China is flexing its military muscle on the international stage as well as threatening America’s global economic supremacy. This challenges the world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War. Totalitarian China is rewriting the rules of the game. 
The guy we’re about to see is one of the most influential foreign affairs commentators in America. He’s a three times Pulitzer Prize winner and he’s got a great house. He’s called Thomas Friedman.
- How much is the rise of China kind of unsettling the world order?
- Well, I think you have to understand, the rise of China is happening, I say this as an American, at a time when we are stagnating. So it’s not just that we are rising, China’s rising, and maybe China’s relatively rising a little faster. I would argue it’s coming at a time when America has never been more paralysed, more at war with itself at home, more stagnating in the areas of infrastructure, education, precisely the areas we see China vaulting ahead on. What’s most unsettling about China to Americans, is not their communism, it’s their capitalism. We see in China, things we used to see in ourselves, can do, get it done, hard work, sacrifice, own the future. Wait a minute. That used to be us. And now we see it in them. If we go weak, your kids won’t just grow up in a different America, they will grow up in a different world. And it’s a world where somebody else will be setting a lot of the rules, and dictating a lot of, you know, who does what, where, when and how. But I know what world I would want my kids to grow up in, and it’s a world where there is a strong America counterbalancing a strong and thriving China, not one where you have a strong and rising China and an America that is at war with itself, uncertain, weak and really unable to project power, economically and militarily, the way it historically did.
There is no question that China’s expansion into the world is transforming not just the global economy, but also the balance of world power. In this epic journey across three continents, I’ve seen how the rise of China is powering extraordinary booms in countries rich in natural resources, and how cheap Chinese goods have driven down living costs for almost everyone on earth. But I’ve also seen the price that is being paid, the environmental damage this rush for resources is wreaking and how it’s undermining local businesses almost everywhere. It seems certain that the 21st century will be China’s century and there is no doubt that the rise of China will profoundly affect all of our lives.

Last Article Next article