**How to Think About China: A Threat? A Partner? A Competitor?
By Michael H. Armacost**
Napoleon was uncommonly prescient more than 200 years ago when he described China as “a sleeping giant.” He added, “When it awakens, it will astonish the world.” As we all know, the Chinese, after a couple of bad centuries, are again wide awake.
The tale of China’s recent “rise” is laced with dazzling statistics. In more than 30 years China has increased its GDP at a rate of roughly 10 percent per year, recently surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
As a global manufacturing hub, China is an exceptionally efficient producer of steel, ships, chemicals, and an amazing array of consumer goods. Its share of global trade has increased ten fold since 1978, and this year it supplanted Germany as the world’s largest exporter of goods.
For decades Beijing has been sending tens of thousands of its “best and brightest” abroad to study math, science, and engineering. It is now undertaking a major upgrade of its universities and research centers in order to train the human resources needed to become a world leader in the field of technology.
On the margins of its rapid economic growth, China has financed annual double-digit increases in its defense budget for nearly two decades. With the proceeds, it is steadily modernizing its military capabilities. The People’s Liberation Army intercepted a missile in mid-air in January, and plans are in the works to build aircraft carriers.
These are impressive achievements. They deserve our respect. Beijing has raised 400 million people out of poverty. And it has recovered a respected place on the international scene without up-ending existing international institutions.
Some analysts assume that China is destined to become a rival, which could eventually replace America as the world’s pre-eminent superpower. With all the talk about China’s “rise,” it is little wonder that the Chinese people are brimming with self-confidence, or, for that matter, that Chinese officials display with increasing frequency those qualities of cockiness and petulance which people around the world have long accused Americans of monopolizing.
How then should the United States think of China? Some portray Beijing as a looming military threat; some regard it as our most promising global partner; while some expect it to compete fiercely with us for global economic leadership.
China as a Threat
The case for regarding China as a potential military threat reflects underlying premises about the strategic conduct of emerging great powers. As Robert Kagan once put it, “Might not China, like all rising powers of the past, including the United States, want to reshape the international system to suit its own purposes? …”
The presumption is that China’s immense population and rapid growth will inevitably whet its appetite for power, for glory, for prestige, and for dominion. According to Robert Kaplan, “The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the 21st century.” But no one can be certain how China will eventually utilize the great power it is rapidly accumulating. Though China is augmenting its power, it remains a relatively poor country. Its annual military expenditures are still roughly an eighth the size of America’s. It’s also important to note that China will have its hands more than full at home. An additional 200 to 400 million Chinese will likely be moving from the countryside to urban centers and this will present challenges to China’s leaders which will demand their single-minded attention. The predicate for that concentrated focus is peace and stability on its borders. Nor should one forget that China’s neighbors are no geopolitical patsies. China at present needs peace, it needs friends, and it needs time to cope with its internal challenges, and to consolidate the sinews of its industrial and military potential.
My Comments:
India by far comes nowhere near China at least for now. Even United States sees China as a threat.
Clearly and understandably in recent years China’s economic engagements with Africa including foreign aid seem Chinese vistas of the future and an unambiguous break step not only to substantiate its economy nevertheless to supersede deteriorating American might by having a solid grip on at least Asia and Africa for now. It is a perceived fact that China targets aid to African states with copious natural resources and depraved governments, to keep their economy robust the Chinese do not hire Africans to work on their projects and China outbids other companies by some times disdaining international standards. It is natural for China to be cautious when it has been evident that America has been preparing India as American hedge against China for several years now. The bottom line here is that it is all struggle of control in two different ways the American way of wars vs. Chines way of pecuniary tributes…
The publics on both sides seem to be in step with these media embellishments, first unambiguous break step that needs to be taken by both countries especially India, is to ward off scarcity of trust between each other and I am almost certain that it is not going to be tranquil in a sense that there absolutely be some on both sides who wouldn’t want this effort to substantiate an air of trust between two countries to be successful, in addition to the opposition and defiance these hardcore fundamentalist elements might try to create commotion on both sides yet, two must suppress these tumultuous elements in order to achieve long term peace and harmony within the region, moreover I do understand that this change might take years or even decades to achieve nevertheless the two countries must not only ingrain this change in both societies but also adapt to it religiously…
What do you think?