How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijing's Fears
![handle is hein.journals/fora91 and id is 840 raw text is: How China Sees America
The Sum of Beijing's Fears
Andrew 7. Nathan and Andrew Scobell
GREAT POWER is a vague term, but China deserves it by any
measure: the extent and strategic location of its territory, the size and
dynamism of its population, the value and growth rate of its econ-
omy, the massive size of its share of global trade, and the strength of
its military. China has become one of a small number of countries
that have significant national interests in every part of the world
and that command the' attention, whether willingly or grudgingly,
of every other country and every international organization. And
perhaps most important, China is the only country widely seen as a
possible threat to U.S. predominance. Indeed, China's rise has led to
fears that the country will soon overwhelm its neighbors and one day
supplant the United States as a global hegemon.
But widespread perceptions of China as an aggressive, expansionist
power are off base. Although China's relative power has grown
significantly in recent decades, the main tasks of Chinese foreign
policy are defensive and have not changed much since the Cold War
era: to blunt destabilizing influences from abroad, to avoid territorial
losses, to reduce its neighbors' suspicions, and to sustain economic
growth. What has changed in the past two decades is that China is
now so deeply integrated into the world economic system that its
ANDREW J. NATHAN IS Class of i919 Professor of Political Science at
Columbia University. ANDREW SCOBELL is Senior Political Scientist
at the RAND Corporation. This essay is adapted from their forth-
coming book, China's Searchfor Security (Columbia University Press, 2012).
© Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell.
[32]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/fora91&div=92&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijing's Fears
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