China is a serious, long term threat to American strategic interests.

I will now begin my case. China's position in the world. China currently occupies many regions outside China proper, most of which are distinctly non-Han Chinese regions- Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, etc. These buffer states provide military insulation against foreign aggressors with depth and geographical obstacles (mountains, deserts, and jungles). Brown = Han Chinese. Dark purple = Mongolian. Light purple = Turks. Dark yellow = Tibetan. There is a large income disparity between the rich regions of the coast and the much poorer inland regions which have historically resulted in tensions between the two (e. g. Chinese Civil War). This is due to the fact that coastal China has access to major world shipping routes. China has an extremely rapidly growing economy driven largely on foreign investment and manufactured good exports: [1. . http://people.umass.edu...]. It has a huge industrial capacity in its coast that facilitates this growth, which is highly dependent on coal [2. . http://china.lbl.gov...] and oil imports [3. . http://news.xinhuanet.com...] to sustain the rapid development. China is not capable of overcoming its dependence on foreign trade easily- consumption is only 37 percent of GDP, one of the lowest rates in the world [4. . http://www.tradingeconomics.com...].China's domestic stability. I am sure that my opponent understands basic Chinese geopolitics, but I will outline them here. Throughout Chinese history, the coastal region and hinterlands have had conflicting interests. This leads to fragmentation and civil war, as was demonstrated in the Chinese Civil War when Mao Zedong conquered the coastal region from the interior and created an extremely centralized society cut off from world trade. Now that a reopened China is once again developing socioeconomic instability and power disparities, China's government maintains support by continual economic growth and mass employment, in addition to increasing development in the eastern and central parts of the country. China's economy obviously cannot keep growing forever- this would violate basic principles of economics. Furthermore, the regime must allocate money politically rather than allowing markets to allocate capital. Foreign investment and export growth were achieved artificially [5. . http://www.theepochtimes.com...] and hasn't created true wealth proportion to China's apparent growth. At the same time, the crony capitalism has created a massive debt bubble in China's banks [6. . http://thediplomat.com...]. The similarities to Japan are clear. Japan in the 80's was an export dependent state with little economic responsibility and an unsustainable growth rate. When the bubble bursts, as it did in Japan, it will be different for China, in which the regime's survival requires domestic stability, and domestic stability requires prosperity in the absence of any sort of unifying principle or ideology. It will be far more destructive for an inherently unstable power than it was for the United States or Japan. China's foreign relations. China requires significant control over its shipping routes and aims to build up its maritime strength in the future. China has laid their claim in the "nine-dash line" a boundary marking its territory in the South China Sea. This is an important point. Japan and Korea. Japan is almost completely reliant on imported energy sources [7. . http://en.wikipedia.org...], all of which go through the important corridor that China lays claim to. This is largely the same for Korea [8. . http://en.wikipedia.org...]. Both have an interest in keeping the seas under the control of a friendly power, and the United States has, by far, the most navy in the world, with its own interests in containing China. Anti-Japanese protests and boycotts are common in China [9. . http://www.brandchannel.com...] due to cultural animosity. China and Japan will not become friends in the forseeable future. Korea is less inherently hostile and more dependent upon China, and may be an unreliable ally to the United States. Australia. Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, but is heavily dependent on oil and petroleum imports to maintain the standard of living, which are in turn dependent on shipping routes [10. . http://en.wikipedia.org...]. Australia must maintain good relations with a maritime power in order to secure those routes, which is cuurently the United States (which also happens to be culturally similar to Australia). Australia will not turn away from the United States unless a new power rises, and China's weak navy and uncertain economy will not give them any incentive to do so. The United States has recently opened a new military base in Darwin in order to cement this relationship against China [11. . http://www.thejakartapost.com...].Southeast Asia. India and Vietnam also threatened with China's maritime claims. India, while not an ally of the US, is attempting to help the containment effort and establish cooperative relationships with Vietnam and other countries threatened by them [12. . http://www.deccanherald.com...]. China and India have been trying to contain each other and each is asserting its influence in other countries such as China's aid to Pakistan [13. . http://www.tandfonline.com...].However, Burma is an ally of China, and in addition to the economic cooperation between the countries, China is building ports in Burma in order to escape encirclement and contain India [14. . http://www.dvb.no...].Out of time for now- I will do an analysis of China's military, navy, and power projection in the next round. Conclusion. China is an inherently vulnerable empire. It is dependent upon open shipping lanes and perpetual economic growth for political stability, and its claims have brought it into conflict with its more powerful neighbors, many of which are inherently maritime nations such as Japan or the US. When the economy falters, so will political stability, and the risk of China's critical ports being blockaded keeps it from directly challenging the US. The US has alliances throughout the region, and has centuries of experience at projecting power throughout the world. The Chinese are not an economically or politically stable nation, and that is the determining factor in its ability to act internationally.