Rethinking the 'China Threat' in an Age of American Expansionism

Jemma Tan | China Fellow

Image sourced from The White House via Flickr.

In his polemic address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth echoed a long-dominant Western framework for perceiving China in opining “the threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent”. Evolving from anti-communist sentiment during the Cold War, the 'China Threat' concept encompasses perceived dangers with the rise of China as a global power. Yet despite its positioning as reactionary to Chinese ambitions, the China Threat has been amplified through media, politics and security establishments; naturalising hawkish perceptions of China and crowding out alternatives.

This persistent weaponisation of a China Threat has achieved a particularly salient hypocrisy under the second Trump administration. Nine months after Hegseth’s speech, President Trump’s aggressive foreign policy ironically embodies multiple characteristics of the China Threat. Beyond regime-change transgressions in Venezuela and Iran, Trump’s justification for his territorial claim that Greenland is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships” exposes the narrative’s insidious function. 

The China Threat is thus best understood not as an objective assessment of Chinese foreign policy, but as a constructed narrative functioning as an ideological cover for the United States’ (US) imperialism in the wake of its declining global hegemony. 

Constructing and Naturalising the “China Threat”

Re-thinking the China Threat necessitates understanding how the threat narrative was established, disseminated and its impact on public opinion. From the Yellow Peril fears of Asian “invasion” in the 1800s and the resulting Chinese Exclusion Act, US foreign policy has long weaponised racial threat narratives to scapegoat 'others' as existential dangers. By the end of the Cold War, a perfect vacuum emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union for China to succeed as a political target: the new communist threat challenging American democracy. 

As China experienced rapid economic growth and military development, US strategists, policy intellectuals, and defence establishments systematically proliferated “China Threat” frameworks through congressional testimonies and media circulation. Resulting media amplification has left no room for dissent in public opinion. Over 80 per cent of Americans believe limiting China’s rise is imperative for US foreign policy. Evidently, the debate no longer concerns whether China threatens American interests, but how to contain it.

While the Trump administrations have infused China Threat messaging with distinctive nativism, this hawkish posturing has remained coded within US foreign policy. Both Obama and Bush have reflected this bipartisan consensus towards containing the China Threat, framing America as the leading Pacific power monitoring China as a threatening “strategic competitor” to their global interests. Trump’s recent provocations merely strip back its diplomatic pretence.

Embodying the Threat: Greenland

Without diplomatic cover, American foreign policy under Trump’s second administration now brazenly commits the territorial aggressions, regime-changes and international order violations it routinely attributes to China. The double standard is revealed through the sequential framing of the China Threat; speculative accusations against China create a threat baseline against which resulting US actions are labelled “in national security interests”. 

The potential Chinese takeover of Taiwan and island-building in the South China Sea have been the cornerstone of such framing, presented as paradigmatic territorial aggression dismantling Indo-Pacific stability. However, Trump’s recent Greenland campaign reflects a true, tangible pursuit of expansion. Throughout the start of 2026, Trump has repeatedly demanded and threatened military action to assume control of Greenland as an “absolute necessity” to counter Russian and Chinese Arctic influence. Yet this coercive media framing conceals his true objective of using threatening positions to corral economic deals from Greenland’s government instead of China. While China invests legally in mining projects within sovereignty frameworks, Trump brazenly demands annexation. 

Any Chinese economic participation is classed as infiltration, juxtaposed to American acquisition as a strategic imperative. Greenland has exposed that Trump–and America’s–commitment to a China Threat is less about national security, and more focused on eliminating Chinese competition in securing wealth for US interests.

Masking a Shifting World Order

While the China Threat deployment shifts attention from Trump’s resource-driven territorial and regime-change aggressions, its intensification also coincides with a new structural reality: declining American hegemony. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum encapsulated this sentiment of the US’s actions, facilitating a colossal “rupture” rather than a transition of power in the Western world. A key trigger is moreover the mass departure of the Trump administration from organisations that underpin the rules-based international order. Middle powers like Brazil and South Korea are thus increasingly reassessing their reliance on the US and diversifying international alliances, largely via engaging with China. 

As this multipolarity becomes undeniable, the reactionary usage of the “China Threat” has accelerated to obscure the fading belief in American exceptionalism. The 2025 National Security Strategy’s focus on drug crimes, immigration and containing China reveals the collapse of strategic distinctions, lumping geopolitical competition with racialised domestic anxieties. America’s inability to adjust to shifting global perceptions and alliances is forcing its foreign policy into an adversarial posture.

A proactive, balanced US foreign policy towards China requires understanding the nation as it exists, not in the ambitions that are projected onto it. For too long, the China Threat narrative has solidified anti-China sentiments into a dogma that excludes alternative viewpoints. Peking University professor Jia Qingguo corroborates that “the international community, including China, should focus on common interests and shared challenges”. If the Trump administration continues to build on the fear-mongering constituting the China Threat, whilst decrying international law and sovereignty, the US’s precarious position as the post-World War II leader of international order will be entirely eroded. 

Jemma is a 4th year student majoring in Finance and Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney, with an interest in how nurturing international ties can capitalise on the advantages of Australia’s multicultural society. Her connection to China is rooted in her heritage and lifelong appreciation of Chinese language and culture, strengthened during a transformative year abroad at Peking University in Beijing sponsored by the Westpac Asian Exchange Scholarship.

In 2026, she will be working towards an Honours thesis in Chinese Studies centred around exploring the impact of Mandarin-English translation in cross-cultural interactions, working to bridge Australia’s prominent gap in Asia-capability across numerous sectors.

She is excited to contribute to YAIA as a fellow integrating her interests in finance, second language acquisition, economic policy, history and culture into insightful pieces commenting on international interactions with China.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Young Australians in International Affairs. All content is original, and no plagiarism has been used in the preparation of this article.