Thread: China to rival US as second megapower

Part of an article at
http://www.americaneconomicalert.com/ne ... ID=2402309



Prof. Victor Bulmer-Thomas said that the swift emergence of China as the second megapower would transform the world's strategic map.

"Just as the world is currently shaped to a large extent by the international priorities of the United States, so it will be shaped to a significant degree by the international priorities of the two megapowers in 2020," he told a blue ribbon audience of British officials and politicians and international diplomats.

China will also seek to curb and to reduce American influence in the Asia-Pacific region, he predicted, using all available non-military tools such as trade deals, soft loans, and strategic investments. He also expected China to demonstrate "a more aggressive approach to the Taiwan issue."
"A period of strategic rivalry between the United States and China while this process is underway can be confidently predicted. However, this is not likely to lead to open conflict," he stressed. "The economic ties between the two countries will be close and each country will have a strong stake in the economic success of the other. There will also be areas of cooperation, notably in tackling proliferation as well as developing and transferring technology to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it is unrealistic to imagine that the United States will not resist strongly the erosion of its privileged status -- particularly when the new megapower is so fundamentally opposed to U.S. values in religion and personal freedom."

Prof. Bulmer-Thomas' prediction that Britain and Europe would have to reconsider their traditional ties to the United States have caused a flurry of concern and speculation in European diplomatic circles, which are still digesting the imminent end of Prime Minister Tony Blair's political career after the Iraq misadventure.

"Both the U.K. and the EU have to recognize that the old idea of a strategic partnership with the United States -- or special relationship in the case of the U.K. -- to solve global problems will not work in a world of two megapowers. It may still be true that most global problems will not have a solution without the United States, but that will also be true of China. A strategic partnership with the United States that ignores China will not be effective, but a strategic partnership with both countries is unrealistic," the Chatham House director added.


My thoughts: Globalizationists may have created situations around the World they never thought about. Guess too many never looked into the future.

To me, it's just one country after another blackmailing each other for what one wants, never what the citizens want.