Thursday, January 27, 2005
The growing China influence
Of the many competing forecasts of the century now unfolding, all agree that the rise of China will be a central determinant of its course. So great is China's potential that some have prematurely termed this the "Chinese century."
Henry J. Hyde, a US Senator, has analysed the implications in a speech he gave in Hong Kong recently.
"In its scale and speed, in the ambitions of its leaders and hopes of its people, this development is unprecedented," he says. "Far from maturing into a more settled pace of change, the rate appears to be accelerating and broadening as more and more of the country is drawn into the modern world. The process can be compared to the birth of a new and enormous star, its internal temperature soaring as a critical mass rapidly accumulates to the point of ignition, its gravitational waves already beginning to realign the heavens around it.
"Were China a country of modest size, this process would be an interesting, even fascinating, one, with soft ripples of influence confined within nearby horizons. But China is one-fifth of humanity. Its enormity ensures that there can be no insulating boundary between its internal transformation and the world outside. Our attention is focused on the dramatic developments within that country, but we are simultaneously witnessing the emergence of a new and powerful actor on the global stage, one whose actions and decisions will reach deeply into every country on the planet.
"Whether that impact will be positive or negative, cooperative or combative, cannot yet be predicted with any confidence. That will in large part be determined by the evolution of China's political system, which is being pried loose from its moorings by the swirl of the enveloping currents. But the leadership has yet to set a clear course for itself or the country or to identify a safe anchorage.
Of the many competing forecasts of the century now unfolding, all agree that the rise of China will be a central determinant of its course. So great is China's potential that some have prematurely termed this the "Chinese century."
Henry J. Hyde, a US Senator, has analysed the implications in a speech he gave in Hong Kong recently.
"In its scale and speed, in the ambitions of its leaders and hopes of its people, this development is unprecedented," he says. "Far from maturing into a more settled pace of change, the rate appears to be accelerating and broadening as more and more of the country is drawn into the modern world. The process can be compared to the birth of a new and enormous star, its internal temperature soaring as a critical mass rapidly accumulates to the point of ignition, its gravitational waves already beginning to realign the heavens around it.
"Were China a country of modest size, this process would be an interesting, even fascinating, one, with soft ripples of influence confined within nearby horizons. But China is one-fifth of humanity. Its enormity ensures that there can be no insulating boundary between its internal transformation and the world outside. Our attention is focused on the dramatic developments within that country, but we are simultaneously witnessing the emergence of a new and powerful actor on the global stage, one whose actions and decisions will reach deeply into every country on the planet.
"Whether that impact will be positive or negative, cooperative or combative, cannot yet be predicted with any confidence. That will in large part be determined by the evolution of China's political system, which is being pried loose from its moorings by the swirl of the enveloping currents. But the leadership has yet to set a clear course for itself or the country or to identify a safe anchorage.
