This China meeting will ruin America

Subsegments of the Trump movement have consistently portrayed China as one of America’s primary adversaries.

Yet in a few days, many boomers and executives will travel to China to sell America — its capital, markets, and dependency — to the very system they publicly frame as a threat.

Every administration ultimately has its preferred counterparties.

In the rhetoric surrounding the Middle East, few forces are portrayed as more nefarious than Iran. Yet China is often treated as economically acceptable, even friendly, despite its scale and long-term strategic ambitions.

If China behaved in Asia the way many actors behave in the Middle East, one suspects the reaction would be dramatically different.

But geography shapes psychology.

Because China is distant from the regions most emotionally associated with Western geopolitical tension, it is often perceived with less urgency by those most sensitive to conflict in the Middle East.