I say unconventional wisdom, you can say rank stupidity

Foreign Policy asked many smart people, and then me, for some nuggets of unconventional wisdom heading into 2011.  My contribution is on how China isn’t all that and a bag of chips.  My closing paragraph:  Exaggerating Chinese power has consequences. Inside the Beltway, attitudes about American hegemony have shifted from complacency to panic. Fearful politicians representing ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Foreign Policy asked many smart people, and then me, for some nuggets of unconventional wisdom heading into 2011.  My contribution is on how China isn't all that and a bag of chips

Foreign Policy asked many smart people, and then me, for some nuggets of unconventional wisdom heading into 2011.  My contribution is on how China isn’t all that and a bag of chips

My closing paragraph: 

Exaggerating Chinese power has consequences. Inside the Beltway, attitudes about American hegemony have shifted from complacency to panic. Fearful politicians representing scared voters have an incentive to scapegoat or lash out against a rising power — to the detriment of all. Hysteria about Chinese power also provokes confusion and anger in China as Beijing is being asked to accept a burden it is not yet prepared to shoulder. China, after all, ranks 89th in the 2010 U.N. Human Development Index, just behind Turkmenistan and the Dominican Republic (the United States is fourth). Treating Beijing as more powerful than it is feeds Chinese bravado and insecurity at the same time. That is almost as dangerous a political cocktail as fear and panic.

 Be sure to read the rest of them — really, the other contributors are all smarter than me. 

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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