Because it is so emotionally charged, populism can be easily guided for a purpose. One example of this is the campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump about how foreigners have "raped" the United States by "stealing" many of its manufacturing jobs.

At the time, many Chinese were willing to laugh away such accusations against China as just more of the usual rhetoric - though more extreme - that has come to characterize presidential elections in the US. Now, however, there is real cause for concern as the president-elect has named economist Peter Navarro, known for his anti-China alarmism, as his trade adviser.

Trump in a statement announcing the appointment of Navarro as head of a newly created White House National Trade Council, praised the clarity of Navarro's arguments. Which is perhaps not that surprising given the University of California-Irvine professor was the mastermind of the rhetoric Trump adopted during his campaign, and it had a similar tone to the apocalyptic language Navarro has used when accusing China of wiping out American manufacturing jobs and waging what he claims is an economic war against the US.