I've been seeing a huge amount of anti-Chinese sentiment online, from obvious places like reddit, to even misinformed friends on social media falling victim to viral posts filled with misinformation.
What are we to make of this? Is this the slow march to war, by portraying them as pure evil, à la the fake story of Iraqi soldiers killing Kuwaiti babies to help get the public on board with our military response? It seems disadvantageous for the US and their allies to fight China, as we are incredibly reliant upon them economically and don't stand to gain much from the conflict.
Are these the irrational decisions of a dying empire? Or is there something else at play?
I like your materialist view of the situation, I would counter (somewhat playing devil’s advocate here) that it is historically the case that bourgeoisie of different nations/empires compete internationally for access to markets. Even if China was a purely capitalist power it wouldn’t be bucking a trend if western bourgeois interestS united against it.
That's a good point, I guess Eastern and Western bourgeoisie have different interests due to competition. The UK and US are more similar to each other.