Effects of the Rising China Threat to Its Neighbors - Essay Example

China's Threats The debate on the nature, extent and effects of the rising China threat to its neighbors and to the whole world has been brewing andcontinues to grow as the nation rears its powerful head through continued industrialization, modernization and globalization. In order to assess these elements of the China threat, there is a need to define the perceived threats, their nature, and origin. To start with, the different aspects or fields where the threats are believed to be imminent should be identified. After that, the extent and the chances of these threats being realized should be determined. Finally, the effects of these threats must be evaluated. Many believe that the four most important issues regarding this question are 1) population 2) economic 3) military and 4) technology. While these areas are easily justified, the real reason behind the threat is somewhat unclear. This is largely because China, as an international role player, has no known or declared objectives. Thus, in order to have a basic idea on China's immediate and future plans, one must look back in history and decipher China's policies and ideals. In the 1960s, according to Okabe (1968), China's medium-range objectives consist of the following: promotion of world revolution and acquisition of resources, markets and territories; bolstering national security primarily against the American "threats;" and asserting its role in the international community. Although the ideals of a world revolution are hard to discern in the current objectives of China, at that time, it was apparent that its leaders valued the importance of promoting world revolution to obtain lasting peace. Related to this is the aim of achieving self-reliance as manifested by the need to add territories, markets and resources. Self-reliance entails capability of protecting a nation internally and externally thus fortifying national security is a logical step. Moreover, China's anti-American front was seen to cultivate relationships with communist and aristocratic leaders of underdeveloped nations thus positioning itself in greater roles in the international arena (Einhorn, 2005). That was China four decades ago. Fast forward to the present, are these objectives still true The following contradictory opinions on the main four concerns will be evaluated to understand the nature and outcome of the continuing rise of the country. Population threat Being the most populated country in the world, China has always been considered a threat to the rest of the nations. The truth is, in order to avoid perpetual explosion of its population, China had come up with a policy obliging couples to have only one offspring. Issues had been raised regarding the implementation of the said strategy but nevertheless, an estimate of 300 million people would have added to China's population if the policy was not applied. In less than three decades, China achieved a far more advanced transition in terms of demography, an area wherein other developed countries spend centuries to attain. According to the country's Census, the total population of China as of 2000 is 1,242,610,000. Hand-in-hand with this is a relatively low total fertility rate of 1.2 which is a lot less than the figures previously reported. These records made an impact to people by raising speculations whether the results were reliable or not. Majority of the country's population believed that the Census might have underestimated the accurate population count of China; stating, too, that many of the younger members of country's inhabitants especially the newborns were not reported and registered in China's Census. The population figures and total fertility rate reported by the Census, whether it contained underestimated and unreported data, are still far less than the possible rate of population replacement of 2.1. At this point, the country's population would be described as steady or stationary. Therefore, no matter what the reported values were, it is undoubtedly evident that China was able to control the growth of its population through the implementation of the single-child rule. The policy did not only help China as a population control, but also benefited the whole world by preventing very fast increase of global population (Zhang, 2003). There are, however, negative impacts of China's single-child policy on the country's population itself. The policy resulted to a rapid transition of population, thereby affecting the social development of the country. It also brought about restrictions in terms of economic improvement. To be more specific, a consequence of the single-child strategy is a comparably high count of older members of the population due. Another is gender imbalance in the population. These two consequences were of structural nature and are beyond the control of the country. Compared to the problem on population growth, these structural imbalances can not be managed by the implementation of certain policies. With this, it could be concluded that China's single-child policy was not able to solve the severe explosion of population in the country though it was capable of reducing it to a particular level. It is more appropriate to say that the policy worked more in changing the nature of the country's population structure (Einhorn, 2005). Up to this date, China still encounters problems in its population count. The matter was made even more complex and difficult than it was many years ago. The one obvious advantage that China's population gives itself is the provision of low-cost labor, since there is a huge population that can be employed. However, another problem arises with this due to the high count of elderly population which declines at a considerably rapid rate. This would in turn limit economic growth. By giving attention to these issues and by taking well into consideration the structural imbalance in China's population; one would realize that the country's huge population would hardly pose a threat after all (Zhang, 2003). Economic threat China's economy can be described as one exhibiting an increasingly stable market with rapidly growing trade shares in the worldwide market arena. The country also has obviously large direct investments in foreign nations. These are all proofs that China possesses a considerably rising economy (Hu, 2003). Western countries including the United States view the vast economic growth of China as a threat in their job and market. A loss of greater than 2 million dollars by manufacturing companies was observed in the United States during the past years. A huge part of the number is believed to be accounted for by the increasing deficit in bilateral trade with China by the United States (Elwell and Labonte, 2007). China has a recorded gross domestic product or GDP of greater than eight times the amount reported in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping declared the program about economic reform. The country has a growth rate of 9 percent in the long-term already within the past two decades. China's advancing economic status had also survived the worldwide growth recession in the year 2001 and anemic expansion and recovery in 2002. The country's economy is currently large enough to provide an instrument of growth for countries in and out of the Asian region. For instance, based on reports in the year 2002, the absolute expansion of China had been greater than ten times of that of Japan. In terms of global expansion, the country owns only one-twenty-fifth of global productivity with one-sixth part of the total worldwide expansion recently (Hu, 2003). Furthermore, world trade was said to be on the downfall starting 1982 while the recovery was slow and weak since 2002. Despite the trends in the worldwide economic trade, China was able to keep up with a quarter of the total world trade expansion in the recent years. One evident indicator of China's economic rise is the inflow of foreign investments into the country. The country started to open its market to foreign investors in 1979. A year after, the country had created specific economic zones. The start was meek and reserved gaining an amount of around some hundred million dollars annually. In the 1990's, the Chinese economy increased its gain with amounts greater than 25 billion dollars. In the year 2001 or 2002, the inflow of foreign investments dropped considerably. However, China was able to survive and expand its foreign direct investments of approximately 52.7 billion dollars in the recent years. This made the country the top target for foreign direct investments (Elwell and Labonte, 2007). China's economic rise and stability pose a challenge to the domestic industries and business establishments in the United States. The problem of the United States with the trade imbalance which is attacking the American currency is made even more complex by China's wealth and potential to compete with their economic strategies. Due to the rapidly growing economy of the Chinese, the Americans must increase their efforts in improving their own economic competence and maintaining a high status in the global economic market. They need to maintain their industrial, financial, and technological capacity to make sure that they stay way in front of China. The United States even finds China a greater threat than the Soviet Union since capitalism in China is a more forceful challenger than the Soviet's communist system (Hawkins, 2004). China's rising economy creates both opportunities and challenges for the worldwide economy. The country's trade has well become a channel for development in Asia mostly because of the capital commodities and product parts being exported. China therefore plays an important role, too, in the American firms (Okabe, 1968). However, China is a challenge for manufacturers who produce goods requiring intensive work and labor. Its neighboring Asian countries must therefore find ways on how to maintain their status in the economic scenario by investing much on the production of products of high technological value. This aspect, on the other hand, is less of a challenge for the United States since it was already able to expand its production to other countries and was already able to adjust with the issue a long time ago (Lardy, 2003). Military threat China stated that the United States is exaggerating its estimation of the military power of the Chinese. China counters the allegations that it employed spies in many different countries in order to steal secrets for their country's own business and military use. According to the Chinese, the Americans are threatened by their country's rise that the United States is trying to manipulate China in order to control the country. China claims that the United States is doing the said plan so that it will be capable of getting Japan as its ally in opposing the Chinese. The country further claims that the United States is showing support to Taiwan so that confederation will be prevented in the communist nation. There are also claims that the United States is using China as an imaginary opponent so as to rationalize its aim to dominate as much as possible all countries in the world (Powell, 2007). China claims that the improvements that it made in its military aspect is merely for national defense and that it poses no threat against any country. The country, unfortunately, faces a problem because of their military disagreements with Taiwan which is itself under China's governance. The conflict even adds to the country's military argument with the United States, who in turn supports Taiwan (Bandow, 2007). Disagreements between the United States and China might also arise due to the rivalry in energy resources. The Chinese people, however, insist that the real threat that their country probably poses against the Americans comes with ideology and politics (Chinaembassy.org, 2006). China's major threat is that instead of being modified by the world of the countries that it enters, it will modify the involved country systems in order to fit with its own. Moreover, China also threatens the international copyright system because it is known to take for granted matters regarding intellectual property rights. The country is also known to steal and copy secrets of different countries' industrial processes and techniques (Hawkins, 2004 and Smith, 2005) Although China has long been trying to counteract the theories about its threats to the world, many still do think that the country indeed poses threats to the rest of the countries. In addition to the stated military threats, China might also be a reason for a world war to be brought about due to its rejection against the freedom of Taiwan (Smith, 2005). Technological threat According to the United States experts, the mission named Shenzhou 5 would be able to relay very informative facts to the country's military forces, often referred to the People's Liberation Army or PLA. This would again raise the issues about the possible conflict that may ignite between China and the United States regarding Taiwan. It would, therefore, not be about a total science and technology concern. The contrary might also be difficult to arise because of the thin line between the civil and Chinese space agenda in connection with the country's military power. Furthermore, the Shenzhou curriculum is also being monitored by the General Armament of the People's Liberation Army of China. The officials themselves who are involved in the program discussed about their use of CCD cameras which will be fastened to the exterior. The CCD cameras have a resolution of around 1.5 m and could therefore be employed for military surveillance and investigative functions (Bandow, 2007). The country's advancements in terms of technical development were initiated by the operations under the Shenzhou 5 technological agenda. The manned missions could bear the potential to build weapons, mini-satellites, and missiles. According to the analysis of the United States, Beijing could launch within the year 2009-2011 mini-satellites for recognition purposes that might be very useful in controlling the east part of the Pacific Ocean and the immediate periphery of its country. Due to the success of the Shenzhou 5 project, China opens the threat to challenge the United States in terms of superiority in dominating space especially that the country is being sustained with increasing financial support. This forces the United States to conduct researches on how to defend their technology and improve it more so that it will still be much advanced than China's, since the latter is targeting the moon in its space program's goals. If China would be able to dominate space, it could then exploit whatever resources the outer space has to offer and in turn gain even more complex technological advances and control over the other countries (Garibaldi, 2006). However, it is still too early to consider China's space program as a threat though it indeed poses a challenge to the United States' space supremacy. The United States must therefore respond to the challenge through the development of more advanced technologies such as nuclear plasma propulsion, so that it would be able to conquer space the fastest possible time. References: Bandow, D. (2007). China Rising: The Next Global Superpower. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Chinaembassy.org. (2006). China poses no threat to global energy supply. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Einhorn, B. (2005). China Journal. USA: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Elwell, C. K. and M. Labonte. (2007). Is China a Threat to the U.S. Economy Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Hawkins, W. R. (2004). The Rising Threat from China: Seeing is Believing. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from Hu, J. (2003). Is China a threat to the rest of the world The New York Times. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Lardy, N. (2003). "The Economic Rise of China: Threat or Opportunity" Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from Okabe, T. (1968). The Nature of the Threat of China. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Powell, B. (2007). Is China's Military a Threat Time. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Smith, W. (2005). The China Threat. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Zhang, J. (2003). Population Problems and China's Threat. Retrieved April 21, 2007, from . Read More