By Yang Qingchuan

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Although it has already proved to be a bogus theory, there's always someone who wants to play up the foolish "China threat" game.

    Every time, the China-bashing backfired and ended up self-humiliating.

    The latest example is a so-called "investigation report" that appeared in the online version of the Business Week recently.

    It claimed that "fake computer chips from China" were to blame for some fatal crashes of U.S. military aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan that hurt the Pentagon's war capability.

    However, the author can only list two "episodes" related to the chip issue.

    Without offering any solid evidence, the article jumped into the conclusion that there are "foreign espionage" threats because of the Chinese-made routers.

    Although the article tried to catch attention by re-branding the failed theory of "China threat" with new topics of chips and routers, it didn't get the response it expected.

    The charges in the article were not confirmed by the U.S. government.

    Rather, many readers raised questions about the facts, the logic and the motives behind the story.

    In an Internet posting running after the story, a reader named "Truth" called the report "such a nonsense."

    "How did these junk chips end up in the rural areas in China in the first place? I bet the United States exported the junk to China in the first place. How can the Department of Defense even consider buying the critical parts from some brokers on line and the best inspector in the world could not catch that? It is treating all Americans like idiots."

    "I can't believe the Business Week even published such an article. Is it because it is tired of publishing how stupid the U.S. policies are to get all the American families in such a big mess?" he wrote.

    Another reader under the name of "James" pointed out that the chip issue is a problem of the Pentagon's own making.

    "The mass of American brokers has a staff who are just high school dropouts, and that is where the big problem is. They just know how to buy and sell, beyond that it is the Pentagon's or the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)'s burden after earning fat profit from Chinese suppliers. The problem is with the American high school dropout controlled corrupt supply chain here. It is not China who is pushing us counterfeits," the posting said.

    Some readers suspect trade protectionism and speaking for certain interest groups are the story's motives.

    "I think it needs consorted effort to bring manufacture job back to the United States. The Business Week is just doing its share of effort. It is discouraging that we can't trust anyone in the media in the United States, from politicians to newspapers to established news media outfit. Hopefully Internet will allow us to disrupt all these lies manufactured by the interest groups," a reader named "Huns" wrote.

    Judging from these responses, one might raise doubts about the author's common sense in international trade and technology and the conduct of journalism.

    The "China threat" theory has a long history in the United States but has never become a mainstream theory.

    What made the story even more irrelevant is that it was written at a time when most politicians and scholars in the United States look into the U.S.-China relationship in a mature, constructive and forward-looking manner.

    From time to time, there may pop up different versions of the "China threat" theory.

    What the Business Week story attempted to do, apparently, is to mix up the "Chinese military threat," "Chinese product threat" and" China espionage threat."

    But none of them was self-sustaining and each has already been ridiculed by the media and experts.

    The Time magazine noted that the "Chinese military threat" is no more than an excuse used by the Pentagon to ask for more funds to buy weaponry.

    Many U.S. food experts said the "Chinese product threat" is bragging and misleading.

    The Forbes magazine suggested that some government agency's obsession with "Chinese espionage" has led to abuse of investigative power.

    In history, the bogus "China threat" theory, no matter in what forms and variations, never became a problem for the increasingly mature and constructive U.S.-China relationship.

    In every case, the theory only ended up dismantled.