The Rise of a Fierce Yet Fragile Superpower

As long as China contents to be solidly as America 's slave labor status - - - the world is OK.
The problem is America can not forever sustain its trade deficit at the tune of 60 billions dollar per month. Currently the US economy depends on its citizens to spend - spend - spend with borrow money - the trouble is the American consumers can no longer borrow any more money... So what give???

There is no need to repeat what is common knowledge that China has a 10,000 years of civilization; we Chinese have been here long before the USA was founded in 1774. We know what is right and best for China. Western powers sacked China is the days of the opium trade that ravaged China for a couple of hundred years; but today China is whole again; all through the wisdom of our leaders.

In all developing nations their leaders stick to power like banacles and will not let go, but China has for the last three leaderships has achieved seamless and peaceful change; this is what endures for the nation, the mechenism of change of leadership. All those countries that the USA touts as democratic are mere dictatorship. CHINA IS A TRUE DEMOCRACY; forget about that bulshit of Freedom of expression because it does not exist even in the USA.

Yes it is true but soon it will not be true anymore; that China has corruption as its biggest problem. China has realised that there has to be delegation of powers because she is too huge for a clutchful of bureaucrats to manage, therefore China has for the first time since communist leadership, to set for the election of their parliament among their own leaders. In a Communist Party of China of 20 million members, the Party will find legitimate and sufficient representation among their membership to claim to represent the whole spectrum of views of their people. The USA and their people and especially the USA Press has hoped and prayed that China will splinter into a million pieces but no such luck; CVhina will thrive.

As for attacking China don't even think of it ; we are prepared. China cannot be conquered, Iraq has shown that no military power can win a war in these modern day. We are too well armed and prepared to worry about the USA. The USA will be driven out of Iraq with their tails between their legs. The next theatre of possible conflict will be in Central Asia and Africa. In both these areas of possible conflict China has the edge over the USA. Let us see what develops.

I love my country China.

Regarding China and Chinese, a famous Chinese writer Lin Yu Tang wrote a book name "my coutry and my people", which revealed the deepest cutural and value of Chinese people - love peace, harmony and nature.

Read my four comments below and compare them with what Fareed Zakaria has written in the current issue of Newsweek. Come to your own conclusions. I say Mr. Zakaria doesn't truly understand anything about China, as he is limited by his linguistic, cultural and empirical limitations.

So the kind of Chinese "racism" he is talking about is fundamentally different from the kind of true racism practiced by Western powers when they invaded China and then relegated the Chinese people into their roles as second-class citizens in their own land.

These Western nations enforced their own laws on Chinese soil through the use of unequal treaties and the provisions of the rights of extraterritoriality in Western enclaves called "Concessions." China???s rejection of the guizi is more like the victims' rejection of the bogeymen, while Western and Japanese racism against China has been predatory, vicious, aggressive and unrelenting.

For the likes of emu and the rest to use the word "racism" to describe two vastly different entities merely shows his lack of understanding of that part of our unfortunate history.

That's also why Japan's denials of any wartime wrongdoing are so provocatively demeaning to her war victims in and out of China. Mark Felton's book gave a concise account of how evil this little nation was and is likely to be if people the world over don't watch her closely.

As a matter of fact if you would just think: why did the South Korean president single out Japan when he said during V-60 celebrations in 2005 that it was Korea's misfortune to be Japan's -- and not China???s -- neighbor even though South Korea had also fought a war against China too from 1950-3?

The answer lies in the fact that the Chinese never mistreated the Koreans in the years 1950-3 when they were in the Korean peninsula fighting the Americans and their allies, and they had actually withdrawn all their troops from the North in 1958 after the completion of their post-war assignments.

Now that China has regained her confidence thanks to Mao and his associates, her people can afford to be more open in their demeanor. That's why the Beijing Olympics will be a magnificent opportunity for the Chinese people to demonstrate their natural friendliness.

Remember: China had become such a big and populous country because traditionally its civilization had always emphasized genuine friendliness towards outsiders before the Western colonialists arrived in East Asia beginning in the 19th century.

China's population of 1.32 billion is the best material evidence that a drop of honey had attracted many peoples to acculturate into its friendly culture, bearing fruit and multiplying even today.

Just as a coin always has two sides, a man as great as Qin Zi Huang (First Emperor of China) did make some mistakes, amongst which burying the scholars was one of the more serious. It gave his critics a handle to shame him into oblivion, almost to the point of obliterating his greatest feats.

Modern-day European leaders have always been envious of their Chinese counterparts because even though they have the semblance of one economic bloc in the EU, they have found it truly difficult to reach a consensus on the use of one official language and to tackle the socioeconomic problems of the entire European continent under one administration.

The closest that Western Europe ever came close to political unification was during the time of Charlemagne who was born in the middle of the 8th century A.D.

It is easy to remember this man because he was crowned emperor by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800, at the time of his decision to revive the Romanesque polity in the name of the Holy Roman Empire.

As king of the Franks, he incorporated into his rule Italy and many parts of Western and Central Europe. He encouraged a revival of the arts, religion, and culture, and so nowadays people tend to connect him with the "Carolingian Renaissance."

I can assure you that the kind of pride the Chinese people have today is quite different from the kind that ???goes before destruction.??? I think we do have the right to be proud of our achievements since the Revolution, especially since what transpired during the century of humiliation stood in such stark contrast with the glorious traditions to which our forefathers had grown accustomed.

So this contrast between what we had owned previous to the nineteenth century, and what we had lost between then and the establsihment of the PRC, was too painful for most of us to contemplate, and that???s why you're witnessing all this prideful determination of the Chinese nation to regain primacy in the world and to revive our civilization.

China is not only a country, she is also a civilization unto herself. To preserve and expand on her cultural achievements is our highest priority.

That's why foreign nations shouldn't have this inordinate fear of us -- it is actually part of the propagandist machinations of neo-imperialist countries to cry wolf preemptively in order to drag our name in the mud. The country has fourteen international boundaries, so it is natural and reasonable for her to raise an army that can defend these borders.

I feel very disadppointed about your attitude towards china's rise. It is true that it seems like a "miracle" or kind of treatening thing, but if you truely understand what our chinese people have suffered, you will never doubt that we are peace-loving peopel. We china got many people to "feed". we have no intention or energy to care about other thing.

Chinese people have a great ambition to rule the world. Firstly, it aims at ruling Eastern Asia countries and its neighbouring countries such as: Vietnam, Mongolia, Myanmar, Laos...the other ASEAN countries such as: Philippines, Indonesia,... At present, China is threatening to Vietnam's, Philippines's security by claiming that it own Spartly and Paracel Islands. This is unable to be acceptable by Vietnam. Because these Islands have been always belong to Vietnam and it has not been belong to China. China has done as a act of invasition to Vietnam. China is threatening to ASIA. Vienamese shall always do its best in the future to gain Vietnam's territory which China has stolen.

The author has compiled its cognizent views superbly.

The author has compiled its cognizent views superbly.

Glad to see this objective comment on China's change in the past. China's peaceful growth is inevitable, and at the same time not unexpected--any country is striving for development, for better living standard for its people, for a better standing in the stage of the whole world, for its power to speak and many other things. Consequently, it is not against the will of God.

However, it is a matter of fact, we have witnessed competition in the process of every country's struggling for a brighter future, and that has become even fiercer. Just this fiercer competition makes some countries see no friend of China, instead, they see only enemy. Why not we play the game of growth under the guidance of the same world order? It's for the bigger good for the whole.

I read Zakaria's article and found it to be a high-quality piece of reporting. I also went through all the reader comments and found them to be well-intentioned and insightful. Yes, people are interested in debating what China's rise means for the rest of the world because in many ways it has something to do with almost everyone. I agree with someone who said that China's rise is one of the most important events in the past 100 years.

As a Chinese, I think China's rise is no threat to anyone else, but an opportunity businesses around the world can bank on. My corporate experience has demonstrated this. China has now become the word's #2 or #3 market for all the 3 Fortune 100 companies and the growth is still on track (20% growth is norm for most industries for MNCs.) Sooner or later, China will be an even bigger market than the US for many manufacturered products, if not for many service products. The world has to base their strategy on this trend to avoid making any mistakes.