‘Ghost Fleet’ : populism, the presidency, and Chinese invasion panics in recent US popular fiction

This article examines the appeal, commentary on and political responses to the novel Ghost Fleet published in 2015, which imagines the course of an armed military conflict between the United States and China. Examining the major themes of the work, it places the book in context, and analyses its position in relation to older traditions of anti-Chinese hostility precipitated by Chinese migration to the US and across the Asia Pacific Rim Region. Locating the work in a number of established narratives that scrutinise issues of the US and imperial decline and considering the origins of the novel in the ‘invasion panic’ genre, this article also engages with recent arguments about populism and the role of Donald Trump as heir to an American populist tradition with its roots in the nineteenth century. The article concludes by considering the impact of the work in shaping the responses of US policy planners and the presidency to an economically and militarily ascendant China.