2 men changed the balance of power in the 21st Century

Today we are seeing the world increasingly turning into a bi polar world with an ascending China challenging the dominance of a crumbling American hegemony. To the Americans and their sympathizers, particularly the bananas that did not know who they are and still trying very hard to believe their forefathers came from the West and were really descendants of some John Smith or George Washington, they must all be bewildered by the changing balance and wondering what had gone wrong. How did the world become what it is today when the great USA becomes a nation of debtors and the poorest and unassuming country, Communist China, is their biggest creditor?

To make matters worse, this creditor is not going to go away and will come knocking at the door to collect the debt from the debtor. And no matter what the debtor is trying to do, the debt keeps piling up and sitting on the debtor like a mountain. There is no escape from the weight of the debt.

And everyday, the superiority and advantage of the debtor in every field of endeavour is shifting to favour the creditor, from manufacturing to farming, from consumer goods to weapons, from ships to aircraft, commercial planes to war planes, war ships, transportation, telecommunication, satellites, rocketry, computer and cyber technology, green technology, the creditor is catching up and already better in many fields.

How can it be? In only a short span of one generation, the seemingly unsurpassed superiority of the Americans has been surpassed. Everything the Americans are doing, or have done, the Chinese have bettered or in the process of catching up.

The Americans must be shaking in disbelief, pinching themselves silly asking themselves this is not true. The sad thing is that this is true. The poor illiterate, backward peasants of a poor communist country, plagued by poverty and famine, inefficiency, low education, lack of financial resources and money, lack of talents, scientists, engineers, architects, medical professionals, academics, thinkers and planners, military experts, now they have plenty of them, and damn bloody good ones. There was not a single millionaire in 1980 in China. Today the millionaires are crawling everywhere, with equally many billionaires and some to the riches in the world.

The Americans did not see this coming. It is now history. It is too late to think of containing China and keeping it as a developing nation for another century by all kinds of sanctions, blockages and obstacles placed in its way. The new China is here. Who did it?

Two men, one an American, another a Chinese but not of Chinese nationality did it. The American and the non Chinese Chinese convinced the Americans that it was a good thing to engage China and bring China into the world community, to integrate China with the world instead of making China an enemy. Of course that was real and a good thing, but may not necessarily be good to the American hegemony. The one billion people will rise one day to be the equals of the world. It would be better to work with them and cultivate and build a healthy relationship with this one billion people, to be friends than enemies.

It sounded logical. The Americans also thought so. What harm could it bring to help another nation of people to live better and to live in peace? It would take maybe a century for them to get the act together to rise out of poverty. It was a tough and long process and maybe they might not be able to do it.  These are the same people that were good enough to be coolies, cooks and laundrymen, without very little talent.

Many countries were still struggling to reach the level of wealth of developed countries and many hardly made any real changes, just managing to stand above the poverty level, to join the ranks of developing countries since the end of WW2. A  huge moribund country like China, with one billion hungry and illiterate people would take much more time to sort themselves out of poverty. How to feed a billion people is not a joke.

Who in his right mind could perceive that a poor China that was short of everything except poor people could turn around in 30 years and in 40 years, vying for world dominance with the Americans for world supremacy?  Who would believe the richest nation could owe the poorest nation a ton of debt in a short span of 40 years?

The Americans are in shock and in awe today. Now, how to reverse the trend? The losing trend is just too fast and too hard to swallow. All the defences are up, all the obstacles are raised again, to contain China, to keep it poor or not allowed to get richer, to overtake the richest and most powerful country in the world.

Alas, it is a bit too late. The momentum is so strong that within the next 5 years, China will be Number One in financial terms, the Number One economy in the world.

Two men did it, to change the balance of power of the 21^st Century.