Is China a threat to US ??

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Chinese are to be credited for undergoing a tremendous transformation. In less than a generation, the Chinese have changed their nation from a poor and backward communist dictatorship to a productive economic powerhouse. Where once the Chinese people endured little more than strangling poverty, today they are reaping the fruits of their hard work and enjoying a rapidly increasing standard of living. In a very real sense, China has become the world's factory and its people have profited accordingly. Yet on the other hand, China remains brutally authoritarian. China refuses to acknowledge the existence of individual rights--that is, that every person has a sovereign right to their life, freedom of action and freedom of thought. China's government functions absent the protections of the rule of law. For all of China's much-vaunted changes, the reality is that its actions today are not all that far removed from when the Society of Right and Harmonious Fists worked to block all foreign influence at the turn of the 19th century. Philosophic and religious freedom is a fundamental right of sovereign minds, yet China's ruling clique recognizes no sovereignty other than its own. As long as China willingly violates the basic rights of its own people, it can never be trusted to respect the rights of other nations. China remains a threat and the free people of the world must continue to guard against it. Like any nationalist dictatorship, China's leadership relies upon the false pretext of foreign enemies to justify and strengthen the ruling regime's stranglehold on power. For example, the Chinese government refuses to recognize the freedom and independence of Taiwan, asserting that it alone must rule the whole of China. This claim is absurd, for the Taiwanese are under no obligation to surrender their lives or freedom to China's dictators. Nevertheless, as long as China maintains that it has a right to rule Taiwan (and the ruling regime continues to benefit from this claim), there exists a frightening potential for conflict. At root, the question of the world's relationship with China is not a question of trading widgets with an individual Chinese businessman to mutual benefit and leaving it to the Chinese to improve their own lot. While China may not be totalitarian like it was under Mao, it is still very much a nationalist dictatorship; it has changed only in terms of degree and not so much in terms of essentials--and the West must not be coy about it. As China works feverishly to present its new face to the world, we must choose to see Chinese oppression, caprice and avarice for what it is--and treat it accordingly In international relations, threat is usually assessed by weighing capabilities and intentions. Similar to a criminal case, an attorney might ask the questions: Could the person have committed the crime? And did that person have a motive? I would argue that, unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, China is more dependent on the United States for its continued peace and prosperity and therefore is motivated to cooperate with rather than threaten U.S. interests. China’s political stability is tied to its economic growth and stability. The Chinese government needs to create enough jobs and opportunities to keep its people satisfied with the current pact it has with society: We deliver economic opportunity and you accept our political legitimacy. During a delegation I took to Beijing not long ago, a Chinese scholar told me that this pact is so tenuous that even the relatively successful Beijing Olympics calls into question how the government is spending its money; he suggested that rival political factions could challenge the current leadership. Meanwhile, China’s government is overwhelmed with domestic fires it must stamp out: the tainted milk scandal, polluted waterways, smoggy air and related public health problems. The last thing China needs is a foreign-born obstacle, much less contending with the strongest military in history, America’s. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson subsequently commented, "It is clear that China accepts its responsibility as a major world economy that will work with the United States and other partners to ensure global economic stability." In our interconnected world, the nature of the more serious challenges to survival are global and therefore require cooperation, not political jockeying. The Great Recession is an immediate example; the climate crisis is a longer-term example. Only through cooperation can these two giants continue to be prosperous. SO guys what do you think? Is china really a threat to US??