China insists that its growing military and diplomatic clout pose no threat. The rest of the world, and particularly America, is not so sure, says Edward Carr

While this sure is a very interesting article I think that the reason for the Economist to publicize it is to follow US spin on the Wikileaks atom bomb document release - trying to steer world opinion into looking at China instead of how the worlds super power operates.
Any media not giving this 100% coverage is simply not credible as an independent news source.

Fun story about Goujian and gallbladders and all, but way off the mark in the revenge interpretation. Revenge is NOT on any Chinese person's mind in the mode of violence. They just want to beat the West at their own games: economic prowess. They have no empire ambitions and only want to be oh so much richer and better than thou. They don't want to conquer anyone except on the markets. Seriously.

“It is not an issue of integrating a European-style nation-state, but a full-fledged continental power,” he said. “The DNA of both [America and China] could generate a growing adversarial relationship, much as Germany and Britain drifted from friendship to confrontation…Neither Washington nor Beijing has much practice in co-operative relations with equals. Yet their leaders have no more important task than to implement the truths that neither country will ever be able to dominate the other, and that conflict between them would exhaust their societies and undermine the prospects of world peace.”

I like that the onus is put on both the US and China equally.

Again, I wonder how the dynamics would be different if the US did not get so caught up with the wars in the Middle East.

China is a nation with a completely different moral grounding than the US, Germany, or Britain. There is no ten commandments. There is no basis for "good" and "evil." China does not want territory, it wants money, and ot will let nothing stop it in its quest to gain this. Laws will be bent, treaties will be flaunted, the WTO will be mocked endlessly.

Watch out world, China's coming for your cash, and it will get it whether it pays a mercenary with brass knuckles or hacks your bank account.

Great article that I think captures the realities. The West is worried about a China that wants to make up for historical indignities and China is worried about a US that won't allow it to become an equal partner. The reality is this is not a chance for empire building of antiquities alla Rome, Han, Mongol, Germany etc. The world today is globalised, enormously populated, highly reliant upon each other and whilst that doesn't preclude conflict from ever happening the reality is that there has to be space for 2 great powers because the cost of war would be unimaginable.

Dear sir,

I wish the Economist would, for once, publish an article written by somebody who has lived in China for at least a decade. For all the superlative narrative about China's threat to world peace, the Economist has never attempted to examine the premises of their argument from a Chinese perspective.

If you study the 4000 years of history in China, with the aberration of 80 years rule by the Mongos, the Chinese has never taken aggression outside the bounds of their territory. They love infighting, however! And they glorify the rich and famous. (Hollywood is a child-play compared to the emperors that were worshiped by millions for hundreds of years)

Long story short, Chinese are a cordial bunch and love to make money. The outward expression of their national pride is condemned by their traditions, but it's a memory reflex of their recent humiliation laid upon them by the "White Ghosts" more than 100 years ago.

I hope the Economist will refrain from their one-sided assessment of China if they are actually trying and/or claiming to be an incorrigible commentator on world affairs between China and the West.

-Thomas

The entire article and its air reminds me of the Southerners when during the Civil Right struggle in the Sixties used to say "we were in perfect harmony until the trouble makers from the North came to upset things". Similarly now you imply whatever we do (because we have been doing it for a long time)is fine and if somebody objects, it is from a trouble maker.

I think peace and prosperity is promoted when it is done with a sense of fairness and without a posture of confrontation which a self centered pose tend to inject. To think that all we do is to the human good and what others do is not, is self serving (cv "Japan got rich and fell in with the European powers before it brutally set about colonising Asia." Isn't that what the Europeans did in the first place?)

China should be reminded of the perils of expansionism but not by ideas that stem from the wish to maintain our past expansionist policies. They see that and ridicule us for being so self and "West" centered.
The article says "Chinese vessels have repeatedly harassed American and Japanese naval ships, including the USS John S. McCain and a survey vessel, the USNS Impeccable." I wonder how we would react with similar ships near our shores, but then since we have been doing it for a long time in "harmony", it is either OK or it is our right.
And by the way the comparison "Yet when America took world leadership from Britain, the two remained constant allies" is ludicrous so is "after the second world war Japan and Germany rose from the ashes to become the world’s second- and third-largest economies, without a whisper of a political challenge to the United States"; the first mainly because there was a greater challenger on the horizon, the Soviets, and the second because Britain was in no position to challenge the then new world order. Comparisons from world history always tend to be self serving and therefore often misleading..

I am not so worried about direct conflict between the US and China, as I suspect they both clearly understand the unmitigated economic, political and humanitarian disaster that it would be.

What I'm worried about are all the small regional players who would play the superpowers off each other for their own gain. It is all too easy for henchmen to throw punches and put their respective leaders' machismo on the line.

Ironically, as much as a great power may worry that multiple smaller states will gang up to oppose it, it is just as worrisome when all your smaller allies look to you for a show of confidence when someone's nose gets hit.

The world is a vastly different place than it was at the height of the Cold War. China and the United States need to co-operate together on a variety of levels to ensure trust in each other. It would of course help if the United States wasn't embroiled in two useless wars.

This is a very interesting article.
Although one could argue that China has never, historically speaking, looked to build an empire outside it's borders, this doesn't mean it might not in the future.
Personally I do not posses this fear, since Chinese have been merchants since forever, and that mentality has not waned.
It was only repressed during Mao up to pre Deng Xiaoping era.

Personally, though light years behind, I would be more concerned with India.
China has always had a rather peaceful and orderly society.
India on the other hand, still embraces many cultural backgrounds that keep it from being one, like the caste system.

I couldn't agree more with the comments of most everyone here. Interdependance is how the world works now, thanks to technology.
The example they put with Britain and Germany cannot function today, because back then economies were judged greatly by raw material access through colonies, and although trading partners, Britain did undermine German colonialism.
But we all know colonies are inefficient today.
To have a similar situation the US would have to place their entire navy to blockade China on the east and it's army to blockade it on the north, and even then, China will still have Russian territory to go out from.
I don't see this happening ever.

P.s. To that Spazsny wrote, why use a brass knuckle or a hacker when anyone will give them their money willingly?

"Goujian never forgot his humiliation. He slept on brushwood and hung a gall bladder in his room, licking it daily to feed his appetite for revenge."

Holding grudges of past wrongs seems to be officially supported, as along as those wrongs do not include those committed by the Chinese government itself.

Very interesting article. It was a pleasure reading it.

I really dig the first part, the metaphor of Goujian and Yue.

However I don't agree with the conclusions of this article & its generally optimistic air.

1.) "Twice Britain feared that continental Europe would be dominated by an expansionary Germany and twice it went to war. Yet when America took world leadership from Britain, the two remained constant allies."

This is a far too simplistic view, imo. GB didn't stop US ascendancy only because it was preoccupied stopping Germany's. Hypothetically speaking, had Germany not become so powerful and/or made a deal with GB...Albion would then have been able to focus and block the US's rise.

This makes perfect sense if you factor in dimensions: The German Reich - though arguably a very strong and potent power at the onset of the 20th century - was still ultimately a smallish country that could have even in the best case only achieved hegemony of (continental) Europe and parity with GB (in naval & economic terms).

The Reich would never have been able to (sustainably) dominate the world due to (amongst other things) its inherent structural limitations.

The opposite is true when analyzing the rise of the US in the 20th century: A massive empire full of all the good stuff: prospering industry, endless raw materials, millions of educated, diligent people and *no* natural counterweight to keep it in cheque.

Simply put: The German Reich could (realistically) challenge GB only in Europe while the US placed the entire world and the British world order...to disposition.

GB twice going 'all in' to contain Germany, then, bled Albion white & added to the asymmetry. In a nutshell it spent its national mojo stopping the Germans while Uncle Sam sat cackling at the sidelines, sold GB weapons and 'spoke softly'. At the conclusion of the Great European Follies that were WWI and WWII the US had won simply by having lost the least blood. It inherited the world order from the dead and unknown soldiers of Germany and GB.

2.) "The insight of “power-transition theory” is that satisfied powers, such as post-war Germany and Japan, do not challenge the world order when they rise. But dissatisfied ones, such as pre-war Germany and Japan, conclude that the system shaped and maintained by the incumbent powers is rigged against them."

Eh? Post-war Germany and Japan were not 'satisfied' powers but rather...castrated puppets given the semblance of independence (and remain so even today). Neither Germany nor Japan are free to engage in policies they see fit. Both are embedded in multilateral institutions that bind them. Incidentally, both are also shackled by US occupation forces...oh sorry...US 'alliance' forces that are there to 'protect' them.

China, on the other hand, is free to pursue its own policies. It is a great power in very much the same fashion the German Reich and Japan *used* to be.

And that, my good sirs, is a *biiiiiiiig* difference.

My conclusion:

Freely using the classroom metaphor Uncle Sam is the jaded jock who used to be cool, get all the chicks and beat up that wussy nerd China. Nowadays, Uncle Sam is unemployed, in a midlife crisis and humping an inflatable girlfriend as his real one has left him for the seductively enigmatic Chinese nerd with the PhD & bulging muscles.

Quintessentially, the Chinese nerd spent the last 10 years either in a gym or studying. Now, he's got the muscles but in his mind there is
anger and bitterness. He has not forgotten past humiliations. Like a trauma they reside deep within his soul and shape the way he sees the world. 'Time for some payback' you hear him grumble.

Sooner or later Uncle Sam and China will be exchanging blows - smply because *this time* there is no 'Germany' to function as diversion, to pull the wool over US eyes.

And that, my friends, will be the new world order.

It is interesting that this piece uses history and a parable to analyze a Chinese way of thinking, and I think that the story of Goujian indeed is a story that at least shows partially how Chinese people think.

The age of the school days have been far away from me, but the story instantly reminds me of how Chinese students are taught in their teenage years, how Chinese culture and philosophy are instilled and engrained in their blood thereafter (in my case, regardless of how I tried to re-learn history after high school).

The story of Goujian can be unraveled in both ways mentioned in this piece: the spirit of perseverance and dedication, as well as revenge. To educate students, it does not mean anything to tell students that they should revenge simply from learning about this story. We used to learn about tons of ancient stories of similar kinds, and from these ancient stories we learned about various Chinese philosophies which altogether entails the Chinese culture.

Nonetheless, even if the story of Goujian only aims to stresses the spirit of perseverance, the story itself is very exciting, because Goujian did want to revenge, and in the end he did succeed in his revenge. “Revenge” cannot be strictly considered as Chinese philosophy, neither do people particularly relate this story to the modern rise of China.

But please be noted about the cliché: when high school, middle school and primary school students learnt about China’s history in the past 200 years, they learn about humiliation. They learn that the prime goal of learning knowledge is to make the country prosperous once again; they learn that the reason for that humiliation is because of the country’s weakness in hard power – regardless of how prosperous the country was before that 200 years.

And I think that history class plays a very important part to build up the thoughts in many Chinese people, and how they should view Japan, how they should view the West. These history classes are so much more important than the Chinese language classes where we learned about the ancient parables. Because we were taught ancient parables to inherit Chinese culture and philosophy; while the way we were taught about the history was aimed to cultivate patriotism.

Equally important is that, to relate any philosophy to a modern China, one has to always note that even within the highest rank of the central power, there is this split of ideas upon either interior affairs or international affairs. So is the case within China’s intellectuals.

The reason why we should note the difference of a “modern” china, probably is because “the modern China is a civilization pretending to be a nation state.” Because of the near history, China had to completely change its way of how the country should be run. It had to learn so much more. It is still learning. And then it’s just so normal that opinions diverge. (quotes from http://www.cdeclips.com/en/hongkong/The_role_of_China%27s_soft_power/ful...)

Whad do you mean by "the years of colonial humiliation"? China was never colonized by the Western powers. Only Japan occupied Manchuria and Eastern China in the 1930s and 1940s. That was a wartime occupation, not colonialism.

Historically，china places great importance on "territorial integrity," and none on expansion. It kind of despised other nations' lands as it, in the ancient time, regarded itself as the "Middle Kingdom" and other nations as uncivilized barbarians. China of course is not satisfied with the status quo of the Taiwan issue (and many other distributed territory issues), but beyond that, I don't see the slightest desire of China to expand. I think what the Chinese rulers aspire to most is other nations' admiration and allegiance as was the case in the Tang Dynasty, when neighboring countries would pay some tribute to the emperor annually.

While domestically, the general public in China are materialistic and obedient to the central rulers. They matter their own family's wealth and reputation.

These ideologies are deeply rooted and strengthened thruout the 5000-year-tradition. I see some changes and rebel of these traditions under the influence of the American ideology. Personally, I've gone thru the process of "the denial of denial" of the Chinese culture and have reached a balance at a mind with the Chinese culture and American influnce. The chinese (Han) culture is extremely resilient and absorptive. The Mongols and Manchu once took over the country and they were eventually assimilated and became part of the Chinese. Now they are two minority nationalities of China.

Spazsny etc says: "Watch out world, China's coming for your cash, and it will get it whether it pays a mercenary with brass knuckles or hacks your bank account."

Isn't that just another version of "beating West at its own game"? LOL!

pan east asian - go further back to the mid 1800's and you have the Opium Wars between the British Empire and the Qing Dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars Britain

In effect Britain defeated China twice and made it sign two unequal trade treaties. They were also made to hand over Hong Kong. This is the start of this humiliating period and it is what the Chinese are all taught about and are acutely aware of even close to 200 years later when they deal with the "West". rld.

This author seems to have a good grasp of historical & contemporary Chinese history & for this I have to salute his bother to delve so much into such depth in his research in order to arrive at this piece of reasonably unbiased & enlightened article. Having said that, his analysis of recent Chinese behaviour still cannot escape the vestiges of the usual all-too-central dictum of western-centric skew which is that it is based entirely upon the west's sole interest as its centre of gravity.

Having digested the western points of view, perhaps it is time for the west to listen to the Chinese perspectives:

.some people think that China's success in globalisation may have been at the largesse or worse a samaritan give-away by the west. This is entirely wrong & unfair for it mischievously ignores the hard work, perseverance & enormous sacrifices of the Chinese nation & its people. It is just that Chinese are bestowed with such a far-sighted leadership after the ravages of the past that it was able the grasp the opportunity at the right time & the right place
with very business-enlightened policies
.all the territorial disputes are hang-overs from historical tragedies when China was weak & therefore unable to stand up for its own rights. Surely it is the responsibility of any self-respecting leader to right the past wrongs now that it is stronger, wealthier & can afford to in order to enjoy the mandate of heaven. There is nothing assertive about this at all & the west have done these sort of things umpteen times throughout history
.Chinese just cannot accept the Cheonan sinking verdict per se as it was only being so-called investigated by western like-minded nations but never been rectified & endorsed by the more neutral UN. Simply by not condemning N Korea is already a mild step thus giving face to its detractors. Many in China actually wanted China to instead come up with evidences to rebut & humiliate the entire western/S Korean fiasco
.the US really added salt to injury to Chinese sense of justice & fair play in coming up to defend Japan in the Diaoyu Island incident as it was the US who purposely bundled up this Island together with Okinawa after WW2 as give-away to a newly 'reformed' & therefore friendly Japan. It was indeed cheap, convenient & absurd to give away someone else's properties as rewards to your friends, so to speak
.Nixon never really came to give peace to China in a platter:in fact, the US was so mired in a torturous & morale-sapping & unwinnable Vietnam Campaign that he came begging for Mao's help in influencing the N Vietnamese for an honourable withdrawal from the debacle

There are many more instances to project China's point of views but they might take up too many pages of your space. It is high time that the world be fed with perspectives from civilisations other than the standard western, Christian-Protestant, Caucasian kind for better mutual understanding, world peace & security.

To Matt C 143: I know very well that Qing dynasty lost to Britain and France in the Opium Wars which began in 1839. As a result of these wars China had to make a lot of humilating concessions to the West including territorial ones, but China as a whole, never became a colony of a Western power.