Imagine a scenario in which the UK is light years ahead of the United States in AI research. Would that alarm you? Would it keep you up at night? Of course not. But if you substitute China for the UK, the story is completely different. Why?
In all honesty, a little bit of it is probably racism. A much bigger part, however, is concern about the nature of the Chinese regime. We look at the Uighur camps, the black jails, the controls on the internet, the growth of the surveillance state, the abductions of critics of the regime, the construction on the fill islands in the South China Sea, and the use of economic ties for leverage against weaker countries and think, that would be us if China dominated the world. True, the Chinese wouldn’t insist that we live on collective farms, but this alternative doesn’t sound too promising, either.
If you pose this to a Chinese official, he will probably tell you that China is still a poor country that has no interest in dominating the world, and would undoubtedly fail if it tried. The problem is that the increases in the military budget and the aggressive rhetoric from the government tell a different story. How can we be sure that China’s ambitions are limited to economic growth and sovereignty over its borders? We can’t, really, so we have to prepare for the worst.
The answer to this, obviously, is for the Chinese government to dial down the nationalism and make a bigger effort to present itself as a friendly, peaceful neighbor. Will that happen? I doubt it; Xi is too invested in nationalism and repression to back down.