The US Department of State's Office of Policy Planning released a new China policy report last week, reminding some American reporters and foreign relations experts of the lengthy telegram authored by US diplomat George Kennan in the 1940s.

Kennan elaborated his thoughts on the then Soviet Union in the 8,000-word telegram, which was believed to offer one of the influential underpinnings for America’s containment policy during the Cold War.

The latest China policy document imitated Kennan’s analysis, attempting to offer an anatomy on the ideology and conducts of the Communists Party of China (CPC) and policy suggestions to deal with the “China challenge”.

However, the paper is anything but a Kennan’s telegram in a new century, much closer to a compilation of lies and myths about China and its ruling party. It only serves to lay bare the entrenched Cold War mindset and ideological prejudice of some people in the US and their fears, anxiety and unhealthy mentality towards a growing China.

The so-called “China challenge” was built on a twisted perception of China’s ambitions and the role it wants to play in the world. The report alleged the CPC intends to upend America’s preeminence and fundamentally revise the world order, with China as the world’s center.

China is not a revisionist and has never sought to replace the US as the new hegemony. China upholds and is making its own contributions to the post-World War II world order with the US as one of its main architects. The incumbent US administration instead became a primary destructive force that is dissembling the values, treaties and institutions that support the current world order.

Mike Pompeo’s department also disregarded the true voice of smaller countries on what a China-US relationship they’re wishing for. The paper’s policy suggestions were based on a myth that other countries would like to follow America’s playbook to contain a rising power.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stood out to reject a potential scenario where China and the US fall into destructive confrontation, and smaller countries like Singapore have to choose sides between the world’s biggest economies.

“We all want to work together with the US, we all want to work together with other vibrant economies, we would like to cooperate within the region,” Lee said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last week. “I think not very many countries would like to join a coalition against those who have been excluded, chief of whom will be China.”

The real elements eroding US power and credit as the world’s leader come from inside. The US presidential election just told the world how deep the political, economic and social divisions run in this country. The partisanship and political radicalization has impaired the country’s capability to address the most pressing domestic issues.

Under such a toxic atmosphere, American politicians and officials view the world through the same zero-sum game lens: one country’s gains are America’s losses. Cooperation and compromise is disdained as weakness and not a virtue of statesmanship any more.

If the world draws any lesson from the Cold War, peaceful development, other than great power confrontation, is the strongest collective wish shared by the international community, a normalcy the other countries want the US to resume as soon as possible.