Klare- Revving Up the China Threat & Zhang- Discourses of Security in China

According to Klare, the "China Threat" is directly related to oil consumption and the competition for more reserves. There are other factors, like China's modernization of their military, but China's increasing oil consumption is the main reason China is making security strategists in Washington uncomfortable. He also blames "conservative strategists" who seek to keep the US as the supreme global military power, a sort of Cold War type mentality that Zhang also mentions.

Zhang states that "China is a rising power", " the Chinese state today has a profound sense of insecurity", and "China is still percieved as a major problematic for regional and global security" as reasons why there is a perceived "China threat". The fact that China is a rising power threatens the Unite States' sense of security because Chinese capabilities might surpass the US's capabilities in the near future if their expansion trends continue. Zhang also states that "China has recently experienced a fundamental transformation from an isolated revolutionary power to an increasingly globalized state" which makes its actions new to the global stage. He also explains that any political move America makes that effects China, whether obviously or subtly, forces China to shift their own policy to react to the move the US made. This then causes China to seem like their resoning is faulty or less formed than it should be. But most of these problems would be solved if the US decided to be less obviously aggressive or "hawk"ish in their foreign affairs.