And as multinationals struggle with the puzzle of how to do business in and with China, they are likely to find themselves profoundly changed internally in the process, including how they go about partnering, staffing, communicating internally, and empowering their workers. There is a temptation to view countries as alternatives to China, especially in the competition for new direct foreign investment. Such a view is only partially valid, however. Increasingly, the task facing most Asian governments will not be to compete against China but to define a value-added role for their economies that stresses their complementary nature to the opportunities created by a rapidly growing China. At the same time, there is a general wariness in almost every Asian country about China s growing political and economic shadow.
China is a threat as well as an opportunity.
This threat is a motivating factor behind the aggressive military spending by most Asian governments. China has the largest number of territorial disputes of any Asian country, and as China is growing in economic and military strength, it is showing a tendency to take a harder line on many of these disputes. One thing it shows no sign of doing is being more willing to reach compromise solutions on any issues to which it attaches a 'sovereign right' label. Some critics of China, especially in the US, are trying to make China the designated enemy of the post-Cold War world. The rest of Asia is not nearly so ready to throw stones at China, however.