U.S. demonization of China could be "colossal strategic blunder": S. Korean media

SEOUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- An opinion piece in the Korea Times on Thursday raised doubts about the U.S. demonization of China, saying it could be "a colossal strategic blunder."

"Is practically every China claim in the South China Sea wholly invalid? Is it invariably the case that China is always in the wrong?" said Tom Plate, author of the opinion piece and a professor at Loyola Marymount University in California.

"This morbid American mentality about China, a historic country and civilization which in all fairness deserves at least as much respect as watchfulness, has the potential to become a colossal strategic blunder," said the opinion.

The United States cannot see China straight anymore, it said.

Noting that "the Cambridge-New York-Washington crowd" has lost its cool, the opinion said "the brain trust of the West" is trending neurotic.

Lacking an adequate sense of history, the West which "cannot seem to develop sensible coping mechanisms" resorts to "the old hand-jerk cowboy response: Shoot the bad guy," it said.

The United States is ready to pounce on anything that it believes makes Beijing look bad, said the opinion, adding that it is possible that the U.S. establishment with such smug ideology and calculating heart could "lose" Asia as well as China.