I believe the issue runs deeper than it appears. When I talk to my European and American colleagues, many of them hold strong anti-China views (sometimes borderline racist..). These are highly educated people. Some of the things they say are outright absurd. For example, one of my American colleagues recently claimed that China was trying to smuggle viruses into the U.S. (referring to the researcher case).
In my opinion, for Europeans, it’s more about privilege. They truly seem to believe that if the U.S. loses its global dominance, Europeans will no longer enjoy the same level of control and privilege they have today. Of course, this is just my personal observation/opinion, but I truly think that deep down, many Americans and Europeans want their dominance over the world to last forever and Europeans believe that America has to be the sole superpower for this objective.
