IN RECENT years, a growing chorus of voices in the West has sought to paint China as a looming danger to global peace and stability.

Earlier this year, US Secretary of Defence (now War!) Pete Hegseth declared that “Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific… The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.”

Such rhetoric is typically accompanied by calls for vastly increased military spending, framed as a deterrent that “does not come cheap.”

The Trump administration is pushing for Nato member states to commit to spending 5 per cent of GDP on “defence.” China’s military expenditure, incidentally, is 1.7 per cent of its GDP.

This framing is echoed across Europe. In Britain, while China has not yet been formally designated as a “threat,” in practice it is treated as one — excluded from 5G infrastructure and nuclear power projects, subjected to endless scare stories about espionage and openly threatened with war by Defence Secretary John Healey should it attempt to unilaterally change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

While the Labour government clearly needs good relations with China if its putative growth agenda is to get off the ground, it is hamstrung by the need to placate Washington and Britain’s security establishment.

In May this year, Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s chief trade adviser, accused Britain of being a “compliant servant,” warning that “if the Chinese vampire can’t suck the American blood, it’s going to suck the UK blood and the EU blood.”

Meanwhile, Nato’s 2022 Strategic Concept describes China as a danger to the alliance’s security, citing “malicious hybrid and cyber operations” and “coercive policies.” Last year’s Nato summit in Washington went further, warning that “China’s stated ambitions… continue to challenge our interests, security and values.”

From Washington to Brussels, there is now a near-consensus that China is “aggressive” and “expansionist”: building up its military, menacing Taiwan, aiding Russia, bullying Africa and Latin America, flooding markets, stealing jobs, stealing technology, spying on the West, and trying to undermine our glorious democracy.

How well do these claims stand up to scrutiny?

China’s peaceful rise

In fact, China’s rise has been remarkably peaceful. It has not fought a war in 45 years. The major wars it was previously involved in — Korea and Vietnam — were in defence of nations resisting imperialism and colonialism.

Unlike the US and the European powers, China has never launched wars of aggression, never sought colonies, never carried out regime-change operations, and never imposed unilateral sanctions.

On the nuclear front, while Western media warn of China’s expanding arsenal, the numbers tell a different story: fewer than 500 warheads, compared to more than 5,000 held by the US. Moreover, China is unique among nuclear powers in committing to a strict “no-first-use” policy and in pledging never to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

As could be seen at the military parade in Beijing at the beginning of the month, China is certainly modernising its military, but it is after all facing a long-term, escalating campaign of containment and encirclement. Its defence budget is one-third that of the US, despite having a four times larger population and being massively more geostrategically vulnerable.

The Taiwan question

Much of the “China threat” narrative centres on Taiwan Province. Yet Beijing’s position has been consistent for more than seven decades, rooted in international law and assorted United Nations resolutions.

Taiwan was seized by the Japanese empire in 1895 and returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1945 with the agreement of the Allied powers. The 1949 flight of Chiang Kai-shek’s forces to the island did not change that fundamental fact.

The “One China” principle is recognised by over 90 per cent of countries worldwide, including the US and Britain. Beijing has consistently sought peaceful reunification, while reserving the right to use force only in the case of outside interference or a unilateral declaration of independence.

What’s changed is that the US and its allies, seeking to provoke conflict and undermine China, are increasing their support for separatist elements, are increasing their supply of weapons to the administration in Taipei, and are steadily rowing back on the One China Principle.

Trade, development and co-operation

Far from being a global bully, China has become the largest trading partner of two-thirds of the world’s countries. Three-quarters of UN member states are signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing’s investments in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean are generally welcomed, as they are used to help countries break out of centuries of colonial-enforced underdevelopment.

Claims of “debt trap diplomacy” come overwhelmingly from Western governments resentful of their declining influence.

What a real threat looks like

If you want to know what an actual threat to peace looks like, you need only examine the record of the United States. From Korea and Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, the US and its allies have waged non-stop wars of aggression, regime change and resource control.

The US maintains illegal sanctions on countries from Cuba to Zimbabwe, and supplies military, financial and diplomatic support for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The US spends over a trillion dollars annually on its military, operates hundreds of overseas military bases, and deploys nuclear-enabled forces across east Asia. It has formed military blocs such as Aukus and the “Quad,” aiming to construct an Asian Nato.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman famously put it, “the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas.”

A force for peace and progress

Why then is China so consistently portrayed as a threat? The purpose is clear: to manufacture consent for an escalating campaign of encirclement, sanctions, trade restrictions, and ultimately for a potential war, with Taiwan as the most likely flashpoint.

And sad to say, anti-China rhetoric is able to thrive in a fertile soil of longstanding Fu Manchu tropes about “inscrutable Orientals” taking over the world.

Far from being a danger, China has shown itself to be a force for peace and co-operation. It promotes a vision of a global community of shared future, built on common prosperity, environmental sustainability and respect for international law.

President Xi Jinping has summed up China’s orientation to peace: “Without peace, nothing is possible. Maintaining peace is our greatest common interest and the most cherished aspiration of people of all countries.”

China has consistently called for ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine, supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and presses for negotiated settlements to conflicts rather than escalation.

It is the world leader in renewable energy production and deployment, and its Belt and Road projects are helping scores of developing countries to escape the legacy of underdevelopment.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, China supplied billions of vaccine doses and items of medical equipment around the world, particularly the global South.

Rather than a threat, China stands at the core of a multipolar trajectory providing a desperately needed alternative to the destructive hegemony of the United States — an alternative based on peace, co-operation, friendship and sustainable development.

Recognising this reality is essential if humanity is to avoid sleepwalking into a new cold war, or worse, a catastrophic hot one.

Carlos Martinez is the author of The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century and a co-editor of the Friends of Socialist China website. He’s among the speakers at the Socialist China Conference 2025 taking place on Saturday at Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way London W1T 5DL. Other speakers include Robert Griffiths, Mick Wallace, George Galloway, Jenny Clegg, Francisco Dominguez, Li Jingjing, and many more. Register at bit.ly/chinaconf.