Exaggerating the China threat

last updated 8 January 2015

Steve Chapman

Chicago Tribune

Is the U.S. “locked in a deadly struggle with Beijing”? asked Steve Chapman. During Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the U.S., Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked President Obama for showing “weakness’’ in the face of the Chinese threat, and suggested that a trade war might be necessary. But if China is an adversary, “China is the best kind to have.’’ The Chinese remain no match for us militarily: We have 11 aircraft carriers; they have one—bought secondhand from Ukraine. We have almost 3,700 combat aircraft to their 307. And unlike rogue states of the past, such as the Soviet Union, post-Mao China has not used force to seize territory from its neighbors. Instead, it has remained focused on internal economic development. Over the past two decades, China’s growth “has transformed a backward communist nation into a thriving, capitalist one.’’ If we believe its trade practices are unfair, we can work through the World Trade Organization or direct diplomatic pressure for change. China, of course, will never be a close ally, so long as it remains an authoritarian state. “But it is not fated to be an enemy, unless we decide to make it one.”