Is China A Threat?

by Noah Rothman

On Aug 15, 2011

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A rising People’s Republic of China has been wearily observed by the political and defense class in the United States for the better part of a decade. While the focus is primarily on their economic rise, should political watchers take a closer look at the China’s military?

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China’s People’s Liberation Army has been busy recently. While U.S. defense budgets have shrunk in recent years (and stand to shrink even more rapidly), China’s military budget has been doubling (though parity is a long way off). It was recently revealed that Pakistan allowed Chinese officials access to the downed “stealth” helicopter that was lost in the raid that took out Osama bin Laden. China and Pakistan’s defense officials have had warm relations for decades; both have fought several wars against neighboring India and cold relations and low intensity military conflicts persist between all parties.

China has no blue water (Open Ocean) navy to speak of, but they are rapidly developing one, beginning with their much ballyhooed first aircraft carrier. The carrier, as a recent article in The Diplomat illuminated, is not a threat to the U.S., but it marks a change in doctrine from the PLA’s focus on asymmetrical warfare (anti-satellite, cyber warfare, etc.) to more traditional forms of power projection (air force, navy, land armies, etc.).

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The threat China poses is not potential, but a present danger. China has made inroads into force projection in Africa, and has been implicated in a five-year long cyber-attack that infiltrated the networks of 72 major organizations including International Olympic Committee and the United Nations. Furthermore, China has made diplomatic overtures to the outspoken enemies of the U.S. as well, including Russia and Iran.

Great power conflict theory, which has been left on the bookshelf to accumulate dust over the last 20-years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, may be coming back into vogue. Great powers are most likely to go to war when their forces become roughly equal, and one power is rising or the other power is falling. This is a long way off, and right now the U.S. maintains a military that is roughly greater than the world’s closest 9 powers combined. That is a significant deterrent, but the Chines are playing the long game. In our lifetimes, we could see a rising China that has an equivalent military. That, historically and theoretically speaking, is a very significant threat.

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