Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), London. A widely published author, his writing on China, Central Asia, terrorism and more can be found at: http://www.raffaellopantucci.com. He is the author of the forthcoming We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Mujahedeen (Hurst/Columbia University Press).
Dr. Alexandros Petersen is the author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West (Praeger: 2011). A scholar of grand strategy and energy geopolitics, he serves as an Advisor to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, but spends most of his time criss-crossing Eurasia.
Sue Anne Tay is a photographer and author of the popular blog ShanghaiStreetStories.com. Her work has been exhibited around Shanghai and published in Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, amongst others. She is also a Vice President for Strategy at a foreign bank in China.
West, west, west, West, west, west, dccreoamy, dccreoamy, freedom of expression; Come on guys stop jumping on the China hate bandwagon! Do you want them to become insular again? And bring the world closer to nuclear war? Because by constantly demeaning Chinese achievements, which are progressing at a rapid rate, you are making an enemy out of a country we can ill afford to fight. Alot of people have to visit China in order to change their perception and educate themselves about modern so called tyranical’ China.
Refan: are you seriously arguing that people be less critical of China to avoid angering it? Doesn’t anything about that strike you as ridiculous? And what does that have to do with visiting China–do you believe that everyone who visits China will have the same perception? This last comment of yours is (hopefully unconsciously) an appropriation of the Party line: only those who don’t understand China will be critical of it.
Dear Refan,
Greetings! I love China and its people.
Yes, China is clearly a growing economic influence and will likely become the world’s economic first in about 20 years. This are all recent developments. In 2010 it became the second world economy when it overtook Japan and experts say in another 20 years it will likely surpass the US economically.
In Africa and Latin America their ecnomic influence has been growing dramatically since the year 2000.
However, they have a lot of maturing to do, because their economic approach is totally pragmatical based on mutual interest. And that could be a problem on occasion from the moral standpoint. Sudan is a good example, but there are others.
at present they cannot, will not, and should not be able to challenge the USA as the world leader even though economic influence certainly buys political influence as well.
Just some food for thought!