “regime change” as partly informing the US government's all-out-offensive, along with the “containers”, those in favour of weakening China, and the “balancers”, who recognized the need to concomitantly engage China. The latter faction is hardly seen in the government, however. Still, there is tension between the US administration's national-security hawks and the “America First” economic nationalists.[1]

What does all of the above mean? If this assessment of US policymakers' diagnosis of and remedies against the China challenge is correct, there's a real danger of US-China confrontation spiralling out of control. As a consequence, the US strategic communications and economic offensives resulting from the pandemic must be understood not just as an electoral tool for Trump and the Republican Party, but as a by-product of the zero-sum logic of the security dilemma. A maximalist diagnosis of the malign intentions (and capabilities) of the counterpart feeds into an exaggerated pushback that, in turn, feeds the insecurity of the counterpart. Moreover, the downward spiral characterizing US-China economic and propaganda interaction risks crystallizing enmity, as public opinion in both countries becomes convinced of facile demonization. The Trump administration should be very careful what it wishes for when it frames the US relationship with China solely as one with a malign strategic competitor, because it might just get it. Raw great power confrontation will make us all poorer and less secure, especially during a pandemic.