Monday, May. 22, 2000 By PAUL BRACKEN
To understand China's role in the world come 2025, it helps to look at the rise of Prussia in the 1870s. It is nearly impossible to imagine a world not led by Western institutions and not dominated by Western values. But China's growing power signifies just such a transition, in much the same way Prussia stripped Britain and France of their leading roles in Europe. The rise of Beijing does not automatically translate into a decline for Washington, but it is a challenge to America's superpower position.
China changes the meaning of being a superpower. At present a superpower is a country with a big economy and global military reach. The word was popularized in the 1960s to fit the U.S., the only holder of the title today. China will have neither the material wealth of the U.S., nor its global military reach. But looking at the rise of China through the narrow framework of numbers of automobiles or Osprey helicopters doesn't come to grips with the country's sources of power. Defining a superpower in terms of economic and military size leaves out the power that comes from being able to upset the system, even when done unintentionally. A new definition of superpower must take account of who can upend an order that has lasted for centuries. On this score, China is a superpower.
With its vast scale, China can upset the global trading rules and security understandings that underwrite the current Western-led system. China's problems with economy, energy and the environment will be the world's problems, because if they are not taken care of, terrible consequences will spill across the map far from China. Perversely, the gap in material wealth and military technology separating China from the West is actually a source of leverage for Beijing. In the West the gap makes China look weak. But the gap actually makes China strong. China has the advantage--the underdog's advantage--that comes from knowing that shutting the country out, trying to hold it down, provokes the resentments the West wants to avoid: resentments that might make Chinese markets hostile to U.S. exporters. When a U.S. bomber accidentally struck China's embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war, protests were heard not just in Beijing but also in other cities around the world. America's image as an overbearing superpower is something the Chinese are only too willing to exploit.
People forget that 500 years ago, China was the world's sole superpower. When many Europeans were living in mud huts and scratching the soil with sticks, China was the greatest economic and military power on earth. A hundred years before Europe began its mastery of Asia and America, China had the biggest and best navy in the world. But for an accident of history, Europe would be speaking Chinese today. China discovered the inventions that would pave the way to world mastery for those who put them to use: the printing press, gunpowder and the magnetic compass. Given this economic, military and technical head start, what happened? Europe, not China, became the world's colonizer and mapmaker. Why did China do so badly in the modern era?
MY COMMENTS
This author's tone as you all can judged by the last sentence is quite biased. Ok, thats not the point. This article is trying to illustrate how China has such a great influence to other countries in the world and as being a 'superpower' country. For example, the recent high inflation rate in many countries and also in Singapore, is affected by China's rising costs agriculture products.Yes, China is unique and 'powerful' in a way that it is able to develop their own culture and ideology to rule China and we have learnt recently that in the past, foreign countries paid tributes to them and stand to gain. All these historical stuff have also played a part in how China develop itself and how we look at it. The comparison of economic development and military power has led me to think that how will China and US relations turn sour and its impact on the world.Labels: posted by ying hua
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