Should We Be Worried About China?

From Mensaje magazine via Mirada Global:

Should we be worried about China? Its rise as a relevant actor is undoubtedly the central phenomenon in 21st century international relations. The deep political and economic changes currently in course show a radical transformation of the international order established after W.W.II, an order that was bipolar until de demise of the U.S.S.R. and unipolar during the latest twenty years. The perspective of a multipolar world, as China seems to desire, opens unknown perspectives and therefore, eventually dangerous.

An important fact is the strategic weakening of the United States after the obvious failure of its Nation Building policy promoted in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military interventions have only lead to greater destabilization and uprisings against US intervention. In the meantime the other powers, as well as the new alliances between nations seem to move towards the bunkerization of their respective strategic spaces instead of the project of globalization and liberalization promoted by liberal philosophy. The prevailing idea among them is the impulse to strengthen security, which leads to accusing foreigners of all the evils that affect the nation, to limit or even hinder the displacement of people, and to overreact facing real, exaggerated or imaginary threats. In an act of mistrust in relation to the South, the European Union accepts the installation of U.S. missiles formally directed against Iran and North Korea to be positioned in Southern Spain, directed towards the Mediterranean.

This scenario presents an important challenge: Doesn’t increasing the security of one country or group of countries weaken the security of the others?

Also available in Spanish.

Tim Reidy