Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for the author or to popular anti-China narratives in the U.S., but from a traditional geopolitical perspective China poses a threat because of territorial claims independent of Taiwan, most importantly its claims over the South China Sea. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So... Those claims pose a grave threat directly to…
But is China really threating the US directly in anyway through military confrontation? Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China. Does the US desire peaceful coexistence with China or not? Reading some of the hawkish, cold war style jingoism coming out of US media makes one wonder?
Jingoism is definitely present and infuriatingly becoming more financially viable for media companies pitching towards those parts of the populous, but it is important to recognize that that is the minority. Anecdotally, most people in my area, a college town in a republican state, are apathetic by means of being unaffected and uninformed. Even the chinese and korean people I've spoken with pretty frequently don't seem to particularly care or be informed. It is kind of weird, because it freaks me out and I follow it very closely; worrying about ww3.
Opposition to Xi Jinping in the executive branch is widespread, that is also definitely true. I think our hawks and their wolf warriors have created a feedback loop.