That, in essence, is where China is now. Until about 1500, China led the world in the sophistication of its culture, economy and society. Since then the Europeans–more recently, the American branch of that many-limbed family–have done so. But the United States is in gradual, if inevitable, decline from the position it had in 1945, when it accounted for fully half of the world’s economic output. And China is in far-from-gradual advance. Short of disaster, it will be the world’s largest economy within a few decades. Along the way, it has almost certainly raised more people from poverty to near prosperity in a shorter time than any society has ever done. Keep that prosperous one-and-a-quarter billion Chinese in mind, with all the goods and services they will produce and consume, and you can see China’s rebirth as a blessing to the world.
China as friend–there’s a comforting thought. But it’s not how China looks right now, as it lobs missiles into the sea, angered by Taiwan’s display of democracy in last week’s election. A friendly China? Not the one that thumbs its nose at America’s pretensions to be an Asian power, even as American warships steam through the Pacific. A China that was merely prickly–that, one could live with. But a China that saw itself as a natural enemy of the United States–that’s another matter.
So: which will it be? No crystal-ball gazing here; just astonishment as the giant wakes, flexes its muscles and, from its army to its sex life, joins the modern world. Nothing like this has ever happened before.
