The imperative of containing China became more pronounced under the Trump presidency. Many American scholars and policymakers located the Chinese threat on the ideological plane and construed it in terms of China’s desire to uphold values and ideas in contradiction to the American vision of international society. Threats from China such as the Chinese sponsored mega interconnectivity project under the Belt and Road Initiatives and the geopolitical shift resulting from Chinese strides in the area of technology have been perceived from the ideological perspective. The paper argues that the American leaders as well as experts are engaged in defining China as an ideological challenge to American liberal values, underplaying the threats that the US perceives to its hegemony and an exaggeration of the threat from China often stems from Washington’s own insecurity.
