Overblown announcements heralding the supposed coming of the Age of China have become a staple of journalistic futurism in recent years. When Maclean's magazine banners across the top of its cover "When China Rules the World," as it did last month -- and it is not a Monty Python send-up of swarms of incomprehensible people in Mao suits -- I know it is time to raise a peep of dissent.
Does any of this sound familiar? It was not even 20 years ago that the same was being said about Japan, when U. S. president George H. W. Bush went to Tokyo and was patronized by the Japanese prime minister for being at the head of a declining power. At an official dinner, the president vomited and returned to his embassy in an ambulance (but explained privately that his indigestion was the consequence of eating plain fish while facing Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca for two hours).
Read Full Article »