Security concepts
Chinese perceptions of traditional and non-traditional security threats
Are Chinese perceptions of security threats different to ours?
Authors:
S, Craig
Publisher:
Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, 2007
This paper investigates Chinese perceptions of threat and conceptions of national security, in an effort to better understand Chinese security thinking. The author visibly maintains a Chinese perspective by using Chinese sources from scholarly journals, official policy pronouncements, and personal interviews.
The paper argues that China’s elite spend a great deal of time studying American politics and, as such, many of its recent policies and actions are direct responses to United States (U.S) criticisms and concerns. A thorough understanding of China’s perceptions of national security threats can provide the U.S with increased opportunities for action and cooperation in addition to decreasing the likelihood of misunderstanding and conflict.
While this analysis shows that the Chinese perspective is very different from the US perspective, it also shows that the two may share a common view of the future. Reasons for this include:
- both the U.S and China aspire to a future with a free, open, and robust economic marketplace and an international order where all nations contribute to peace, development, and prosperity
- despite Chinese fears, the U.S does not strive to overturn the current world order; it has as much at stake in maintaining this as China does
- the U.S also confronts similar non-traditional threats: terrorism, pollution, proliferation, energy insecurity, drug trafficking, and infectious disease.
