WASHINGTON — Former U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel has ignited a sharp political debate after an Aug. 31 Wall Street Journal opinion essay argued that China’s rise could serve as an external threat powerful enough to pull a polarized United States back toward a shared sense of purpose. Supporters call the argument a hardline wake-up call about Beijing’s ambitions, while critics say treating China as a unifying enemy risks stoking xenophobia and making a tense rivalry more dangerous, Dec. 16, 2025.
Emanuel’s essay, titled “We Have Met the Enemy and He Isn’t Us,” opens with what he calls “images of the National Guard occupying our nation’s capital,” using them as shorthand for a country he argues has drifted into partisan “occupation” politics. His framing landed amid broader debate over domestic deployments in Washington; the Trump administration requested that several Republican-led states send National Guard troops to the District in response to what it described as an emergency involving crime and homelessness, according to a Reuters report.
Rahm Emanuel China op-ed: Why the “new enemy” argument is dividing readers
At the center of the essay is Emanuel’s blunt question about whether an outside adversary can help Americans overcome their internal political warfare. He argues that the United States historically found common purpose when facing major external threats — and suggests that China now fills that role.
“CAN CHINA BE THE EXTERNAL THREAT THAT RESTORES INTERNAL COHESION TO OUR POLITICS?”
Emanuel contends that China presents a uniquely consequential challenge because of its size, economic capacity and stated ambitions. He writes that absent a “broad reorientation,” Washington risks a future in which the question becomes not “Who lost China?” but “Who lost to China?”
But Emanuel’s argument is not simply about China. He also criticizes what he calls “Trumponomics,” warning that U.S. industrial policy is veering toward “a cheap, knock-off version of Beijing’s state-directed model.” In the essay, he points to proposals he says include the government taking a stake in Intel and even “nationaliz[ing] Lockheed Martin,” arguing that the U.S. should instead lean into what he describes as enduring strengths such as research, talent and rule of law.
He further argues that Chinese President Xi Jinping has long believed U.S. divisions could be exploited, writing that Xi made “three determinations” after the 2008 financial crisis — including seeing the U.S. less as a competitor than a “strategic adversary” and judging American society too divided to respond coherently. “That should be our wake-up call,” Emanuel wrote.
Critics: A domestic unity pitch that could fuel xenophobia and escalation
Some critics say the core logic of Emanuel’s essay treats China less as a policy problem to be managed than as a political instrument — a “common enemy” meant to discipline domestic opponents. In a Current Affairs critique, writer Nathan J. Robinson said Emanuel appeared to be urging Americans to “stop hating each other, and focus on hating China instead,” arguing the essay offers little evidence of a direct threat beyond competition for global influence.
Those concerns reflect a broader anxiety among skeptics of hardline rhetoric: that “enemy” language can harden public attitudes, narrow diplomatic options and, in the worst case, turn strategic competition into a self-fulfilling spiral.
Supporters: Official threat assessments describe a real and growing challenge
Others argue that even if the rhetoric is combustible, the underlying warning is rooted in widely documented concerns about China’s military modernization, cyber capabilities and economic coercion. The U.S. intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment says “China stands out as the actor most capable of threatening U.S. interests globally” and describes Beijing as presenting “the most comprehensive and robust military threat” to U.S. national security.
For supporters of a tougher line, that language helps explain why Emanuel’s framing resonates: it taps into a bipartisan shift in Washington that increasingly views China as a central strategic competitor — even if there is deep disagreement over how confrontational U.S. policy and rhetoric should be.
A longer arc: Emanuel’s China messaging has been building for years
The argument in Emanuel’s latest essay did not emerge in a vacuum. As ambassador, he frequently used blunt language about Beijing’s leadership and economic direction. In a 2023 interview with WTTW News, Emanuel criticized Xi’s economic stewardship and defended his approach, saying, “I didn’t talk tough, I talked honest.”
In 2024, he also pushed ideas aimed at aligning economic policy more tightly with security strategy. In a Semafor report, Emanuel described a vision for a U.S.-led “trade-defense coalition” designed to deter what he called China’s “economic coercion,” arguing that “China the isolator becomes isolated.”
What the debate reveals about the U.S.-China moment
The blowback — and applause — for Emanuel’s essay underscores a persistent dilemma in U.S. foreign policy: how to build domestic political will for competition with China without turning rivalry into reflexive hostility. As Washington argues over what “hardline” should mean, Emanuel’s “new enemy” framing has become a flashpoint for a deeper question: whether the language of unity through confrontation strengthens American strategy — or simply raises the temperature at home and abroad.
