I think Heny is looking at the China threat from the wrong perspective. He is basically comparing the military capability of China to that of America. Of course America is much more capable than China from a military perspective. One needs to look at this differently.

Does China have the ability to inflict significant damage on America? Is China willing to inflict this damage? What barriers exist that prevent China from doing this? How will China cope with these barriers?

China does have the ability to inflict significant damage on America. They have enough nuclear weapons to destroy a signficant part of our population.

China is willing to inflict this damage under the right circumstances. Two Chinese general rather casually mentioned that China could use nuclear weapons against America in a conflict over Taiwan. The fact that we might destroy all of their major cities didn’t seem to bother them.

What barriers exist that would prevent China from attacking America? American nuclear weapons would be one barrier, but this doesn’t seem to concern the two Chinese generals that I mentioned above.

Another barrier that existed at one time was the threat from the Soviet Union/Russia. What would Russia do to China if China found itself destroyed by American missiles? 30 years ago China would have had to worry about that, but not today. In fact, one would have to think that Russia would join China in any attack against America. So China does not have to worry about an attack from Russia.

China does not have to worry about retaliation from NATO should it attack America. This was not clear 30 years ago.

In conclusion, China is capable of inflicting much pain on America. Several of the barriers to China actually inflicting this pain have been removed. China is willing to accept the loss of their major cities in a conflict with America. This means that China is a serious threat to America.

China is more willing to accept American damage than the other way around. That makes China more dangerous to America than America is to China. Perhaps the author of this article should read a good book on Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

Here is the author of this article:

Henry Rosemont, Jr., a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), is distinguished professor emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a visiting scholar in the Religious Studies department at Brown University.