The letter to the right
appeared in Newsweek (July 4, 2005)
in response to Zakaria's commentary (May 9, 2005) on China's rise
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China's Rise.
Zakaria's evaluation of China's rise (Newsweek May 9 2005) may seem
optimistic to some, but I feel its predictions are actually on the shy side.
At the beginning of the 20-th century Europe's economy still was much
larger than America's. At the end both were roughly equal, each about 30%
of the world's. In the 21st century, China is set to rise even faster than the US in
the 20th, starting from a lower relative output per capita and almost twice
the population of Europe and America combined. Ignoring the possibility of
unexpected disasters, within a few decades China will economically
surpass not only all individual Western nations but the entire West. And the
resulting new world order won't even be that new! Zakaria's limited history
window of 400 years is too short to show that for many centuries China had
the economically, technologically, and culturally most advanced society on
Earth, far ahead of Europe's. Just look at Marco Polo's tales of far east wealth
(in the 13th century) and fundamental Chinese inventions like paper, bookprint,
gunpowder, the compass, rockets, calculation tools, etc. China's current rise is
just going to re-establish its traditional role.
-JS
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Revisiting the Empire.
Your article "American Terminator" (Issues 2004) claims that the British
Empire accounted for less than 10 percent of global production (compared
with 30 percent for the United States today). This may have been true
in the empire's final days. But there was a time when it boasted about
75 percent of the world's industrial output. After all, the Industrial
Revolution originated in Britain. As for total output, both the former
United Kingdom and the present United States are little fish compared
with the unmatched Mongolian Empire, which presumably included more than
half of humanity, including the two most advanced economies: China and
the Arab world. Empires come and go. So does hype. Who remembers that
just 25 years ago Tokyo boasted the world's biggest stock market and the
richest businessmen, and Japan was considered the land of the future?
-JS
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The somewhat related letter to the left earlier appeared in
Newsweek (May 29, 2004)
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