2013-06-06nytimes.com

By buying companies, exploiting natural resources, building infrastructure and giving loans all over the world, China is pursuing a soft but unstoppable form of economic domination. Beijing's essentially unlimited financial resources allow the country to be a game-changing force in both the developed and developing world, one that threatens to obliterate the competitive edge of Western firms, kill jobs in Europe and America and blunt criticism of human rights abuses in China.

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THIS is the real threat to the United States and other countries. However, most Western governments don't seem to be addressing China's state-driven expansionism as an immediate priority.

On the contrary, European governments dealing with their own economic crises see China as a country that can help, either by buying sovereign debt or going ahead with investments in their countries that will create jobs.

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The perception is that China is now unavoidable and, consequently, the only option is to be accommodating -- offering everything from a generous investment environment to essentially dropping human rights from the agenda. "We don't have any stick. We can just offer carrots and hope for the best," a senior European official told us.



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