China what?

Extremely tardy follow up to this and that.

Casually whisper the word China in the beckoning ears of foreign policy thought leaders today, and you would obtain several responses. A careful separation of the mixture leaves onlookers with “threat” or “opportunity.” Should the world be bracing itself for another surge of communist expansion ala Cold War? Or has globalization eliminated that option and put cooperation at the forefront of foreign policy?

China’s exponential rise to the top of the economic and military strength game has threatened other players in the international system. But it often seems that the most threatened of them all is the ambiguous U.S. dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Even China’s closest neighbors have yet to express true fear of China’s rise, while U.S. policy makers continually warn of countering the threat once it becomes feasible and convenient.

The Bush administration, in particular, has been criticized for its confusing perception of China. Although it often difficult to draw a line between a “right” and “wrong” answer in the realm of foreign policy, the Administration has engaged and enraged China in recent years.

It might have been Clinton’s Democratic flair to push for engaging China as a partner, but by the dawn of 2001, his years of attempting to romance China into a substantial cooperative relationship were overridden by Bush’s “to fear or not to fear” outlook on the East Asian giant.

If the U.S. took a hearty tip from some of China’s geopolitical neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, it would not take a lot to determine that the greater threat is a weak China. Also, Chinese leaders never tire of iterating that displacing U.S. power is not on the foreign policy agenda. Even Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has been quoted as reminding the rest of the world that China’s surging economic growth can often be, “unbalanced, uncoordinated, unstable and unsustainable.”

In response to China’s military expenditures, the CIA World Factbook ranks China at 27 with expenditures totaling 4.3% of GDP. The U.S. is not far behind at 30 with expenditures at 4.06% of GDP. Given China’s estimated $10 trillion GDP and the United States’ $13 trillion GDP, China still spends less than the U.S. does on arming itself.

China also creeps way behind the military spending of some developing countries, who boast an estimated 13% of GDP.

However, numbers can be difficult to digest. The psychological threat of China's rise could be observed by taking a look at every day items that contain the perennial MADE IN CHINA emblem. The truth remains that China is more present in an average person’s life than before. And China is here to stay.

So what must be reformed on the U.S. agenda? As the Asia-Pacific grows into a more dangerous environment with the North Korean nuclear negotiations, China remains a strong contender for a U.S. ally on regional and global peace.

Maybe its time for the Administration to classify this threat as a “false alarm.” China’s peaceful rise need not stir a repeat of the Cold War’s mistakes. It’s about time the U.S. took advantage of the opportunity China presents to the world.