George Friedman While some say they were a superpower, the columns of being a superpower are economic, military, political and cultural - all which must be projected globally. China while being large is a colossus with clay feet with little political influence globally however, economically, they have it however cannot project military strength across the world to protect trading partners and culturally, Hua'r Yuedui 花儿乐队 - Wobu Jieyi Nihenwo 我不介意你恨我 might be a hit in Peking's nightclubs but I highly doubt they are rocking to it in LA, Berlin or London.
China has come a long ways, they now have a prosperous middle class in numbers exceeding the total population of the US. That means China only has about a billion peasant farmers and unskilled laborers living in poverty.
From what I have read other than this report India has the same sort of thing going on. People who were once without anything suddenly have the ability to do better will desire and be able to pay for things such as cars, houses made of wood, furniture etc. All this requires raw materials such as wood, mahogany, metal, gas, oil and will produce environmental problems not to mention enormous problems like soil erosion and black market forest devastation etc. While understanding that we have been the beneficiaries of same in part and, are already there, the sheer numbers of people all wanting the same thing at the same time open the doors for a global catastrophe.
