"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.

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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.

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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.

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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."