The US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, warned Tuesday that China's steady military and economic expansion may ultimately lead to Beijing attaining superpower status on a par with the United States.
"Globalisation is causing a shift of momentum and energy to greater Asia, where China has steadily expanding reach and may become a peer competitor to the United States at some point," Negroponte said at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on global security threats.
"Consistent high rates of economic growth, driven by exploding foreign trade, have increased Beijing's political influence abroad and fuelled a military modernisation program that has steadily increased Beijing's force projection capabilities," the US intelligence czar said.
In the foreign policy sphere, China is focused for now on other Asian nations "where Beijing hopes to make economic inroads to increase political influence and to prevent a backlash against its rise," said Negroponte, who suggested however that China's sphere of influence may broaden over time.
"Beijing also has expanded diplomatic and economic interaction with other major powers, especially Russia and the European Union, and begun to increase its presence in Africa and Latin America," he said.
On the military front, Negroponte noted that China is "vigorously" pursuing a modernisation programme of its weapons systems.
China's runaway economic expansion is slowed however by "a number of difficult economic and legal problems," including corruption, a faulty education system, and environmental degradation.
"Beijing's biggest challenge is to sustain growth, sufficient to keep unemployment and rural discontent from rising to destabilising levels, and to maintain increases in living standards," said Negroponte.