Link: The aff views China as a threatening “other.”

The concept of the "China threat” is not new; its history in the West is more than a century long. Initially, the implications of the term China threat were primarily cultural and social: the Chinese people and their traditions were portrayed by popular Western writers as malevolent, alien, and threatening to the Western culture. This depiction remained in the Western imagination and later expanded to include the political realm, in which China was represented as brutal and belligerent, especially during the heyday of McCarthyism or the “Second Red Scare” following China’s regime change in 1949. In recent decades, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, the so-called China threat has become a topical issue within contemporary international relations (IR). The concept has taken on a more prominent role in Western political discourse – especially, but not exclusively, in the United States – over the past two decades. It not only has been introduced into the public sphere by journalists and other opinion leaders, but has entered the domain of policy through the work of policy analysts and politicians. Those concerned by the China threat argue in essence that a rising China poses an increasing, imminent, and real threat both to its neighbors and to far-distant countries. Moreover, this threat is perceived to be comprehensive, with security-related, military, economic, and environmental implications. Naturally, this hotly debated topic has also received scholarly attention. Most researchers have taken either a positivist or a normative approach to the issue of the “China threat.” Positivist studies emphasize causal factors whereas the aim of normative research is to refute or support a given thesis from a historical and ideological perspective. Both positivist and normative researchers provide theoretical and practical insights into the study of the alleged “China threat,” together with recommendations for dealing with it. Roy, only of the first scholars to address the issue of the China threat from an IR perspective, provides a survey of the major arguments on both sides of the debate, including a literature review of neorealist and neoclassical-realist theories of the threat posed by China and policy recommendations for Western governments. Notable original research on the China threat topic has continued to emerge over the years. Taking a more liberal approach, Li argues that the challenge posed by a fast-growing China to stability in and beyond the Asia-Pacific region depends on the expectations of Chinese policy makers, who operate in a highly economically interdependent environment. They are more likely to use peaceful means to settle disputes with neighbors and others if they perceive economic benefits to arise from such a strategy. Other scholars use realist-IR theory (particularly power-transition theory) to contend that the so-called China threat has emerged in the political discourse of the United States and other Western countries in response to the rise of China. In another review article, Jeffery argues thought-provokingly for the danger of creating a real China threat through "historical analogies" with previous challenger states. For instance, power-transition theorists in the realist-IR school compare China's threat with that of 19th-century Germany, and adherents of the successor state image theory draw analogies with the Soviet Union.