Is China Just the latest "Threat to the World!"?

Our "leaders" (Congress, Biden and Trump) have called China the biggest threat to America since World War II. 

Is it?

Or is it just the latest is a long line of external threats we have cooked up to keep the Military Industrial Complex (the words of Eisenhower - a patriot and Republican) humming along? Taking our tax money and moving our attention from any internal problems we have and have steadily ignored (crumbling infrastructure, health care, tax rates, climate change, NIMBY-ism, energy independence)?

I am not saying China is not an efficient and rule breaking competitor. Nor am I saying China might not be a threat (particularly in the South China Sea and for Taiwan). I AM saying that it seems like our leaders ALWAYS seem to find a giant threat,  not necessarily to keep Americans in line - but to move attention and blame from our own politicians and problems.

Before China it was (drumroll please)...

Axis of Evil. Remember them? Then you may remember the glee Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld took in "taking out" Iraq. Two decades later We still worry about Iran. North Korea still has the bomb. Now Iraq is not a friend or ally in the traditional terms. And yet, we somehow no longer worry about the Axis of Evil.

Before the Axis of Evil - you might be surprised who we worried about under Bush the Elder and Clinton....

Yes, Japan! Remember the hull-a-beluu when the Japanese Yen was high flying? Remember it was going to overtake the United States any minute. Remember when they bought Hollywood studios and Rockefeller Plaza! This after the low simmer of rage towards Honda, Toyota and Datsun.

Was it because we needed some new enemies due of the death of our original enemy...

The Soviet Union was the original post Nazi threat. After World War II we needed a reason for the Army to stay large and spending lots and lots of US Tax money. The Soviet Union was the perfect foil because they set themselves up as the anti-America. Hell we even spent billions to get into space and to the moon before them. Maybe it was the right thing to do... but maybe it was for the wrong reasons. Maybe it was to keep the war companies, Lockheed, Boeing, TRW, McDonald Douglas and others alive (which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't).

So, it is only fair to ask if this country / moment / enemy is real or another false problem to keep our military alive and our politicians from being responsible for doing fuck all.