WILL CHINA WIN?

The White House meets daily in escalating panic over the economic growth of China. With its rapidly increasing manufacturing might, Beijing is growing into both a political and military power.

To feed its voracious factories, China needs raw materials: oil, natural gas, cement, steel, zinc, copper and many others. Fueling the prosperity of raw materials producers, China has gained economic leverage and political power over a whole host of countries, including Australia, which happily welcomed a recent visit of China's President Hu while giving a cool shoulder to America's George Bush. With great speed, China's raw materials seekers have penetrated Iran (with more than 100 Chinese companies), Nigeria (with energy and infrastructure contractors), Indonesia, Sudan, Iraq and Argentina. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is claiming he can replace the USA with China as his county's dominant oil customer. Many countries in Africa and South America prefer to do business with China because it never pushes human rights and environmental issues with anyone who might have raw materials for sale.

As its trade surplus with the USA has widened, China now possesses more than $700 billion in foreign currency holdings, putting Beijing in a position to threaten the USA with dollar destabilization and recession. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is running around like Chicken Little, claiming that China is a growing into a frightening military threat.

Many pundits and economists say China will become the world's leading economic power by mid-century. Some proclaim 2006 to be the start of the "China Century."

Will China win? Will Beijing confront our grandchildren as the world's sole superpower? Or is China just another Japan, which threatened to bury America in the 1980s, only to collapse into a recession which has lasted more than 16 years?

A study of history suggests that China certainly has the "cultural DNA" to win. Except for the brief blip of the 19th and 20th centuries, China has been the world's dominant economic power for thousands of years. As recently as 1820, China's gross domestic product was 33 percent of the world's GDP, or about the share the USA has today. But by 1905, China's GDP share had shrunk to a mere 5 percent of world’s GDP. Thus, Beijing believes it is simply restoring China to its rightful place in the world.

The theory of China's superior "cultural DNA" is further buttressed by the fact that, for 4000 years, China has produced great and powerful civilizations from the Xia Dynasty (2000 BC) to the Ming Dynasty (1368 AD) which prospered well into the 18th Century. During those 4000 years, China has led the world in creating culture (Confucianism, literature, poetry and art), inventions (silk, block printing, gunpowder, bronze), trade (the "silk road" to Venice, sea lanes to Italy) and government (the first successful civil service system).

In 1492, "Columbus sailed the ocean blue" with three tiny boats and a crew of 85 men. But in 1403, Chinese Admiral Zheng led a naval expedition of 400 ships and 35,000 men down the coast of China all the way to the Middle East. Columbus's flagship was less than 60 feet long and contained three masts. Zheng's flagship was 440 feet long, boasted 14 masts and could carry 1000 passengers and cargo.

At the peak of his power, Zheng commanded 137,000 men and a navy which dwarfed the combined navies of Europe. China's 15th Century navy mapped the coasts of China, India, the Middle East and Africa, demanding tribute from 29 different countries along the way. Some now claim Zheng discovered America as well. All of which suggests Mr. Rumsfeld has reason to fear restoration of Chinese military power -- a military strength which might exceed Europe's capabilities by 2025.

Granted, China has the cultural DNA to produce great and powerful civilizations. But we should inquire further. What else is embedded in China's DNA?

While Chinese history shows the genes of greatness, it also shows a few nasty genes as well. Genes which, for 4000 years, have projected behavioral tendencies of isolation, stagnation, corruption, repression, rebellion and collapse.

▪ The Qin Dynasty (2021 BC) expanded China's boundaries, projected great military power and connected four northern regional walls into "the Great Wall." But Qin was torn apart in less than 15 years by civil war.

▪ The Yuan Dynasty (1287 AD) of Mongol Kublai Khan lasted just 82 years before being overthrown by a rural peasant revolt.

▪ The Xin Dynasty (9 AD) interrupted the powerful Han Dynasty, but lasted just 15 years.

▪ From 420 AD to 588 AD, China was ruled by nine separate dynasties until it was reunited by the Sui Dynasty (581 AD), which lasted just 36 years before being crushed by revolts, palace disloyalty and assassinations.

▪ The Republic of China (1911) lasted only 38 years before falling to Mao Zedong's rural revolt.

▪ Most important: During 1600 years of China's 4000-year history, the country was splintered and ruled by competing warlords.

The current Communist government has endured for only 57 years. Will China's bad gene pool emerge to destroy it?

It could happen.

China's historical dragons are still very much alive.

Rural unrest has led to tens of thousands of confrontations and mini-rebellions during 2005. As the gap between wealthy and poor grows larger, the spark gap becomes ever more dangerous. A UN study warns that China is at the flash point for a massive upheaval. A major revolt could produce new peasant revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and the rustic rebels who overthrew many of China's great dynasties.

Corruption is rampant in state-run industries as well as in the free market sectors of manufacturing and banking. China estimates that 4000 white-collar criminals have looted China of $50 billion. The erring boys have taken their money and run ... most of them to the USA, according to Chinese officials. One has been caught and extradited to China. Two have been captured, up to their old tricks in the USA. Both have been tried, convicted and sentenced to long prison terms

Foreign wars are looming. China may get into a war with Japan over the oil-rich ocean areas lying between the two countries. Disputes over Taiwan could put China at sword points with the USA. Within a few years, China will be confronting both the USA and India over oil supplies, with all three nations being forced to import two-thirds of their oil and natural gas. Wars have erupted over far less.

Overpopulation may prevent China's impressive economic engine from providing improved living standards for its more than 600 million rural inhabitants, increasing economic instability and the possibility of revolt.

Environmental degradation in the forms of air and water pollution are now so severe that 700 million people breathe deadly air, and at least 300 million have no access to clean drinking water. These are conditions which, when added to economic stress, can cause unrest and rebellion.

The widespread breakdown of rural health services could cause China to become a major breeding ground for disease. China showed a poor ability to control SARS, which fortunately exhausted itself and died. The outbreak of bird flu is even more threatening because it is carried by migratory birds, which know no borders. Again a greater proportion of deaths in China has been blamed by the government on "poor response."

Because of desertification and rapidly falling water tables, China is in danger of running out of water. A thirsty population is a rebellious population, and even the Eastern cities are not immune to this danger.

Finally, China faces an increasing food shortage. With 21 percent of the world's population, China boasts only 7 percent of the arable land.

So, what's the answer? Does China win or lose in its race to superpower status?

History says that China was a rising nation during one-third of its history, a decaying state for one-third of its history and a splintered nation for the remaining third. But keep in mind that history is messy. Some dynasties collapsed at the apparent height of their power. Others went out of business more gradually.

Right now, it appears to be a coin toss. Heads for superpower status, tails for collapse.

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