'China push' in Asia fabricated alarmism: China Daily editorial

A New York Times article, titled "As China Pushes to Expand in Asia, Trump Focuses on Iran", published on Saturday, encapsulates a typical trope among the political circles and media in the United States: when in trouble, blame others.

The piece attempts to paint an alarmist picture of the region trembling under the shadow of "Chinese ambition" as the US administration focuses its attention on the Middle East.

Beneath its surface concern for the US' Asian allies are dialectical currents that are logically flawed, historically selective and dangerously misleading. It serves less as a report on regional sentiment and more as a projection of US anxieties masquerading as analysis.

Its reasoning is built on the bedrock of breathtaking ironies: It is the US that launched the conflict with Iran that has become another costly quagmire in which the US finds itself trapped. It is Washington that is seeking to cultivate a Cold War-like division in Asia by pushing a narrative of bloc competition and pressuring countries to choose sides, often at the expense of their economic interests. And it is the US that is resorting to economic coercion, tariff wars and technological "decoupling" in a bid to restructure the global supply chains in its favor, harming the very economies it claims to protect.

It is the misjudged self-serving US foreign policy that is the source of instability in the region, not so-called Chinese "expansion".

The New York Times article's primary "evidence" for the so-called "Chinese expansionism" is a recent incident at Ren'ai Reef in the South China Sea. Here, the reporting is not just flawed but deliberately obfuscating and biased.

While it did admit that for decades the Philippines has sought to claim the reef in the disputed waters by rotating troops to a World War II-era ship it grounded there, it fell short of criticizing Manila for its ploy to occupy the Chinese reef.

Manila's illegal grounding of its warship at Ren'ai Reef in 1999 is the root cause of tensions between China and the Philippines. An objective analysis of the current situation would inevitably trace the current frictions to that unilateral provocation instigated by the Philippines.

Instead, the article deliberately presents the current frictions as the result of unprovoked Chinese "acts of aggression". This is a clear case of agenda-driven journalism, where the historical context is dismissed to fit a preordained narrative of "Chinese bullying".

Yet the most manipulative aspect of the article's narrative is its claim of palpable "Asian anxiety". While there may be concerns in capitals such as Tokyo and Manila, these are not representative of the broader Asian sentiment. In fact, the findings of a Pew Research Center survey in July reveal a starkly different picture.

The poll found that in a majority of the 36 countries surveyed, favorable views of China have surpassed those of the US, including in key US allies such as Canada and Australia. This shows that it is the US that suffers from a lack of trust, not China.

The true intent of the article is to express dissatisfaction with the Donald Trump administration's entanglement in the Iran conflict, and to raise concerns that Washington may be too distracted to focus on the Asia-Pacific region, thereby allowing China's influence there to surpass its own. This is typical US sleight of hand.

The article is simply projecting Washington's anxieties about its declining influence and costly misadventures in Asia. By fabricating and selectively using facts and viewing China through a biased lens, it constructs a narrative of a new Cold War that serves its own ideological agenda.

While some politicians in Tokyo and Manila are betting on the US for political gain, in general, Asian countries hope to achieve development together. The anxiety the article tries to sell is not germane to the majority of people in Asia. Instead, it is a fiction manufactured for political purposes.