You brought up some interest points. All cultures or races go throught different phases in there development some did thing ahead of other and some are slower than others. Let's look at America period started as a small nation then did some adventure out in the west and got more land. Then it use free labor to built it economy(slaves). Then a civil war then came World War 1 and World War 2 that when US step up its game and never been the same. The US at one time was isolated for short time.This is just a short example of development of a nation. Look at history and you will see this with all kingdom, empires, and nations etc. It all boil down to thats just way it is. THE HUMAN RACE. My point is that every nation that developed to a point have to make this decision.
How true. During the sixty plus years of my lifetime, my country has changed a great deal, mostly for the better but not always (a personal opinion). It would seem reasonable that it will continue to change as we Americans continue to pursue our best ideals while trying to deal with the legacies of the past. We are all born into a world that we did not create and must deal with the world that we find.
But the issue we are most concerned with on this topic is China’s emergence as a great world power, which should be the natural development of its size and the dynamic nature of its people. Good for them. So what is the problem?
Well the problem is not unique to or specific to China but includes the whole world and everbody living within it. With seven billion people in the world and that number only rising, and if the health and prosperity of the world’s peoples are too continue to increase, a new level of cooperation between different countries, races, religions, and economies will have to achieved that has never been seen before in the world’s history. If we (all of us) fail to provide a reasonable pathway for new emerging economic, political, and military powers to advance and their people to fulfill themselves there will be conflict and possible disaster.
What makes China's unique as compared to other advancing countries is that it is rising so fast and that it is so big. Event in the best of worlds that alone would cause disruption but there is a more important problem. The problem is the way China see’s what its place in the world should be and what prerogatives it thinks comes with its new higher status. That is where the disconnect currently is.
I have a fairly recent example of a similar event but on a much, much smaller scale. When South Korea emerged as a formidable economic powerhouse not that long ago, it found that many of the trade rules it had prospered by and helped it advance to its fast rise were changed. Its first reaction was that the rest of the world, especially the US wasacting unfairly trying to hold it back from succeeding too much. It took them some time to understand that the things that were changed were the removal of economic sweeteners that were first put in to place specifically to help South Korea to build up its industrial economy and that as it advance from a poor weak country, to one of the first rank, the trade rules needed to be readjusted to an level standing as between equals. They protested at first but eventually understood that with increased power came with it increased responsibility, including responability to the economic system that helped them advance and now they are doing very well without the sweeteners. But Korea took a longer time to rise and is much smaller player than China and they never had the power to challenge the fundamentals of the world trading system and yes it is a system.
If the world it to continue to advance(as we all hope it will) and if there is to be peaceful place the whole world will have to come to a much better agreement as to what are acceptable forms of competition and what methods are acceptable to be use in pursuing them, though cooperation is essential, competition will never go away but it must be managed. That common agreement is yet to be forged and to forge it everyone will have to change something in the way that they act. What we are doing right here on this thread, is just a part of the process of reaching for those things that we can all agree upon. Each of us is promoting their views, trying to convince the others that their intended path it the one that leads to a better world. Otherwise why do it?