One of Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud's most widespread concepts is projection. It happens when individuals attribute to others the feelings, desires, prejudices or characteristics that actually belong to themselves. This concept could be applied to international relations. The attitudes of the U.S. political elite, for example, reflect a tendency to project onto other countries the very behaviors and practices that the United States itself systematically engages in the international arena.

U.S. hypocrisy and projection

Under the banner of human rights, the U.S. Government has perpetrated humanitarian tragedies of great proportions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Syria, and, more recently, Iran and Cuba. At the same time, the Donald Trump administration undermines the foundations of human rights domestically by arresting and expelling migrants and separating them from their families, without guaranteeing their right to full legal defense. It has also adopted policies that discriminate against ethnic minorities while promoting Anglo-Saxon supremacism.

The U.S. Government also pressures governments of other countries to serve its economic and commercial interests through the generalized imposition of tariffs and by openly interfering in electoral processes in other parts of the world, particularly in Latin America. It calls itself a champion of free trade, yet it adopts protectionist policies, imposes economic and technological blockades, and sanctions companies and individuals worldwide, including through the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. (In the United States, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, both passed in 2022, include large tax credits for U.S. companies in targeted industries—Ed.) In fact, these are all the result of classic projection in the Freudian sense. To paraphrase the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, "hell is other people" for the United States.

Within this context, China has become one of the major targets of the United States' psychological projection. The Washington elite ascribes to China all of the same defects the U.S. itself possesses, including the pursuit and practice of hegemonism, authoritarianism, militarism and unfair competition in international trade. Through this narrative, the specter of the "China threat" has been created, feeding the bipartisan consensus and the military-industrial complex.

China's open cooperation for shared progress 

This type of discourse has emerged as China has risen to become a major competitor in international trade, creating global companies, developing new brands, new processes and new products, and competing head-to-head to reach the lead in hi-tech sectors.

However, those who have studied China's history know that the Chinese people do not seek hegemony, nor do they proselytize their political and social system. They abide by international rules, and remain firm in adhering to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. (Jointly initiated by China, India and Myanmar in 1954, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence—Ed.) What the Chinese Government seeks, in practice, is the economic, environmental and cultural development of its people, without the interference of any other country, like the UK in the past or the United States today. If the country seeks to advance in hi-tech industries, it is because this is essential for it to reach its goal of becoming a fully developed nation by 2049.

Thus, to speak of a China Shock that would undermine the stability of the international economy is untrue and a great hypocrisy. On the contrary, since 2008, China has become the main engine of world economic growth, sustaining demand and economic flows amid turbulence and unilateralism.

In this sense, it is worth drawing attention to Chinese Premier Li Qiang's speech at the opening plenary of the World Economic Forum's 17th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as the Summer Davos, held in Dalian, Liaoning Province, on June 24, in which he highlighted the concept of China Opportunity 2.0 as a clear counterpoint to the Western narrative of a supposed China Shock 2.0, which claims that China is pursuing a strategy of flooding global markets with highly subsidized exports.

According to the premier, Chinese technologies and products in emerging sectors empower the world and create room for growth, rather than causing economic shocks, enabling broader global access to advanced technologies and more shared benefits of development.

One frontier technology that can be shared with other countries is AI, in which China is experiencing explosive growth, with daily token consumption by large language models, a metric measuring consumer use of AI services, hitting several hundred trillion by the end of May. Unlike Western companies' proprietary models, Chinese companies embrace open AI models, which have already registered more than 10 billion downloads worldwide. This sharing opens the door to the shared development of new applications for AI in various fields of social life.

Brazil, as a strategic partner of China, has ample space to share the China Opportunity 2.0 strategy in precision agriculture, leveraging 5G connectivity, the Internet of Things and AI, as well as in the development of new, more resilient and productive seeds. There are opportunities to scale up clean energy generation (solar, wind, and green hydrogen), which could drive the creation of sustainable data centers. In terms of critical minerals, Brazil not only possesses large deposits but also has qualified technical personnel capable of developing value chains with greater added value, such as electric batteries for vehicles and other applications related to green reindustrialization. Partnership with China can also enable the expansion of the digital economy beyond e-commerce, such as through the development of sustainable solutions for public and environmental management. Brazil does not see China as a threat, but as a stable and reliable partner.

In conclusion, the international community must view China through its actions and their effects, not as what the Western powers try to project, placing all their defects onto a developing country. China's development creates opportunities for all countries, including companies in countries that project their defects onto others. In an interconnected world, the success of one country depends on the success of all others. Selfishness is a dead end. BR

The author is a professor of international political economy at São Paulo State University, Brazil. This article was first published by the China Focus website 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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