Is China now a threat? Suppose it were. However, the word “threat” is somewhat misleading and sometimes makes no sense. Actually, by the same logic, the USA could be considered the biggest threat to not only China but also many other nations since the end of the Cold War. Sensational words such as “threat” do not much improve our understanding of the reality and are perhaps only useful in propaganda. The point is that our world is changing so much so that war-oriented thinking is becoming a trap.

It is not surprising that an emerging power is not often welcome, even if it claims to be peaceful. The honest but seemingly difficult-to-say, “Peaceful rise” of China, has failed to pacify the well-established powers (USA and Europe), not because it sounds unconvincing, but rather because peacefulness is not at all the point of concern. No matter how peaceful China is, the rise of China is the problem for the established powers. Obviously, the ethical claim of being innocent is irrelevant to the rise of a new power.

History tells us that serious problems sometimes automatically disappear rather than settle when the world changes. The ongoing change of our world is not a change in the game but rather a change of the game. Globalization has been making history whereas our minds remain trapped in modernity, occupied with stories of past glories of one power beautifully defeating another, as in the Second World War or the Cold War. The future could possibly be of global transnational powers replacing national powers and taking over the world, in other words, the systematic powers of new technologies, financial capital and new media in forms of global networks are going to transform themselves from economical to political domination above nations and governments, to start a new game and reorganize the global society where nation-states become the “branches” of the world system. The concepts of gaming, of national interest, and of security, will be and have to be changed. Tension and deadly hostilities would then become unreasonable and foolish.