One after another, American researchers and experts known as "panda huggers" for their dovish stance on China have become converts to "panda sluggers." As the change in name suggests, they now espouse a far more hawkish view of China.

Professor David Shambaugh of George Washington University is one of the United States' leading China experts — and a newly converted hawk. Shambaugh's March essay in the Wall Street Journal has had enormous reverberations within the foreign policy community. Titled "The Coming Chinese Crack-up," Shambaugh's argument is as follows:

While the world has been captivated by its rise over the past three decades, China is now facing an impending crash. This does not mean, however, that an all-out collapse of China is imminent. On the contrary, Shambaugh predicts that this process will be "protracted, messy and violent." China's power elites have already begun sending their families and assets overseas — to the U.S. and other destinations. This development suggests that Chinese elites are abandoning their expectations of a future in their homeland.

Above all, ever since the current Xi Jinping regime began, Xi's war against corruption and massive oppression of regime critics has fissured and divided the ruling class. China is trying desperately to avoid repeating the "mistakes" of perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev in the former Soviet Union.

Predictions of an impending demise of China's Communist regime increased following the Tiananmen Square protests, and again during the Asian financial crisis. The majority of China scholars, however, maintained a more conservative position in order to protect their professional reputations: No one wanted to be wrong. As Shambaugh admits, "others were more cautious — myself included. But times change in China, and so must our analyses."

Then there is Chinese military expert Michael Pillsbury, who gained instant fame for advocating military ties with China in a 1975 article in Foreign Policy. Over the past 40 years, Pillsbury has remained involved in Chinese affairs at the CIA, the Congress and the Pentagon.

He now argues that China's adoption of a low-profile, apparently peaceful, rise over the past 30 years was from the very start nothing but a strategy of deception. According to Pillsbury, this was nothing more than an expedient measure for ensuring that the U.S. maintained a friendly stance toward China while it was in an inferior position. From the time the People's Republic of China was established, Chinese leaders had privately resolved to outrun the U.S. in a "hundred year marathon" that would ultimately return China to the position of dominance that it has historically viewed as its natural place in the world order. "Looking back," Pillsbury admits, "it is painful that I was so gullible."

Next let us hear from yet another "convert" — China-U.S. trade expert William Reinsch. Currently the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, Reinsch served as undersecretary of commerce during the Clinton administration. Within the U.S. government, Reinsch was known as "a dove among the doves" on the subject of Sino-American relations.

In the most recent annual U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report, Reinsch points to the fact that while key figures within the U.S. government have taken the utmost care not to discuss the existential threat posed by China, this is in striking contrast to the anti-American comments and posturing by key figures within the Chinese government.

What is more, "business, labor, numerous nongovernmental organizations and the U.S. government itself are all dissatisfied with aspects of the bilateral relationship — economic, military, and political." Reinsch also writes that "I have always been an optimist about the relationship, but that view is becoming increasingly untenable, as China asserts itself in ways that are inevitably going to bump up against our interests in the region and in multilateral fora. ... It is a real disappointment for me to write these things."

While the various predictions regarding China's expansion or "crack-up" involve quite different forms of risk, the following factors appear to have informed the current wave of dove-to-hawk conversions.

1. While China's "peaceful rise" policy has come to an end, it is not clear what approach Beijing's new "China dream" strategy will adopt toward the outside world, including the U.S.

2. Xi Jinping is increasingly deemed the most autocratic and nationalist leader in the history of modern China. Domestically, he has trampled on human rights, while externally he has pushed China to behave as a major power, in some cases unilaterally trying to change the status quo.

3. China is responsible for 90 percent of cyberattacks on the U.S. This threatens national security and is responsible for an endless series of intellectual property rights violations. American businesses and universities, along with Silicon Valley and the media, are all hardening their view of China.

Doves tend to underestimate China's capabilities and the threat that China poses to the U.S., while hawks tend to overestimate them. Both tendencies are dangerous. The danger of underestimating China is that, when realized, the nation's true capabilities could come as an enormous shock, possibly prompting a dangerous overreaction. This dynamic is already evident in the current conversion of China experts in the U.S. from doves into hawks.

But overestimating China's capabilities and threat may spread fears of the country within the U.S. while feeding China's arrogance and self-identification as a major power. If the current wave of conversions triggers an avalanche, then it is this latter scenario that will likely prove the more dangerous.

Yoichi Funabashi is chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation and former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun. This is a translation of his column in the monthly Bungei Shunju.