The China Threat & What the U.S. Should Do About It
By Bradley A. Thayer & John M. Friend
August 01, 2017
Wharton
China has risen. It is now a great power well on its way to becoming a superpower. China’s ambitions and quest for greater resources and expanding diplomatic, economic, and military capabilities will result in Beijing’s growing voice in all facets of international politics. While there are debates about how powerful China will become, and how soon, there is no ambiguity that it is expanding its power and influence. Despite its many other obligations, the major task for the Trump administration will be to respond effectively to China’s challenge to U.S. power.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (AFP)
Indeed, contemporary international politics is defined by an increasingly bold and aggressive China that seeks territorial revisions and evinces the willingness to resort to threats, coercive diplomacy, and military action to achieve these goals. In 2010, Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi best captured this reality when he observed at an ASEAN meeting, “China is a big country, and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact.” This is a classic great power politics argument first made by Thucydides 2,400 years ago in the Melian Dialogue—the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.
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