By Ezra
Brad responds to Jeff Faux on China:
In 1877, it was the United States that was the rising superpower across the ocean to the west of the world's industrial and military leader. Today it is China. In 1917 and again in 1941 it was greatly to Britain's benefit that America regarded it as a friend and an ally rather than as a competitor and an enemy. And since 1945 it has been greatly to Britain's benefit that America has regarded it as a trading partner rather than an industrial competitor.
There is a good chance that China is now on the same path to world preeminence that America walked 130 years ago. Come 2047 and again in 2071 and in the years after 2075, America is going to need China. There is nothing more dangerous for America's future national security and nothing more destructive to America's future prosperity than for Chinese schoolchildren to be taught in 2047 and 2071 and 2075 that America tried to keep the Chinese as poor as possible for as long as possible.
This is why I worry when concerns over trade turn into accusations of currency manipulation and when neocons publish Atlantic Monthly cover stories on war with China and make it official US policy that we seek the preservation of the unipolar order. Whether China's internal contradictions will retard or eventually halt the nation's ascent into superpower status is, for now, unknowable. But if the country is able to transcend its growing pains and urban/rural divide and political unrest to emerge a functional, decent, powerful nation, I'd far prefer it viewed America as an ally that sought to open the doors to economic development and broad betterment, not slam them shut for a couple more decades of waning dominance.
