After Corona ... Will China replace Islam as a new enemy to the West?

British journalist Peter Auburn predicts that the outbreak of the Corona epidemic will result in a decline in hostility to Islam and the reshaping of global political geography in a way that makes China the primary enemy of the West.

And he saw in an article in the British newspaper "Middle East Eye" entitled "Will China replace Islam as a new enemy to the West?" The West's view of Islam as a first enemy emerged shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, and was framed by a theory claiming the inevitability of a clash of civilizations.

A famous article written by American politician Samuel Huntington a quarter of a century ago - considered by the idea of ​​a clash of civilizations - paved a series of wars, foretelling a new conflict between what he considered to be two irreconcilable opposites: Islam and the West.

According to the author, Western politicians - like former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair - followed Huntington's theory, and many Muslim countries were a target of the United States and its allies during the past quarter-century.

Western media have also regularly portrayed Muslims as outlawed extremists and pose an existential threat to the world, which has led to a rise in feelings of anti-Islam (Islamophobia) in the West, with far-right political parties emerging in Europe, according to the author.

Why China?
The writer said that much of that abhorrent hostility against Islam may witness a receding in the near future in the wake of the Corona pandemic crisis, due to several factors, including the great and evident sacrifices made by Muslims, especially in Britain where the first four doctors were losing their lives due to Muslim Corona, which is This may change the position of public opinion towards Muslims.

The second factor - according to the article - is that the Corona pandemic will reshape the world's geopolitics, and that the West needs an enemy and China has recently become its target.

The writer pointed out that after the attack against Islam that started with the famous Huntington article, the West now turns its attention to the Far East.

He also said that China is now being portrayed as the new existential enemy of the West, just as it was with Islam twenty years ago, and this is done by the same people and the same as commentators in newspapers, intellectual institutions, political parties and intelligence agencies.

A media campaign
and the article gave examples of targeting China by Western politicians, media and political parties, and said that US President Donald Trump accused China during his 2016 presidential campaign of raping his country's economy, and his attacks against Beijing escalated and accelerated with the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, accusing it of covering up the virus and lying About the death toll from him.

The speech of several British newspapers - which were attacking Muslims - also turned to talk about the Chinese threat.

The Sun newspaper, which drew the drums of the Iraq war in 2003, published a report claiming that the new Corona virus had been intentionally developed by China "to demonstrate that it is the largest capacity of the United States in fighting deadly diseases."

The article cited several statements issued by British and intelligence officials who hold China responsible for the deadly virus outbreak, and some indicate that relations with Beijing will not return as they were before the outbreak.

He said that the British Henry Jackson Society, known to be a strong critic of Islam, was now leading the campaign against Beijing through a series of media reports and interviews devoted to attacking it, which had doubled in recent months.

A survey conducted by the association recently published by The Times newspaper last week revealed that "more than 80% of the British want Boris Johnson to press for an international investigation on China's treatment of the outbreak of the new Corona virus."

The writer clarified that the warning contained in Huntington's article - on the clash of civilizations - was not only limited to Islamic civilization, but also warned of another competing civilization, China, which he saw as the strongest threat to the West in the long run.

He concluded by saying, "Maybe we have now reached the end of the long era in which the main enemy was Islam. The West may have found for itself a new enemy now, which gives Muslims an opportunity to freely breathe."