Overreaction to China threat could turn into McCarthyite Red Scare, says former US official
- Susan Shirk, who handled China relations in the Clinton administration, also warns that decoupling of US and Chinese economies could be ‘apocalyptic’
- She says ‘herding instinct is taking us off the cliff’ over perceived threats
Former US deputy assistant secretary of state Susan Shirk said overreaction to the perceived China threat in the United States “could turn into a McCarthyite Red Scare” and damage American interests.
She also warned that a decoupling of the US and Chinese economies could be “apocalyptic” and the United States might not win the fight because many countries may not side with it.
In what she described later as a “late night fear”, Shirk – who handled China relations in former president Bill Clinton’s administration – said worries about the “China threat” could result in a loss of talent and hinder US innovation development.
“Right now there is a herding instinct in the US that is taking us off the cliff with various forms of overreaction to China as a security threat, an intelligence threat, a spy threat, a technological threat, an influence threat,” Shirk said at the Yenching Global Symposium at Peking University in Beijing on Saturday.
“Many laboratories at my university depend on great Chinese students, and there are no substitutes for them right now,” said Shirk, now a research professor and chair of the 21st Century China Centre at the University of California San Diego.
“So if we make them feel unwelcome by not letting them work in the laboratories, they will go elsewhere. That would really slow down America’s own technological innovation.
