One of the most widely shared viral memes on Chinese social media today is “the American kill line.”
Borrowed from video game slang for the threshold at which a weakened character can be easily finished off, it refers to the widely held notion in China that millions of American families are teetering on a precipice — one lost job, illness or unexpected expense away from ruin. It has become the prevailing Chinese metaphor for an America seen as mired in economic decay, violent crime and irreversible decline.
This is, of course, false. Violent crime rates in the United States are the lowest in decades, the country retains unmatched geopolitical and financial power and its economy remains vibrant and more than 50 percent larger than China’s.
Yet as Beijing prepares for President Trump’s visit this week, I see a dangerous new overconfidence taking hold in my native country based on misplaced notions of American decline. I fear it is fueling a sense of intransigence that is making Chinese leaders more willing to weaponize their nation’s power and less likely to back down in future confrontations with the United States.
Traveling across China this spring, I am hearing this narrative everywhere. After one particularly gruesome variation on the “kill line” meme made the rounds recently, my family members in China said they feared for the safety of our relatives in the United States. I hear about students who once dreamed of studying in America now enrolling elsewhere, worried about U.S. crime and poor job prospects.
Views of the United States have soured over the past decade due in large part to the erratic, weakened America that Mr. Trump appears to represent. A survey in December found that nearly half of Chinese respondents believe U.S. global influence is waning.