Description
This paper offers a postcolonial critique of how American elite foreign policy discourse has represented China’s rise from 2011 to 2024. I argue that United States foreign policy is not simply rationalised responses to China’s ascent but a discursive project of hegemonic identity formation that reaffirms the American Self. By situating the analysis within the so-called new cold war, the study shows how American grand strategies, from President Obama’s competitive engagement, President Trump 1.0’s strategic containment, and President Biden’s strategic coexistence are sustained by racialised and declinist narratives that externalise internal anxieties by constructing a Chinese Other through myths of American exceptionalism and American orientalism. The study advances a historicised analysis of China’s rise by showing how its construction as either a threat or non-threat is not a result of neutral foreign policy decision-making, but discursive strategies driven by neocolonial conquest and desire to sustain the narrative of American benevolent hegemony. Using a Postcolonial Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), I critically examine Foreign Affairs articles and State of the Union Addresses to uncover how language constructs imperial encounters which legitimises shifts in American grand strategies of benevolent assimilation (engagement) or disciplinary exclusion (containment). By showing how these narratives are based on racialised ideologies and colonial hierarchies, the study contributes to the broader project of decolonising International Relations.
