Is China's development an opportunity or a threat to the world?

By Tom McGregor

China's development can be viewed from different perspectives. Those who oppose Beijing will deem China's rise as a threat, while others may consider China's increasing prosperity as good opportunities for them.

There's a prevailing view among Washington Beltway think tanks, US-based media outlets and politicians that Beijing is bad and when China's economy expands they suspect the Chinese will use it for bad purposes.

Members of the China haters club will never see the country in a positive light unless the Chinese are Americanized and agree with them on all important matters. In other words, they demand obedience from the Chinese.

As such even when China succeeds, the China haters will claim the Chinese have malicious intent to rule over the world. But if China fails they will have a counter argument that the Chinese government sabotaged its economy to make Chinese citizens and the rest of the world suffer.

We can see proof of this argument as we take a closer look at so-called China experts Gordon E. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China and Michael Pillsbury author of The 100 Years Marathon. Both of them had written best-selling books and captured much success and fame in the US.

Pillsbury made the argument that he allegedly held possession of Top Secret documents claiming that the Chinese government has a fool-proof plan to dominate the world in a 100 years, starting from the founding of the People's Republic of China in October 1949. Pillsbury claims that by 2049, China will be the world's sole super power and the USA deserves blame, since Washington supported generous US-China trade and investment deals.

Meanwhile, Chang makes a counter argument that Beijing is doomed to fail for refusing to embrace full-fledged democracy and human rights, such as the freedom of speech, the press and public assembly. Although, Chang and Pillsbury assume polar opposite opinions on China they are good friends and collaborate to promote anti-China thought-speaking.

Of the two individuals, I will say Pillsbury is smarter but just as inaccurate with his geo-political analysis. He’s correct in saying that China's economy has improved, but I harbor doubts over his honesty. I don't believe he holds authentic Top Secret Chinese government documents that detail Beijing's game plan to rule the world.

Meanwhile, Chang never gets his forecasts right. He published his gloom and doom book on China in 2001. Still China has not collapsed. And what has Chang said recently? We can find out from Fox News. The link is here:

https://www.foxnews.com/world/gordon-chang-us-china-space-next-9-11

As reported by Fox News:

"'The problem with those reasonable-sounding words, however, were that China and Russia were militarizing space, they were weaponizing themselves, and we weren't protecting our assets in space,' Chang added. 'So we lost a lot of ground, and unfortunately, we don't understand the militancy of both Moscow and Beijing. So what sounded reasonable on the surface was actually misguided to an extreme degree.'

Chang concluded with a stark warning about the potential outcome of China's celestial ambitions, saying: 'The next 9/11 will be in space, and we will be the victims of it.'”

Chang is making an argument that China's development will lead the government to dominate 'Outer Space.' Perhaps Chang has been watching too many Star Trek shows lately, which had the famous motto saying "Space, the final frontier." Anyway, let's not worry about that for now.

(The views don't necessarily represent those of the CCTV.com.)