How can the west best tackle the threat from China? First, it must stop panicking | Kerry Brown

An MPs' report on Chinese intentions credits President Xi with a flattering level of strategic nous. The real problems lie closer to home

In the figure of Xi Jinping, with his dominant political personality and assertive communicative style, many in the west have found the autocrat they always feared would one day confront them. For Xi and the people around him, combatting what his administration calls western universalism", and western attempts to infiltrate China's politics through economic and cultural engagement, has been a major task.

Now the Xi threat has come right into our own back yard. A recent report by the British parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) defines the nature of Chinese intentions as ambition at a global level - to become a technological and economic superpower, on which other countries are reliant". This, it says, poses a national security threat to the UK". Its words align with those of the CIA and FBI in the US, who have in recent years regarded China as their greatest adversary.