The China threat is being inflated in ways that, as with the Soviet threat in the Cold War and terrorism post-9/11, are counterproductive for foreign-policy strategy and distort domestic politics in dangerous ways. The China threat is being inflated in ways that, as with the Soviet threat in the Cold War and terrorism post-9/11, are counterproductive for foreign-policy strategy and distort domestic politics in dangerous ways. The American public is doing its best to brake the swing, with 78 percent now seeing China as a security threat but in a 51 percent to 47 percent split on containing China’s power or engaging it cooperatively.