Pearls and Irritations
John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
Russophobia and Sinophobia: projection, narcissism and denial
By Kari McKern
There is a certain cadence to decline, a rhythm of arrogance and desperation, of miscalculation and delusion. The late-stage empire, unmoored from reality yet clinging to myths of its own indispensability, lashes out at perceived threats not because they are real, but because it cannot conceive of a world in which it is no longer the gravitational centre of history. In this way, Russophobia and Sinophobia function not merely as ideological constructs, but as symptoms of systemic decay, the fever dreams of a civilisation struggling to process its own obsolescence.
These anxieties do not operate in a vacuum. They are not simple diplomatic tensions, nor rational assessments of adversaries’ intentions and capabilities. They are deeply embedded neuroses, structurally necessary to the way the West now justifies its policies, allocates its resources, and maintains domestic political cohesion. They serve as both distraction and unifying principle, externalising internal dysfunction and rallying increasingly fractured populations around a common enemy. Yet in doing so, they actively manufacture the conditions for conflict, distorting perception, curtailing diplomacy, and ensuring that even modest disputes are framed as existential showdowns.
To understand this process requires more than a simple accounting of policy decisions. It requires an examination of the cognitive structures that sustain these fears, the historical precedents that shaped them, and the strategic consequences of treating them as reality rather than pathology. Viewed through my (CAMS) framework, these phobias reveal themselves as both cause and consequence of systemic dysfunction, their escalating intensity a measure of the West’s inability to adjust to a changing world.
Russophobia, as it exists today, is the inheritor of a long lineage of Western anxieties about Russia’s place in the European order. From the British Empire’s paranoia during the Great Game to Cold War containment strategies and post-Soviet economic warfare, the West has always perceived Russia not simply as a rival, but as an aberration – too large to be ignored, too independent to be controlled. The ideological justifications for this hostility have shifted over time, but the underlying impulse remains unchanged. Whether tsarist, communist, or post-communist, Russia’s refusal to accept junior partner status has always been treated as evidence of malign intent.
Sinophobia, though older, follows a similar trajectory. The West’s relationship with China has oscillated between condescension and alarm, from the paternalistic exploitation of the Opium Wars to the racialised paranoia of the “Yellow Peril” and the Cold War-era divide-and-conquer strategy that briefly saw China cast as a counterbalance to Soviet influence. The most striking aspect of recent Western hostility toward China is not that it exists, but how suddenly it has intensified. Less than two decades ago, China was still framed as an emerging economic partner, a vast market to be opened up and integrated into the global order. The shift to outright hostility, though often explained in terms of trade disputes, technological competition, or military posture, is better understood as a reaction to the moment the West realised China was not going to follow the script. It was supposed to liberalise politically, to become another consumer-driven economy, to accept its assigned role in the hierarchy of nations. Instead, it grew more confident, more technologically advanced, more assertive in shaping the rules of the system rather than simply participating in them.
This is the crucial link between Russophobia and Sinophobia: neither is truly about Russia or China as they exist, but about the West’s reaction to a world in which it can no longer dictate terms unchallenged. This explains the almost theological certainty with which these fears are held. The assumption that Russia and China must be threats precedes any specific evidence or policy decision; all new developments are then interpreted through this pre-existing framework. If Russia strengthens its military, it is preparing for war; if China builds infrastructure abroad, it is economic imperialism. The absence of hostile intent is never considered a possibility.
These cognitive distortions are not incidental but systemic, embedded in the media landscape, security apparatus, and political institutions that shape policy. The Western information environment has become a hall of mirrors, where narratives are self-reinforcing and deviations from orthodoxy are met with suspicion or outright suppression. This is not to say that Russia and China are beyond criticism or that their governments are without fault, but that the inability to perceive them in anything other than adversarial terms has created a situation where conflict becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The consequences are already visible. The war in Ukraine, far from being the result of an unprovoked Russian aggression, was made inevitable by decades of Western refusal to take Russian security concerns seriously. NATO’s relentless expansion, the arming and training of Ukrainian forces, the strategic ambiguity surrounding potential Ukrainian membership – all of these were signals that Russia could either accept permanent strategic vulnerability or take preemptive action. The decision to invade was, from a Western perspective, framed as a reckless gamble by a deranged leader. But from Moscow’s perspective, it was a logical, if desperate, move in a game where the rules had been set to ensure its permanent subordination.
A similar dynamic is unfolding in the Indo-Pacific. The framing of China as an existential threat has justified an unprecedented military build-up, with the US surrounding China with bases, conducting regular “freedom of navigation” operations in waters that it does not actually claim, and forging ever-closer military ties with Taiwan in ways that openly violate the One China policy that had long underpinned stability in the region. Yet every Chinese response to these provocations is treated as further evidence of aggression, reinforcing the necessity of containment.
This cycle is not sustainable. The West has placed itself in a position where it must either escalate indefinitely or admit it has fundamentally misread the situation. But to change course would require an admission that the assumptions underpinning decades of policy were flawed, that the intelligence agencies, think-tanks, and media institutions that promoted these fears were complicit in their own deception. And so the hysteria must continue, not because it serves any rational strategic purpose, but because the alternative — an honest reckoning with the reality of a multipolar world — is simply too psychologically and institutionally difficult to contemplate.
The greatest danger in all of this is not simply that tensions will continue to rise, but that the West has so thoroughly convinced itself of its own narratives that it has lost the ability to perceive off-ramps. Diplomacy, once an art of compromise and negotiation, has been reduced to demands for unconditional submission. Engagement is treated as weakness, de-escalation as appeasement. This is a recipe not for stability, but for catastrophe.
The only path forward is one that the West, in its current state of strategic delirium, seems unwilling to take: the recognition that neither Russia nor China is an existential enemy, that the world is not a battlefield between democracy and autocracy, and that the very survival of civilisation depends on stepping back from the brink. The alternative is a sleepwalk into war, driven not by genuine security imperatives, but by the inability of a fading hegemon to come to terms with its own limitations.
Russophobia and Sinophobia are not the causes of Western decline; they are its symptoms. And like all symptoms, they can be ignored, treated symptomatically, or cured at the root. The choice remains open, but not indefinitely. The empires of the past did not fall because they were defeated by external enemies; they fell because they mistook their own pathologies for the laws of history. The West now stands at the precipice of the same mistake. The question is whether it will recognise it before the fall becomes irreversible.
By Kari McKern
Mar 7, 2025
There is a certain cadence to decline, a rhythm of arrogance and desperation, of miscalculation and delusion. The late-stage empire, unmoored from reality yet clinging to myths of its own indispensability, lashes out at perceived threats not because they are real, but because it cannot conceive of a world in which it is no longer the gravitational centre of history. In this way, Russophobia and Sinophobia function not merely as ideological constructs, but as symptoms of systemic decay, the fever dreams of a civilisation struggling to process its own obsolescence.
These anxieties do not operate in a vacuum. They are not simple diplomatic tensions, nor rational assessments of adversaries’ intentions and capabilities. They are deeply embedded neuroses, structurally necessary to the way the West now justifies its policies, allocates its resources, and maintains domestic political cohesion. They serve as both distraction and unifying principle, externalising internal dysfunction and rallying increasingly fractured populations around a common enemy. Yet in doing so, they actively manufacture the conditions for conflict, distorting perception, curtailing diplomacy, and ensuring that even modest disputes are framed as existential showdowns.
To understand this process requires more than a simple accounting of policy decisions. It requires an examination of the cognitive structures that sustain these fears, the historical precedents that shaped them, and the strategic consequences of treating them as reality rather than pathology. Viewed through my (CAMS) framework, these phobias reveal themselves as both cause and consequence of systemic dysfunction, their escalating intensity a measure of the West’s inability to adjust to a changing world.
Russophobia, as it exists today, is the inheritor of a long lineage of Western anxieties about Russia’s place in the European order. From the British Empire’s paranoia during the Great Game to Cold War containment strategies and post-Soviet economic warfare, the West has always perceived Russia not simply as a rival, but as an aberration – too large to be ignored, too independent to be controlled. The ideological justifications for this hostility have shifted over time, but the underlying impulse remains unchanged. Whether tsarist, communist, or post-communist, Russia’s refusal to accept junior partner status has always been treated as evidence of malign intent.
Sinophobia, though older, follows a similar trajectory. The West’s relationship with China has oscillated between condescension and alarm, from the paternalistic exploitation of the Opium Wars to the racialised paranoia of the “Yellow Peril” and the Cold War-era divide-and-conquer strategy that briefly saw China cast as a counterbalance to Soviet influence. The most striking aspect of recent Western hostility toward China is not that it exists, but how suddenly it has intensified. Less than two decades ago, China was still framed as an emerging economic partner, a vast market to be opened up and integrated into the global order. The shift to outright hostility, though often explained in terms of trade disputes, technological competition, or military posture, is better understood as a reaction to the moment the West realised China was not going to follow the script. It was supposed to liberalise politically, to become another consumer-driven economy, to accept its assigned role in the hierarchy of nations. Instead, it grew more confident, more technologically advanced, more assertive in shaping the rules of the system rather than simply participating in them.
This is the crucial link between Russophobia and Sinophobia: neither is truly about Russia or China as they exist, but about the West’s reaction to a world in which it can no longer dictate terms unchallenged. This explains the almost theological certainty with which these fears are held. The assumption that Russia and China must be threats precedes any specific evidence or policy decision; all new developments are then interpreted through this pre-existing framework. If Russia strengthens its military, it is preparing for war; if China builds infrastructure abroad, it is economic imperialism. The absence of hostile intent is never considered a possibility.
These cognitive distortions are not incidental but systemic, embedded in the media landscape, security apparatus, and political institutions that shape policy. The Western information environment has become a hall of mirrors, where narratives are self-reinforcing and deviations from orthodoxy are met with suspicion or outright suppression. This is not to say that Russia and China are beyond criticism or that their governments are without fault, but that the inability to perceive them in anything other than adversarial terms has created a situation where conflict becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The consequences are already visible. The war in Ukraine, far from being the result of an unprovoked Russian aggression, was made inevitable by decades of Western refusal to take Russian security concerns seriously. NATO’s relentless expansion, the arming and training of Ukrainian forces, the strategic ambiguity surrounding potential Ukrainian membership – all of these were signals that Russia could either accept permanent strategic vulnerability or take preemptive action. The decision to invade was, from a Western perspective, framed as a reckless gamble by a deranged leader. But from Moscow’s perspective, it was a logical, if desperate, move in a game where the rules had been set to ensure its permanent subordination.
A similar dynamic is unfolding in the Indo-Pacific. The framing of China as an existential threat has justified an unprecedented military build-up, with the US surrounding China with bases, conducting regular “freedom of navigation” operations in waters that it does not actually claim, and forging ever-closer military ties with Taiwan in ways that openly violate the One China policy that had long underpinned stability in the region. Yet every Chinese response to these provocations is treated as further evidence of aggression, reinforcing the necessity of containment.
This cycle is not sustainable. The West has placed itself in a position where it must either escalate indefinitely or admit it has fundamentally misread the situation. But to change course would require an admission that the assumptions underpinning decades of policy were flawed, that the intelligence agencies, think-tanks, and media institutions that promoted these fears were complicit in their own deception. And so the hysteria must continue, not because it serves any rational strategic purpose, but because the alternative — an honest reckoning with the reality of a multipolar world — is simply too psychologically and institutionally difficult to contemplate.
The greatest danger in all of this is not simply that tensions will continue to rise, but that the West has so thoroughly convinced itself of its own narratives that it has lost the ability to perceive off-ramps. Diplomacy, once an art of compromise and negotiation, has been reduced to demands for unconditional submission. Engagement is treated as weakness, de-escalation as appeasement. This is a recipe not for stability, but for catastrophe.
The only path forward is one that the West, in its current state of strategic delirium, seems unwilling to take: the recognition that neither Russia nor China is an existential enemy, that the world is not a battlefield between democracy and autocracy, and that the very survival of civilisation depends on stepping back from the brink. The alternative is a sleepwalk into war, driven not by genuine security imperatives, but by the inability of a fading hegemon to come to terms with its own limitations.
Russophobia and Sinophobia are not the causes of Western decline; they are its symptoms. And like all symptoms, they can be ignored, treated symptomatically, or cured at the root. The choice remains open, but not indefinitely. The empires of the past did not fall because they were defeated by external enemies; they fell because they mistook their own pathologies for the laws of history. The West now stands at the precipice of the same mistake. The question is whether it will recognise it before the fall becomes irreversible.
More Russki propaganda by useful idiots
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