blondbraintrust

How can the U.S., perhaps with its traditional allies, adjust to a
competitive challenger that has strengths unlike any other that America has
faced? Are the transfers of talent, technology, and capital part of an
inevitable dynamic? Or does the U.S., or any other country, have the power to
shape a future in which everyone prospers?
Americans looking for answers and
action must also find a way to move America's leadership to see China's rise as
every bit as worthy of national attention as the rumblings in more obvious
political hot spots. While all eyes turn to the so-called clash of civilizations
between Islam and the West, China will have the more profound impact on the
world in the long run. And yet, despite occasional misgivings offered in factory
towns and tariffs slapped on imports at the height of campaign season, American
leaders tend to view China's rise as the fulfillment of a free marketer's dream,
where global investors will shepherd the country into wealth, democracy, and
peaceful interdependence with the rest of the free world.
It is a lovely
theory, and it may ultimately be true. There is, however, no evidence upon which
to base such a prediction. Which exactly of the world's large, highly
nationalistic, dictatorial, Communist-capitalist countries offers a historical
analogue? Answer: There is no such country.

# posted by blondbraintrust @ 3:14 PM