Quote Originally Posted by Backwards Observer View Post
As far as China's Emergence as a Superpower: The Sequel, my guess is that barring world-crippling, high-stakes kineticism, the US will probably be back to playing at an advantage within a generation or so. Uncritically buying self-generated PR seems to hobble the so-called OODA loop, and China appears to be exhibiting signs of this; a common human failing perhaps. The oft and correctly cited US advantages of intellectual open society and melting-pot dynamics are probably more advanced than anywhere else is going to be for a long while.

The downside might be that Americans seem to derive more pleasure from kicking each other in the balls than anything else. Maybe it's a "fun" thing, I dunno.
I agree that China's time appears to be limited. See Paul Krugman's op ed on the NYT website... there are serious structural economic problems in China that aren't being addressed.

Backwards Observer, I think your last point is important - America has been able to deal with significant changes in the environment precisely because we are able to figure out we were wrong, kick ourselves, and still manage to somehow change policy and move in a positive direction.

Would China's (or most other country's!) leaders be able to mess something up as badly as the US did Iraq, admit they were wrong, and implement unpopular policies to change things for the better?

The real problem is the effect a Chinese downturn would have on the world economy. The US, EU, Japan etc are not recovered to the point where we could deal with such a bump in the road...

V/R,

Cliff