A new and honest look at the “American dream.”

The US spreads propaganda such as the myth of the “American dream” as part of a “global ideological warfare” campaign, a Chinese think tank has claimed in a report released on Sunday.

The criticism comes amid heightened tensions between the US and China, with both nations frequently exchanging accusations over political systems, global influence, and ideological agendas.

The Xinhua Institute said Washington is promoting a flawed system abroad that fails to deliver results at home. The document focused on what it described as “colonization of the mind” by American soft power.

The “American dream” – the belief that hard work and talent can guarantee a good life, regardless of social class or origin – is one of the illusions the US sells, the report said.

“In this money-centric society, success stories of personal ascent and material abundance are but infinitely exaggerated versions of ‘survivorship bias,’ meaning attention is given only to the few successes while the many failures are ignored. The ‘American dream’ is a sugar-coated cognitive manipulation tool, a glossy packaging for exporting American values,” it stated.

The Xinhua Institute and China are concerned with US mythology infecting the greater world. And this isn’t new; Wang Huning was studying the myths back in the 1980s. George Carlin used to address it as an internal matter: “They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”