The Sleeping Giant Awakes

It has been some two hundred and four years since Napoleon made his famous prediction of China (1803) and it seems that it has come to fruition. The People's Republic of China (which shall simply be referred to as China here) has gone from being a Maoist backwater, scarcely able to feed its population, to the fastest growing major economy in the world.

Production of wheat from 1961-2004. Data from FAO, year 2005. Y-axis : Production in Metric ton.

And it is a threat to the United States of America.

China has for a long time had the most people of any of Earth's countries. In fact, its current one fifth of the global population is actually a decrease from its traditional one fourth of all people on the planet. However, this marginal decline in population, in and of itself, does not remove China's potential to surpass America in power--1.3 billion is still over four times America's .3 billion. Other aspects of Chinese population will be mentioned later.

China also has one of the largest countries in terms of area. If disputed territories under Chinese control are considered, China is slightly larger than the United States, and even without them, is very close in size to America. Being so massive, it is unsurprising that China has plenty of natural resources to help fuel their economic--and military--machines, along with their labor force.

China is also rapidly building up its military, increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to military funding even as that GDP itself grows by leaps and bounds. Though still a long way off from being able to challenge the American Armed Forces, or even countries such as the Russian Federation, China is steadily making its military more and more capable of eventually rivaling their American counterpart. Indeed, in cyberspace, government hackers already are matched with their American equivalents. And China's recent shooting down an aging satellite shows that it is making progress with both the distance its missiles can travel along with their accuracy.

However, a Chinese Century or even China as a superpower, much less the unipolar superpower, is not a definite thing. Number one: its population. China's population, because of its draconian one-child policy, is declining. However, the population is also aging--more and more Chinese are getting older and older, and there aren't as many young Chinese to service them. Furthermore, due to cultural issues, China's gender balance is becoming lopsided, with a prevalence of males. This could lead to societal unrest, and while this could be staunched by drafting men into the military and then waging a military campaign, that is not without risk, either.

And then there is the fact that China has a relatively free economy, but does not have a free political or religious system. Many have surmised that this dual way of functioning will not last in the long run. If the Chinese government falls, then the entire country will fall into anarchy. And if the economy falls, the entire country will fall into anarchy.

China should not count its eggs before they hatch.