The Rise of China Represents a Threat to the US National Security - Essay Example

The rise of China represents threat to U.S National Security The dissolution of Soviet Union in the late twentieth century marked the end of the political order that had governed the world since the end of world war two. The collapse of Soviet union led to the emergence of U.S as a political and economic giant whose effect of dominance were felt all over the world. Political analysts were amazed by how one country was able to harness power and influence all other nations in the world. However, the situation is likely to change with the rapid growth of china in all spheres, politically, economically and in terms of military power. This continual rise in the global power of China is likely to represent a threat to U.S national security as the country tries to replace U.S as the world’s most powerful nation. Since the end of world war and more specifically in the last thirty years, China has recorded a tremendous growth in the size of its economy. The Chinese economy has been growing at a rate of 10%, which is three times to the global average, and as a result, it has grown to be the world’s second largest economy (Randau & Medinskaya 2015, p.15). In addition, it has claimed the top spot in various economic fields and it is actually revolutionizing the norm of the global economic sector. Since 2009 China displaced Germany as the world’s biggest exporter and it has maintained the position ever since. More automobiles are now being made in China than in any other country and at the same time, the economy has the largest market for new cars worldwide. Its automobiles sales have increased tremendously in the last five years and hence it has completely displaced U.S in the field of making and buying of automobiles. China has also grown to become the largest user of energy globally and actually its energy consumption rate is believed to have increased by more than a hundred percent in the last decade (Hinrichs & Kleinbach 2012, p.15).Majority of this huge demand comes from the manufacturing sector of the country which has largely increased and diversified its operations. Additionally because the standards of living of the people have improved, their energy consumption has also increased since they are able to purchase a wide variety of domestic appliances. All these among other factors have contributed to the high rate of Chinese economy and projections show that the growth of the country economically is likely to continue increasing in the forthcoming years. It has actually been predicted that by 2020, China will be the largest economy in all spheres and U.S is likely to be trailing behind since its rate of growth has been slower compared to that of China. Economic growth necessitates a country to increase its global partnerships for a variety of reasons and key among them is widening of market and availability of wider pool of resources. China has been very aggressive as far as global partnerships are concerned and has enjoyed great success among African countries, countries in the Middle East and those in central and south Asia. In majority of these countries, China has replaced U.S and has dominated almost all the sectors. In addition, the Chinese government has been pushing for Chinese language to be learned in learning institutions of these countries. This has made nations to question the ambitions of china and it seems evident that China wants to be the future super power. Global partnerships are not bad and do not pose a security challenge if done in the right way according to the interest of other nations. Nevertheless, the way China has been enacting partnerships with countries that are enemies with the United States like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela among others is threatening the peace of United States. Therefore, the imminent competition for global partnership especially with the hostile countries is becoming a cause of disagreement between china and U.S and may ultimately lead to a military confrontation. The meteoric ascent of Chinese economy is causing a transformation in the power dynamics of the world in favor of China, which is a threat to the U.S national security. This is because of the intense competition that has started to be witnessed between China and U.S and there is thus fear that there might be war. The security threat posed by China is imminent and it cannot be despised unless the U.S wants to wake up in the future to only realize that it has been completely been displaced in its global position. It is therefore clear that as long as China’s economy continues to grow gigantically in the coming decade the security of U.S and all other countries will be threatened. China has been increasing its military spending over the past years and actually analysis show that the military spending has been increasing in proportion to the increase in the Gross Domestic Product of the country (Sakhuja2011, p.89). Various analysts had predicted this trend since when a country’s economy grows one of the main area that the government is expected to channel most of its resources is the defense sector. Specifically, its spending in 2014 increased by 12.2% compared to the amount spend in 2013 which was an increase compared to the previous year’s spending. This has been mainly contributed by the desire of the country to modernize its military assets to be at par with those of other world’s super economies like United States (Shen & Blanchard 2010, p.116). It had actually been perceived that the goal of the country is to pull away from Russia, France and United Kingdom and reduce the very large gap with the United States. However, it seems that China is very ambitious and targets not only to reduce the discrepancy with the United States but also to overtake it in terms of military power. U.S believes that the Chinese government has other hidden agenda because it has not been transparent on how the increased funds are being used since the breakdown that is contained in the budget only shows the personnel, training and maintenance spending. Reports and surveys done by the U.S government show that the amount the Chinese government is spending on its defense is far much greater than what is reflected in the budget. This has raised fear that China is becoming a threat not only to U.S security alone but also to the global security. When viewed through the lens of security dilemma, the increased spending on military and defense sectors can cause a lot of instability to U.S and generally globally. Signs of suspicion and mistrust between the two countries have become common and one country’s effort to improve its military artillery has often been seen as a plan to attack the other country. It has recently been reported that the Chinese navy had made some patrols in the sea targeting to strategize on the possibility of deploying missiles. This is reported to have taken place in South China Sea at a base near Hainan Island and thus it is a threat to the national security of United States. The navy is believed to have deployed three ballistic missile submarines that are capable of striking the United States when fully loaded. There are thus fear that the Chinese navy missiles can reach the homeland of U.S especially Hawaii and other parts of the country. Furthermore, the U.S intelligence believes that unless the country improves its marine patrols the Chinese navy can conduct patrols near their shore. The Chinese People Liberation Army soldiers have made impressive strides in their ability to perform assigned missions and more so in ability to counterattack U.S in case of a conflict in the region. Despite the fact, that many people believe that the PLA cannot match the standards of U.S mainly because of poor training and their inexperience in war, their threat cannot be merely ignored. They have power to cause national security threat to their neighbors and if it happens that China is involved in conflict with Japan then it is more likely that America will be involved. This is because of the treaties the country signed with Japan on peace in the 1950’s and therefore in cases of war U.S will be obliged to defend Japan (Menton 2003, p.243). The U.S government and other governments have got concerned on the increased Chinese ambition in harnessing nuclear power. China is currently believed to possess over twenty nuclear power reactors, which operate on eight separate sites, and it is believed that the country is in process of constructing over twenty other sites. However apart from these sites, which it uses to produce electricity, the country possesses tools of mass destruction and the specific quantification of these tools is a secret of the state. Some reports estimates that China may be having over three thousand warheads that are hidden in underground tunnels though other reports show that Chinese nuclear power is small compared to the other nations with nuclear weapons (Briggs 2014, p.81). It seems that the target of China in all its nuclear ambition is United States and if the report of China having three thousand warheads is true then it is correct to say that the rise of china represents a threat to U.S national security. The Chinese substantial holding of U.S government debt and the creation of sovereign wealth funds are a concern to analysts since in one way or another serve to threaten the security of the United States (Macewan 2011, p.158). Because of Chinese rapid economic growth and a high rate of domestic saving it has been able to accumulate an estimate of two trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves, most of which it has invested in United States securities. This rise in foreign held treasury has become a major concern since the country may find itself in a situation where it is largely owned by foreigners and more so the communist China. China can use its large holdings to threaten U.S of dumping them if it enacts interventions measurements that are against the interests of the Chinese people. In the past dependence on foreign investors has hurt the economy and has led to decline of the sovereignty of the American people. In the past years, the fear of potential destruction of the two economies if China defied honoring its securities has kept the states in order. This is because China has much to lose if it reverts to financial terrorism since it will incur double loss, which will completely hurt its economy. In addition, despite the Chinese Yuan appreciating at a very fast rate in comparison with the dollar, the Chinese government has remained focused to its responsibility of maintaining the dollar as its reserve currency. However, the future is always uncertain and there is fear that if relevant measures are not enacted on time there might be an imminent threat to the economic stability, which can be translated, to national insecurity. The declaration of human rights, which was written due to the brutal events in the death camps of Nazi Germany stipulate clearly that all people have some inherent rights that cannot be circumvented by any form of government power. It further elaborates that no person should be subjected to inhuman treatment in form of punishment regardless of the offenses committed. The history of China suggests otherwise and it has actually been marred by a series of atrocities against the innocent citizens. The governments from the one of emperor United have exercised brutality in their governance and more specifically after the emperor introduced legalism, which permitted torture to be done to all citizens apart from the emperor. This trend has continued over the years and the situation today has not improved since the government continues to violate human rights especially of laborers though majority of these injustices remain as a secret. For example, the Falun-gong movement which was started in the early part of the last decade of twentieth century and which had attracted large masses of followers was later declared illegal. The Chinese people liberation army soldiers were then given freedom to exercise brutality upon the practitioners of this religion (Hauss 2014, p.273). A lot of brutality prevailed then ranging from people being beaten with iron rods to people being tied on tree posts and being burned. The connection between violation of human rights in China and them causing a national threat originates from human rights theories. Majority of the leading theories seem to agree that U.S has been acting as the pace setter on global scale regarding issues to do with human rights and economic practices in capitalist and democratic countries but china is now a threat. The censorship of the Chinese media and especially the internet to restrict the information the people get cannot be comfortably accepted as a domestic issue with no effect on the external world. It affects negatively the free trade regulations and thus harms U.S in its endeavors of free trade. The blocking of information across the World Wide Web has affected technology firms such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, which are American Multinational companies (Thomson, & Sigurdson, p.204). A poor performance of these multinational corporations not only harms the economy of America but also of the entire world. For example in the early part of the twenty first century, China changed its regulations in order to force Google Inc. to offer products of low quality. This created a market for the local companies, which were not effective and paralyzed the operations of Google in the country and subsequently forcing it to minimize its operations in the country. Ever since it has been a battle and a difficult one for Google to operate and occasionally its services have not been available for use by the Chinese. As a result, these American multinational corporations have found themselves in a hard situation of lowering the standards upheld by their home country in order to fit in their market. However, this has not been welcomed by majority of the human groups and other organizations with similar interests in America since it seems to be as if they are indirectly supporting the communist regime in China. It has also been seen as a possible compromise on the ethical standards that are acceptable by American people and corporations which can have several severe consequences (Miller & Cross 2014,p.185).It is thus evident that internet censorship has negatively affected the U.S economy and it has castigated a threat to the national security of the country. Finally, the similar desire by both China and America to control the Asian region is a reason that can cause threat to U.S national security (Dunne, Kurki& Smith 2013, p.89). This is because both countries want to have a strong influence in the region and thus each will do all that it can to ensure that it achieves this target. China because of its strategic location coupled with its growing economy is in a better position to have a greater impact in the region than America, which its influence in the region is declining. However, China has continued to link its desire for economic expansion to its need of eliminating poverty and improving the living standards of the people this may not be the case as already discussed. It is clear that China has a desire to fully control not only the surrounding region but also the entire world in all aspects. This implies that the more China continues to advance economically and in its military prowess the more it becomes a threat to the national security of America. Thus, it is evident that despite the fact that China is still far behind United States in majority of the sectors it poses a threat to the national security and therefore it should not be ignored. The threat unless it is analyzed well to ensure that both countries do not engage in conflicts there may emerge confrontations between the countries that may negatively affect the global security. References Briggs, K., 2014. Nuclear Risks and Preparedness. New York: Kevin Briggs. 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