With the US-Soviet rivalry obsolete, the quest for the next great threat emerged
within American dialogue. Books such as Song Qiang et al’s (1996) China Can Say No
and Bernstein and Munro’s (1997) The Coming Conflict with China helped spark a
cottage industry of writings regarding the rising Chinese threat. The majority of these
works purporting the China threat theory focus on increasing military expenditures in
China, the booming economy and large population, ongoing territorial disputes, China’s
role in weapons proliferation, rising nationalism, and its revisionist desires to expand its
power beyond the mainland.
Maddison (1998) predicted that China’s economy could
overtake that of the US as early as 2015. While the US has pursued a policy of
engagement, Mearsheimer (2001: 402) argues that this policy is misguided, and that
China will be an “aggressive state determined to achieve regional hegemony.” These
scholars point to Chinese government and academics’ quotes regarding their belief that
the US is trying to subvert them. In general, members of this camp believe that China is
behaving itself until it can consolidate its power, warning that the US should not mistake
Chinese rhetoric of cooperation with their real intentions (Khoo and Smith 2005: 203).
1
For more on the expanding military and a Chinese threat, see Goldstein and Murray (2004) or Babbin and
Timberlake (2006)
4
Convention