Tuesday, January 25, 2011

What Are the Terms of This Debate?

Much of the discussion of China assumes that China will surpass us in power and challenge our global dominance. Optimists believe China will evolve to be a responsible partner defending the global system we have built. This article argues that China is set for a fall:

[We] in the West see a China that by all measures is becoming stronger and stronger, not realizing that it is also becoming more and more brittle. The Soviet regime, when it fell, went out with a whimper. China’s will more likely go out with a bang. No regime can contain the grievances of a billion people for long.

I tend to think that their fall is more likely than our fall from dominance.

But when we speak of the fall of China, we have to define what that means. If the Chinese regime falls, does another regime rise in its place from the ashes? Whether free or not?

Or is "China" more of a geographic term than a political description?

And if the former, the fall of "China" could make all of the predictions about China's future come true:

In a country the size and complexity of a continent, many futures are possible.

We debate the future of "China" as if it is a country. Is that the right way to analyze China?