re: you don't really believe that China is like any other developing country?
Yes, I do.
Every nation, when they are in the steep middle portion of the S-shaped curve (in between stable poverty and stable wealth), creates a Myth about themselves. This Myth says that there is something inherently superior in their genes or culture, something that inevitably gives them their "place in the sun", something that other countries can't copy. Japan had a very short-lived Myth in the 1980s. The British (and Europeans in general) had their Myth from the 1600s, until WW1 destroyed it. The Romans two millenia ago, and the Greeks centuries before that, had equally powerful Myths. But they are all Myths, as the passage of time eventually shows.
Anything the Chinese are now doing, could be done by the people of Egypt and Haiti and Congo. There are no barriers, except the stupid policies of governments (who, in most poor countries, act as parasites on their societies). And, when those counties finally enter their transition period, from extreme poverty to extreme wealth, then, like China today, they will create their own widely believed Myths about their inherent cultural superiority.
I agree, as does almost everyone, that "Chinese superpower status within a generation is a given." The task for the U.S. is to attempt to channel the exercise of that power into economic and cultural, rather than military, areas. If we fail, the history of the 21st Century will be mostly about the Second Cold War. Or worse. |
