After the Sept 11 attack on the United States, all fingers pointed at Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. But the US leadership under George W. Bush convinced most Americans that Iraq was part of the violent plot. Worse, the US said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and began a tragic war that has yet to end.

The US met its economic 9/11 in 2008, when its banking system collapsed, big names disappeared from the corporate landscape and the job market went into a tizzy. The causes were obvious: lax control, greed and speculation in the corporate world, bubbles in the property and stock markets, and the very high rate of consumption of the American public with little or no savings.

But the US administration seems to be trying to convince its public of another untruth: that China is the true cause of America's economic woes - and that China possesses "weapons of mass economic destruction". What is that weapon of mass economic destruction? The humble yuan, which the US says has been manipulated to hurt the American economy. So, according to many US officials, an economic war against China is justified. In fact, China has already gotten a taste of America's first "shock and awe" in the shape of massive tariffs on its goods imported to the US.