With all the 'China will be the next superpower to overtake the US' being said repeatedly in the media, I can't help but wince. Is this true? I always thought China was particularly unstable due to it's one party system and endemic corruption, however it is in the process of modernizing its military, and has refurbished an old soviet aircraft carrier, habitually hacks and steals western military secrets, and is awash with savings. It has squared up to the Vietnamese, Philippines and claims the entire South China Sea as its own, and it has built a naval base in both Sri Lanka and Karachi, thus being strategically placed around India.
Alot is said for Chinese economic growth, but I don't buy it, apart from some cosmetic change in economic figures, there's no way in which they can be reliable, why would a country who last had a recession, which produced Tienanmen protests, risk such a situation ever again? There has been a few articles which question the liquidity of Chinese banks, and how the government is essentially propping up businesses which don't perform, or loans which don't either.
Contrast this with the US, it's placed with massive debts, two draining wars overseas with not so clear objectives, a terrorist organisation who will for at least a few generations constantly have to be attacked and guarded against, thus pretty much ensuring an active foreign policy for a long long time.
Will China be in a place in the next 30 years to really start challenging US Hegemony? I hope not. But what can we say to the detractors who think otherwise? And why would anyone be cheering a rise of an authoritarian Communist country.