China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)

[tequila]

In 50 years, I think the industrialization and economic rise of China will be looked back on as the world-historical event of our lifetime - far surpassing the Iraq War or 9/11 or the GWOT - on par with the industrial rise of continental Europe and the United States from 1865-1912.

[LawVol]

Food for thought on China's rise:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/c...?story_id=3719

I'm not completely convinced that China is the same threat as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was at one time. I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared, I just don't think the sky is falling.

[tequila]

I agree that they are not a genuine military threat as those other powers were.

[goesh]

I hope you guys are right but if you were the bosses over there, what in the he** would you do with 1.3+ billion people? Our DNA that makes us tribal pretty much dictates expansion and control of land/resources. I still say they are going to start building carriers and projecting force into the sea lanes and no amount of intelligent, researched reasoning and analysis is going to make me think to the contrary. They remind me of Wal-Mart heavily armed and I'm not yet conditioning my grandchildren to liking chop sooey, but we as a nation better be on our toes and get some things turned around. China doesn't have the immigration problem we have nor the Islamic fundamentalist problem we have. When the latter flares up on them and there are rumblings to that affect already, they have a proven model and recourse of action, Tibet, that they will employ without any compunction and they won't spend a cent on grooming perceptions, images and spin over their actions . World opinion be damned. Blowing up mosques and shooting any and all curfew violators will do wonders in convincing the ummah in any pocket of unrest to follow the Chinese party line. Nor will they ever be burdened with the Entitlement mind-set the West has and the counter productive burden it imposes. An old Circuit Court Judge once told me, " everyone has so much freedom, nobody has any freedom any more". Their criminals don't live better than their victims and that mind set is most conducive to economic, political and military dominance IMO.