US and China Facing A Racial Clash of Civilizations?

This statement from Kiron Skinner from the State Department is just bizarre:

Kiron Skinner says the U.S. is fighting a racial war of civilizations pitting the Americans against a non-Caucasian foe in China for the first time.

What about the Pacific War, part of World War II, waged between the U.S. and Japan? So the U.S. State Department’s policy planning director is factually inaccurate. 

Also her being Afro-American may have tinted her lens, putting the situation in a racial perspective. After all it is plausible that the U.S.-China rivalry, now being expressed in a trade war, is a clash of values, not race, as one of my Western friends argues.

On the surface, my friend’s argument may make sense and it looks like Skinner is out of her depth. That is by and large the reaction so far to her remarks at a security forum in Washington in late April, reflecting the “She is wrong but what if she proves right” kind of sentiment. 

Korea Times

How does someone working at the State Department forget about Imperial Japan during World War II? You can make an argument that the U.S. fighting the communist North Koreans and the Chinese during the Korean War was a clash of civilizations.

It is just troubling that this is one of the senior people making policy in the State Department.