Still, with the passing of the Cold War, during which China and the United States had common interest in opposing Soviet adventurism in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, there is little today that anchors the U.S. relationship with China. Hence President Clinton's difficulty in sustaining a policy of engagement in the face of each new report of dissident arrests, technological espionage and the missile buildup against Taiwan. Whatever challenge China might pose in the future, it won't be anything like the danger once posed by Soviet divisions poised against Europe, by Soviet armadas in every ocean and thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads aimed at America. Having witnessed Japan's success, China's leaders believe that in the next century, national power will be measured by economic strength, not military. Therefore, China is joining world institutions, not threatening them.
Chinese exports are the engine of China's growth.
They have given Beijing the same stake in peace and stability that every other nation has in the era of globalization. Schlesinger says the danger of overindulging America's worst fears about China is that it might actually produce the hostile opponent that some Americans foresee. Get over it, he says. To experts like him, China's gradual military modernization is an inescapable outgrowth of national development. In this view, the disturbing record of Chinese espionage in the United States proves only that Beijing has been pursuing its own interests much as Taiwan, Egypt, Israel, Russia, France and Brazil all have, at the United States' expense.