A diagrammatic comparison between the ‘bleeding eagle’ and ‘rising dragon’. Such visualizations are becoming commonplace. Indeed, America’s decline seem to be in the forefront of mass media and citizen journalism, but I beg to differ. America still possesses still the largest talent and most diversified pool to get problems fixed, and to think ahead. Whilst China is growing yes, but it is also leaking some of its best once they are exposed to the West’s ‘still-more-appealing’ alternative paradigms of thinking about individuality and statehood.
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China and America: Rising Dragon, Bleeding Eagle
By Anurag Maheshwari
Source – American Thinker, published May 22, 2011
China’s return as a superpower concomitant with rapid American decline is evoking a variety of sentiments around the world. While Latin America, Africa, and Greater Middle-East are largely welcoming this shift in power with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and an aging and dissipated Europe is watching it with bemused anxiety, in America it is causing an epic dilemma.
This dilemma is rooted in the impending demise of America’s reign as the world’s leading economy for last 120 years, the titanic scale and speed of China’s ascendancy, and the vistas and vulnerabilities of Sino-American security and economic intercourse. The international repercussions of this evolving strategic equilibrium are yet to fully unravel until China attains the highest plateau of its power.
To put it in context, consider how rapidly the balance of power between China and America has altered over the last 20 years. At the end of 1991 when Soviet Union had formally dissolved, United States stood as the sole colossus on global stage. Its economy was then 6 times that of China. In 2010, China’s continental economy was 70% that of US, and by 2016 — in 5 years — China (including Hong Kong and Macau) will rush past United States to become the leading economic power. Read the rest of this entry »
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