Brooks and Wohlforth ( 2016) argue that Beijing will not overtake the US, while Chinese officials emphasize its peaceful rise (heping jueqi), rejecting the description of Beijing as a revisionist power dissatisfied with the status quo (Zheng 2005). Other scholars have questioned the underlying assumptions of the China threat perspective pointing to its limitations (Roy, Broomfield,, p. A prominent international relations (IR) scholar theorized that the United States (US) and China are headed toward a risky situation in which the US as the dominant power would seek to prevent the rise of a rival state (Allison 2017). According to alarmist theories originating in the 1990s, China’s economic development will inevitably lead to challenges of the American global primacy and interests in East Asia (Bernstein and Munro, Gertz, Gries 2005). The rise of China means that the future of global stability will depend on the politics of the Sino-American relations. The anti-China mentions reached a peak during the 2020 debates amidst the pandemic when the populist candidate used biased language, relying on tropes resembling the 19th century racist “yellow peril” rhetoric. In doing so, the populists sought to forge coalitions in favor of protectionist policies among those voters, who were employed in manufacturing sectors facing growing international competition. By contrast, populist narratives in 20 stood out because they included emotional appeals and inflated the risks of the Sino-American rivalry to mobilize voters. By 2008, the emerging bipartisan consensus centered on China as mainly a trade competitor.

In contrast to the belligerent rhetoric of the early Cold War, when China was framed as a major military threat, after 2004, presidential candidates started referring to Beijing as an economic rival. Several types of discourses have been identified. When and how do the American political elites react discursively to China as a rising power? Do they depict it as an economic or military risk? What role do discursive references to China play in the US populist discourses? Relying on the thematic and critical discourse analysis of all the American presidential debates, this article explores the way US politicians portray China throughout three eras marked by distinct global power configurations.

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