China is the world’s second largest economy. The decision to develop polluting industries and manufacture low cost goods was China’s to make. The subsequent (and likely ongoing) exploitation of Chinese labor was done by China’s system of government and capital. The same system has raised astounding Chinese numbers of people out of poverty and created enormous wealth for Chinese capital. Now that China is moving beyond the “emerging market” stage, it is entering the realm of great power conflicts. What we know is that most past great power conflicts have been terribly violent (Cold War, WW2/WW1, Napoleanic wars, etc). What we see so far is China waging a low intensity war in the Cyber warfare realm. This has the added bonus of paying for itself many times over, e.g. stealing billions of dollars worth intellectual property, eg semiconductor manufacturing trade secrets. The US has started responding with a trade war. I guess the next logical step in this escalation would be for China to become involved in violent proxy war (eg another Vietnam War or Korean War). Full scale warfare (ie nuclear war) is of course the worst-case scenario, which is always one button away from occurring.