Acclaimed Chinese author Xiaolu Guo told the Hay Festival that China sees America as its enemy.

Leading Chinese author Xiaolu Guo has revealed that China still views America as its biggest enemy and competitor.

Speaking on a panel simply entitled, ‘China’, at the Hay Festival, the author of ‘A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary’, said: “For the last 20 years China thinks America as a model but is also the enemy.”

Talking about her experience of education in Beijing, Chinese-born Guo who now lives in London, revealed that anti-Americanism was still very strong and people were told to intensively study American work and texts, such as J.D Salinger’s Catcher in Rye, in order to know everything about the “enemy”.

“The mentality is if you want to be number one in the world, you need to become them [your enemy] first …you need to have the same capacity as the enemy.”

However, Guo was at pains to stress that the Chinese Government was extremely different to the country’s people. (read more)