'China Anxiety': Discourse and Intellectual Challenges

This article discusses what the author refers to as ‘China anxiety’, manifest in the current Anglo-American discourse on the rise of China. It is argued that beneath the hype and hyperbole, anxieties can be detected that are no longer only about the prospect, but increasingly about the purpose, of China’s rise. The author suggests that there is a particular and deeper ‘cauldron of anxiety’ which causes, and is caused by, a certain intellectual disorientation among those participating in the discourse. The rise of China remains a puzzle, as it presents a number of paradoxes, contradictions and ironies. The article examines two specific propositions and debates, on the return of authoritarian powers and on the future of the liberal global order. The author argues that a rising China raises a number of important questions about the way in which the transformation of China has been represented in the dominant Anglo-American discourse and the knowledge of China that such representations construct. The article concludes with the insight that China’s pathway to power poses fundamental challenges to some widely accepted intellectual and political assumptions and wisdoms.