CGD in the News

Ten Years After 9/11, Is It Now Time to be Afraid of China? (Time)

September 13, 2011

Senior fellow Charles Kenny was mentioned in a Time article on whether the United States should fear China's economic and military growth.

From the Article

As the commentaries, retrospectives and meditations pile up ten years after 9/11, expect quite a few in their closing paragraphs to look toward the next grand geo-political challenge facing the U.S. A decade of costly adventurism in the Middle East and Afghanistan, many will argue, distracted U.S. policy making from the new realities of Asia, where some of the world's main economies and rising powers are shaping the future decades of the 21st century.

The bogeyman here is not an ideology or some shadowy terrorist threat, but, to be blunt, China. Beijing's rise as an economic and military power raises understandable concerns. The modernization of its navy and army seem calculated to directly challenge the preeminence of American power. As an authoritarian state, China has shown a penchant for a cold-blooded foreign policy, happy to support troublesome regimes from Khartoum to Pyongyang. A raft of pundits have already issued grim warnings about the future of the global liberal, democratic order — one which emerged during the 20th century's Pax Americana — as it gets pressured by the new imperatives of a Chinese hegemon.

Read it Here