From The Nation (link):
The Defense Department has met its long-term enemy, and it is China [see Michael T. Klare, “Revving Up the China Threat“]…
But nowhere does the image of China as the Next Big Threat jar with reality more than in China itself, where economic, social and environmental upheaval has turned the country into a caldron. For now at least, the Chinese regime is a greater threat to its own population, unmoored and angry, than it is to the United States or even its neighbors. Popular unrest is now a common feature of China’s political landscape, with more than 74,000 reported cases of unrest in 2005, according to an official count. The same economy that has grown by nearly 10 percent a year for the past twenty-five years has also become a perilous source of discontent.