CHINA'S WEAKNESS THE GREATER DANGER
Samuel A Bleicher
Asia Times, May 13, 2008
China as an "emerging superpower" makes for a compelling story line in the media. It is reinforced by the propaganda image that the current Chinese leadership would like us to accept. But the reality is quite different.
China as an "emerging superpower" makes for a compelling story line in the media. It is reinforced by the propaganda image that the current Chinese leadership would like us to accept. But the reality is quite different.
Although recent events in Tibet and western China, and the central government's response, appear to be generating pro-government patriotic feelings, they dramatically display the practical limits of the government's power. Other sources of unhappiness with the regime, including income disparities and the inevitable collapse of unsustainable price controls on fuel and food, could breed both urban and rural discontent that has no ready outlet besides unlawful opposition to the government.
Meanwhile, the West, in its fixation on its own economic difficulties in comparison to the Chinese "juggernaut", is neglecting to prepare for equally likely "weak China" contingencies. Just as we failed to predict and prepare for the implosion of the Japanese economy and the collapse of the Soviet Union, we appear unready for a dramatic economic and political reversal in China that would be a defining event of the 21st century.
(...) [artículo aquí]
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