After chaos engulfed the US Capitol last week, some Chinese intellectuals found themselves searching for copies of an out-of-print book to make sense of events. “America Against America” forecast the US’s decline due to domestic conflicts more than 30 years ago.
Among the things driving the demand was the author: Wang Huning, the Communist Party’s No. 5 leader and top political theorist to three Chinese presidents. Some copies have surged to more than 16,600 yuan ($2,500) on Kungfuzi, an online marketplace for antiques. That’s more than 3,000 times its original asking price in 1991, when Japan was more widely seen as America’s big economic rival.
“The interest in the book is the result of a renewed desire to understand a US that is in the midst of a civil Cold War,” said Wang Wen, executive dean of Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies. “China’s doubts about the US will certainly increase in light of recent events.”
The Capitol Hill turmoil is being read in Beijing as the most powerful sign yet that societal fissures in the US are behind increasingly erratic foreign policy shifts. That’s feeding Chinese apprehension about reaching agreements on trade or other politically charged disputes with President-elect Joe Biden.
