CHINAwatch

Is China "hijacking" Hollywood?

Live TV panel discussion with CNN News18 of India on 19 March, 2021

Or is it due to China’s millennials, Generation Z leading nation away from Hollywood films, American culture, US brands, thanks to rising consciousness of nationalism and individuality, according to an article of 20 March, 2021 in the South China Morning Post. China' mirror image of "Captain America" and other icons of American heroes come to mind. 

Why the world needs China

Keynote presentation by Cyrus Janssen, an American digital entrepreneur living in China, at Thompson River University, Canada, on 21 November, 2020. For those who think that (a) "There is no freedom in China" (b) "There is no safety in China" (3) "China is the biggest threat to democracy" (4) "China is trying to take over the world", the video clip may be an eye-opener. 

The above also resonates with my earlier piece on World Strategic Insights - The New China Scare - Why America Shouldn’t Panic About Its Latest Challenger

China Has Two Paths to Global Domination

The above article appeared in Foreign Policy dated 22 May, 2020. It's penned by Hal Brands, Henry A. Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and Jake Sullivan, nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a deputy assistant to President Barack Obama and national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2013 to 2014. 

The article argues that there are two paths whereby China could be seeking global domination.

One is a regional path by achieving primacy in the Western Pacific, similar to invocation of the Monroe Doctrine by a rising United States during early to mid 19th century.

The other path is more complex and sweeping. It consists of "building a new Chinese-led security and economic order across the Eurasian land mass and Indian Ocean, while establishing Chinese centrality in global institutions." The example quoted is China's Belt and Road Initiative with a "Digital Silk Road" component. The endgame is to convert pervading economic and technological advantage into global geopolitical dominance, including gravitas in international institutions such as the United Nations. 

The authors point out that the two paths are not mutually exclusive. The analysis is to debunk any naivety that that blocking China's advances in the Western Pacific would be sufficient to thwart China's design for hegemony. 

This is part of a continuing stream of US top-ranked researchers and opinion-formers reinforcing a pervasive sense of the "China Scare", reminiscent of the "Red Scare" at the height of the old Cold War.

Other eminent scholars and influential thinkers include Michael Pillsbury's "The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower" (2015), Graham Allison's "Destined for War - Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap" (2017), and Robert Spalding's "Stealth War: How China Took Over while America's Elite Slept" (2019).

What this Foreign Policy analysis of the perceived "China Threat" is intuitively correct. Yet, the authors fail to ask whether China really wants to dominate the world, with all the obligations, costs and pushback implied, and whether its realistic trajectory lies in upholding multilateralism in a global "community of common destiny".

The authors' reference to China's single new military base in Djibouti as an example of a design to build a global network of military bases to rival the United States is hardly convincing, bearing in mind the latter has some 800 military bases in 70 countries and territories. Let's not forget also that Djibouti is a special strategic energy transit choke point which has long hosted similar military bases of the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and, possibly soon, Saudi Arabia and India. 

What is perceived as China's aggression or assertiveness may also be understood as China's response to perceived treat to its own security.

For example, apart from territorial disputes, the South China Sea is China's critical conduit for economic survival - trade, energy and other resource imports - which seems increasingly challenged by US military "encirclement" through bases in the so-called "first" and "second" island chains stretching from Okinawa, Guam and beyond. 

The question should also be asked whether China's Rise is a legitimate struggle of a proud, ancient civilization which has held sway for many more centuries in the past than the recent few under the thumbs of foreign aggressors. 

In other ways, the world would benefit from a deeper understanding of what China has to contend with and what the country has now become. For starters, a new two-part National Geographic video documentary China from Above: The Future is Now may serve as an appetizer. Click here and here .

New Money: The Greatest Wealth Creation Event in History (2019) - Full Documentary

While many would disregard it as one-sided sales pitch overtaken by the Coronavirus crisis, Stanberry Research's 30 July, 2019 documentary on exciting opportunities in China remains neverthless an educative peep into what China may become in coming decades. 

China's Greater Bay Area embraces fintech and supports Macao's bid to become China's offshore RMB-denominated NASDAQ

A speech (in Chinese) of 12 October, 2019 by the Party Secretary of Guangdong's Provincial Financial Supervision Bureau reveals the extent of economic and technological transformation of the dynamic Greater Bay Area. Of note is the rise of fintech and the support of Macao's bid to become China's offshore NASDA. 

Following are the salient points - 

(1) Guangdong's traditional strength lies in its 500 "specialization townships" producing special products for the entire world, e.g. Guzhen produces 80% of the world's lighting products; Xiaolan 70% of the world's lock cylinders; Xintang, 70% of the world's jeans etc;

(2) Transsion Holdings' best-selling smart phones account for 48% of Africa's entire market;

(3) Now the province is advancing towards Innovation and High Technology, including finance applications; 

(4) Regardless of quality, filed patent applications in 2017 reached 176,000, 16 times New York, 8 times Tokyo, and 5 times San Francisco;

(5) Blockchain technology enables accumulated commercial credits for SMEs to obtain bank credits on strength of secured orders without collaterals;

(6) Guangdong's 600 listed companies represent only 1.3% of the province's 45,000 national-level high-and-new technology enterprises. The sky is the limit for IPO's. A tailored-made application has been submitted to Beijing to promote Macao as China's offshore RMB-denominated NASDAG; 

(7) A Guangzhou Futures Exchange is expected by year-end, embracing Green Bonds in light of EU's  mandated requirements for Green Belt and Road Projects; 

(8) The Greater Bay Area has a population of 77 million, among the world's youngest population with per capita GDP of US$20,000, within the range for advanced countries, a dynamo amongst consumer markets worldwide, driven by 5G and short video clips; 

(9) Fintech is embraced in cross-border finance. A three-year-old WeBank has reached RMB 3 trillion in loan books, with 150 million subscribers. 70% are blue-collar workers, 37% without any credit records. Average loan amount RMB 8,000 and average interest only RMB 100 for 90% of the loans. Loans below RMB 300,000 are approved on the same day. Driven by blockchain, the Bank has 2,000 staff - half are technologists;

(10) With nearly 100,000 technologists, Ping An Technology owns 1,700 world fintech patents, including world's No. 1 position in Voiceprint Recognition, Facial Recognition, Machine Reading Comprehension, AI Music Composition etc, ahead of the U.S.

 

US trade talk takes aim at "Made in China 2025"

Quoting the New York Times, W.H. Lo of Bastillepost.com, an online Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong, outlines in an article of 24 May, 2019 the following Eight Demands of the Unites States in trade talks with China: 

(a) China to reduce $100 billion trade deficit with the US within one year, and another $100 billion the following year;

(b) Stop subsidising the advanced technologies outlined in "Made in China 2025";

(c) Accept US restrictions against "Made in China 2025" potential imports;

(d) Implement direct and verifiable anti-cyberespionage measures against intrusions into US commercial assets;

(e) Reinforce Intellectual Property protection;

(f) Accept US restrictions on investments in "sensitive" technologies and waive any right for retaliatory measures;

(g) Lower average Chinese tariffs of 10% to 3.5% in line with US average tariffs;

(h) Open up the services and agriculture sectors.

Part of US tariffs are to remain subject to quarterly joint assessments of implementation. 

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As the article rightly points out, these demands are primarily geared to retarding China's technological advances, with particular reference to "Made in China 2025". The latter is a flagship strategy underpinning the China Dream of becoming a strong world power. These demands coincide with a pletora of US measures in recent weeks targeting Huawei, China's tech giant, other Chinese tech firms, admissions of Chinese students to US elite universities, and even exchanges in academic research. 

As US anti-China coercion mounts across the board, it is not surprising why President Xi balked at signing off something reminiscent of China's past "unequal treaties" during the nation's "Century of Humiliation". It's also instructive that President Xi calls for a New Long March to prepare for a protracted war on all fronts in a fraught trajectory towards realizing the China Dream. 

Further reading and references 

For more on the trade war, please visit Why the US-China trade war broke down and what's behind it all? and Op-ed in the South China Morning Post. 

The Economist (Printed Edition 18 May, 2019) runs a Special Report "China v America: A New Kind of Cold War offering further details and perspectives on this epochal confrontation.

Its subsequent edition (25 May) features a leader Big tech and the trade war highlighting the threat to investors, consumers and American interests. However, it doesn't focus on how the war over 5G may pan out. For this, you may wish to read the collection of references in How the US chooses to lose the race on 5G and the South China Morning Post article of 26 May on the US iron curtain against China's tech advances.

China Reinvests Itself but is unlikely to displace American global leadership

A six-part China Central Television (CCTV) documentary (Chinese language), first aired nationwide in January 2018, features some of the nation's jaw-dropping breakthroughs in digitization, new energies, manufacturing technologies, life sciences, space and sea explorations, and a confluence of game-changing innovations suggestive of a Rising China. The commentary soundtrack was dubbed from the voice of a deceased famed broadcaster using artificial intelligence. 

Episode One -    Information Technology, New Energies, Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Aerospace and Ocean Exploration

Episode Two -    A far-reaching revolution to capture the immense possibilities of Nature's energies

Episode Three - Game-changing manufacturing technologies including bendable ultra-thin glass panels, wide-body aircraft, super-high-precision machine tools,  world's tallest cranes, individualized 3-D printing

Episode Four  - Overcoming the challenges of aging, deceases, and death, including super-agricultural products and innovative foodstuffs 

Episode Five  -  Exploring the depths of space and the oceans 

Episode Six   -  A rising tide of transformative technologies including the world's most powerful space telescope, micro-lighting, genetic sequencing, ultra-high speed rail, suggestive of the rise and reinvention of an ancient nation driven by the innovation of every team, every project and every city. 

A glimpse of China's prowess in applied innovation and technology is embedded in my January 2018 feature article (starting from middle of third column, p. 37) of The Global Analyst, an Indian business journal, drawing on Chinese Business - Landscapes and Strategies, London and New York: Routledge, 2018.

Examples include the world's first quantum science computer, most technologically-advanced ship elevator, world's largest gene pool, and most powerful astronomical radio telescope. These are driven by the world's largest R & D personnel, numbering 3.247 million in 2012, 29.2% of the world total, drawn from some 7 million university graduates with 30,000 doctorates a year. The number of engineering graduates is seven times higher than in the USA. Supported these projects are the rise of China's patent-filing to 928,177 in 2014, ahead of the United States at 578,802 and Japan at 325,989. 

Another dimension of Chian's global heft is its worldwide connectivity. My August 2017 PowerPoint presentation details how the Middle Kingdom manages to connect the world.

According to a South China Morning Post article of 15 April, 2018 by David Dodwell, compared with the United States, China has become by far the more important market for imports and exports for the world's top 20 economies. This relative dependence is even more pronounced in the case of APEC Members.  Download Importance of China's economy compared with US

The above startling developments have fed into a rising frenzy that China is set to displace America in leading a regional, if not global, order. They have also led to intellectual debate in the West struggling to make sense of President Xi's worldview that drives China's trajectory in a "New Era". Click here

China still faces many herculean obstacles both internally and externally. Why China will not usurp American leadership anytime soon is outlined by Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye, former US assistant secretary of defense and chairman of the US National Intelligence Council, in his Project Syndicate article of 9 April, 2018.

China will struggle to close the capability gaps with the United States, thanks to its declining and aging demographics, continuing dependence on imported energy, American cutting-edge technologies, preeminent universities, predominant role of the dollar, a rich landmass strategically guarded by two oceans, and American alliances with many advanced countries integrated with creative talents in the liberal world. Hence, according to Professor Nye, America's global leadership is likely to endure long after the Trump years.

What can we expect in China in 2018?

An in-depth, across-the-board Mckinsey report dated December 2017 by director emeritus and senior external adviser Gordon Orr offers the following insights - 

International expansion 

• Focus on Manufacturing 2025 sectors and Internet-enabled strategic businesses, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things, including computers, aviation, and automotive to wealth management, healthcare, tourism, education, gaming.
• With political push-back in the United States, Brazil, Japan, UK, Israel and Scandinavia show signs of increasing interests. 
• Belt and Road projects -  more scrutiny, potential delays but also more projects under way. Focus more on what business opportunities would result than on gaining a slice of the construction work.
• China to grow global soft-power by investing more in Confucius Institutes at universities, in international media projection on traditional TV and online,  and through overseas development-aid (e.g. largest recipient Cuba). 

Domestic centralisation & control

• From punishment of irregularities to much clearer and complete set of regulations on wealth management, insurance and online financial services, minimising regulatory arbitrage. 
• All online payments now have to pass through a central government clearing house,to monitor who is passing money to whom.
• Data-protection and cybersecurity laws to become clearer.
• A National Supervision Commission will oversee inspections of all government departments, institutions, and SOEs, including traditional heavy industries such as coal, steel, and chemicals. 
• Popular online payments to render cash obsolete in China by 2020. Smart cities using AI on government, business, and individual data already at scale.  Requiring real-name usage of the Internet allows oversight of online behaviour. 
• Facial-recognition technology has progressed to the level that Tencent can work with public security bureaus to identify children stolen from their families, even years after the event, by projecting how facial characteristics will evolve and picking them out on CCTV in public areas or online. 

Domestic industry tipping point

• China has out-performed France, US, and Japan in both supply and demand of Electric and Near Electric Vehicles. Regulation focuses on share of new-energy vehicles versus traditional combustion-engine vehicles. Shortfall requires carbon credits. Another focuses on fuel efficiency of cars sold. 
• All part of government’s ambition to dominate the global electric-vehicle (EV) market by 2030. 
• More than $50 billion subsidies for the industry by 2020.  Power-grid companies have installed nearly 200,000 charging stations. 
• BYD and CATL aggressively hiring talent from South Korea and the United States.Volkswagen has committed to a $10 billion-plus program to develop EVs in China. 

Pharmaceuticals 

• China Food and Drug Administration has streamlined drug approvals. More than 35 major new launches (mostly MNCs) in 2017 (only five in 2016). More than 300 drugs added to the National Reimbursement Drug List. 
• Billions of dollars of private-equity and venture-capital funding supplemented by innovation by Chinese companies such as Baidu, Ping An, and Tencent, using AI and big data–based innovations, working with local government and hospitals. MNCs e.g. Bristol-Myers Squibb, launched China’s first outcomes-based insurance program for hepatitis C in partnership with Shanghai Pharma and Huatai.

Steel, Cement and Coal

• More effective regulation of output volumes, of days of production, of pollution output, and of capital investment will genuinely reduce output. State-owned enterprises to be further consolidated, their surplus capital given as dividends to the state pension funds (which hold 10% of their shares). 
• Remaining, hopefully large-scale higher-quality companies could see a virtuous cycle of less capacity, fewer competitors, a more orderly market, higher prices, higher profits, higher dividends, and happier owners. Exports will still be used as a release valve, causing disruption in markets that remain open to Chinese steel imports.

Pensions and Asset Management 

• Establishment of  Financial Stability and Development Committee in 2017 will see shadow banking, wealth-management products, and online microlending curtailed. 
• Consolidation and reconcentration of assets is possible.
• Trillions of dollars of assets will be looking for return in new areas, potentially rapidly expanding the $1.7 trillion public mutual-fund market. China’s fund-management sector already doing extremely well; first half of 2017, net margins greater than 30%. 

E-sports, not soccer

• Soccer entrepreneurs are realizing that it is much easier to buy a soccer team than to run it successfully. In contrast, China’s e-sports players are driving the global industry. With more than 1,000 professional e-sports players in China, top 20 each earned more than $1 million in competition prize money. Sponsorships add much more. Revenues rising well over 25% annually. 

In-bound investment

• Invitations issued to current and potential foreign investors, urging them to come with lists of bottlenecks that could be removed to speed up new investment. Opening-up announcements led by the financial sector allow foreign companies to undertake new activities in free-trade zones.

Greater Bay Area

• Comprising Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong—along with other cities— a total population of 70 million, with GDP per capita of more than $20,000
• Headquarters of many of China’s most innovative start-ups and scale enterprises. A world-leading combination of hardware and software capabilities, and great depth of international financial resources. High demand for high-skilled blue- and white-collar workers. Shift into more value added, more automated manufacturing sectors.
• The region’s population grew faster in 2000 to 2010 than any single province.  Median age five years below the northeast, giving it almost ten workers per pensioner. Local governments working hard to retain migrants permanently, making it easier for their children to register in local schools and to join local social insurance schemes.

Consumer wealth

• Inflation rising slightly and real disposable incomes rising 8 percent nationwide. Consumer spending continue to grow in high single digits, backed by very strong levels of consumer confidence (with wide regional variations).
• Spending will grow on health-related areas such as healthier foods, exercise activities, and medical expenses (for themselves and for elderly relatives).
• Increasingly, consumption growth will be driven by generation born in the 1990s with no experience of recession  and more balanced aspirations between achievement and enjoyment. 
• Property not as attractive in 2017, with only single-digit price rises nationwide. Divergence across regions becoming ever wider. With  government restricting access to mortgages and pushing the development of the rental market, more stable prices may become the norm.
• Individuals picking their own stocks to buy, and investing in active fund managers. Outbound investment through official channels into international stocks and bond markets. More funds flowing to private equity and venture capital. 

Social priorities

• Pollution - More than 30 cities, mainly across northern China, have committed to reduce particulate matter (PM) 2.5 density by 15 to 40 % over the winter. Heavy polluters are being closed for the season, some given money to upgrade their pollution-reduction equipment.Older vehicles are being restricted from cities, and alternate-day license-plate limits imposed. Natural-gas supplies are being extended into surrounding rural areas to substitute for coal burning. A good start, at least in Beijing, with PM 2.5 down 30 percent for October and November.
• Anti-poverty - As part of becoming a “moderately prosperous country” by 2020, the government is seeking to eliminate all areas of absolute poverty. In part, through transfers from the center. More will come from directing businesses, both state owned and private to establish operations locally to employ people from the poorest areas.

Conclusion

• A year of slightly slower growth, with wider variations across provinces and cities than ever, driven by increased consumer spending skewed to wealthier cities and higher government social spending. This will be weighed back by lower property and infrastructure spending. Net exports remain the largest uncertainty. Subject to United States vagaries, a year of very positive developments in many sectors, framed by an environment of tighter and more centralized regulation and control.

Download Mckinsey - China 2018  

China's Belt and Road Initiative: Opportunities for the Aegean Region

My PowerPoint presentation at the international Aegean Economic Forum on 26 October, 2017.

At the Forum, I highlighted key messages of President Xi's 30,000-word Speech at the 19th Party Congress, the nation's existential threats and epochal opportunities, the makings of the Belt and Road Initiative, and ways to leverage it for the benefit of the Aegean Region.

Download OBOR Economic Opportunities for Aegean Region

Download AEGEAN FORUM invitation

Download Aegean Forum Program

The Aegean Forum is a new conference series organized by the Özgencil Organization. For over 16 years, they organize the prestigious annual Forum Istanbul which are supported by the highest levels of the Turkish government, including Deputy Prime Minister. I was a sponsored Speaker at the Forum Istanbul for five years in a roll. See my last Forum Istanbul PowerPoint presentation in 2015 on Turkish-China Relations: New Silk Road in a Changing World. 

2016 promises to be a make-or-break year for China

China has opened 2016 with another roaster-coaster market crash. Continuing capital outflow anticipates RMB’s perceived downward slide and risks of slowing growth under the “New Normal”. Although a Goldman Sachs Investment Strategy Group report Download 2016OutlookLastInnings thinks a hard-landing is a negligible probability, growth in 2016 is forecast to range between 5.8% to 6.8%, testing Premier Li Keqiang’s reportedly-suggested 6.5% as the required minimum.

Environmentally, the signs have not been propitious. Beijing sounded the highest possible “red-alert” in December as the city was repeatedly choked by smog.

China’s neighbourhood remains problematic. A landed test flight on reclaimed land in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea further rattled the United States and its allies. Click here 

However, fixating on China’s travails misses the point. Indeed, these may be considered birth pangs as a new China struggles to be born. Contradictions abound, reminiscent of Charles Dickens' "It's the best of times. It's the worst of times." The old is withering away while the new is sprung upon the unwary across a wide front. Click here

According to Natixis, a French corporate and investment bank, the die is cast for a series of tectonic shifts towards a new China. With the RMB having appreciated by some 50% since 2005, exports such as office machines, footwear, textiles and clothing are plummeting. However, a more expensive RMB will boost the consumer power of a rapidly- expanding urban population. 81 million more urbanites will be added by 2020, pushing the urbanization rate from 54.8% to 60%. Dynamic consumption growth is expected in leisure and other quality-of-life products and services. Industry is likely to be driven more by research-based innovation, particularly in the internet, semi-conductor, robotics, and nuclear energy sectors. Meanwhile, China is becoming a more proactive and outward-looking global player. Backed by new financial institutions like the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, China’s One Belt, One Road trans-continental initiative is beginning to take shape.

According to Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, China in 2016 will be preoccupied with preparations for a new leadership team, to be unveiled in the 19^th Party Congress in 2017. Apart from President Xi and Premier Li Keqiang, the rest of the current Politburo Standing Committee Members will have reached retirement age. A proactive and assertive foreign policy is expected to continue in face of Taiwan’s changing political ecology and developments in the South China Sea. Click here

2016 will be a “ground-breaking” year for China to realize the "two-centenary" ambitions. These are to become (a) a moderately well-off country by 2021, the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and (b) "a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious" by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The first aim would be crucial to the second. Click here

Three key "hard-battle" grounds are highlighted. The first is economic restructuring. Ahead of the much-awaited March release of the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20), Beijing's Central Economic Work Conference has unveiled an economic blueprint, focusing, for the first time, on "supply-side reform". The required structural adjustment includes de-stocking of overcapacity, state-owned enterprise reform, currency and interest rate liberalization, debt and deflation management, old-age healthcare and a greener and more sustainable economy. On the cards are subsidized sales of empty housing to migrant workers and innovative reforms to enhance productivity in finance, natural resources, manpower, equipment and technologies.  Click here

Another "hard battle" ground is the eradication of poverty. Notwithstanding rising affluence, some 250 million Chinese (18% of the population) still subsist on less than $2 dollars a day. Gross economic inequality remains a threat to the CPC's legitimacy as a governing Party.   

The third "hard battle" ground is military transformation. This aims to reduce the size of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) by 300,000 strong and to revamp the entire operational and strategic command structures spanning the Military Commission, PLA regions and strategic units. It is designed to shape capabilities to fight and win warfare in the 21st century, including information and space warfare . Central to this "hard battle" is the ongoing anti-corruption campaign covering the military. 

These mammoth tasks presage a struggling transition in 2016 as the Chinese juggernaut’s about-turn continues to make waves in economic, social, financial and geopolitical spheres.

Perhaps the most challenging transition is towards a freer, more open and just society where the rule of law, rather than "rule by law", will be upheld. One of the key essentials is to subject the Party to check and balance held to public account. A crucial component is an autonomous or "independent" judiciary. Already, measures are in hand to transfer the power of judicial appointments to the provincial level. There are also moves to introduce a system of "circuit courts". Huge problems remain, including the lack of professional judges and the whole bureaucratic culture of a one-Party state.

Meanwhile, a new domain of opportunities is appearing on the micro-economic and business horizon, including innovative manufacturing, agricultural imports, wealth management services, green and quality-of-life businesses, movie entertainment, both online and offline, and football, according to a McKinsey report.  

Following the Paris COP21 Climate Summit, dynamics are in place which augur well for a more ecologically-balanced China. A new Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law came into effect on 1^st January. This has incorporated planning mechanisms in the US State Implementation Plan and the UK’s Local Air Quality Management program. Laggard cities are now held accountable for targets with public inputs and monitoring. Stringent measures are being introduced to curb coal usage, including caps and coal-free zones. While lip-service and slack enforcement remain huge obstacles, the Environmental Protection Law effective 1^st January 2015 mandates accumulative fines and holds local governments to account. Indeed, party secretaries’ career credentials are being judged on how well they perform in helping to create a more harmonious and greener China. Click here and here

How China evolves is bound to modify the world order, for better or worse. As Henry Kissinger observes*, history is to be discovered, not declared. Indeed, China’s transition in 2016 and beyond opens up a whole new vista of Olympian competition and win-win partnership in helping shape a Rising China.  As cautioned by President Xi Jinping, misgivings notwithstanding**, the "Thucydides Trap" engulfing rival great powers doesn’t have to be sprung.

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*World Order – Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History, Henry Kissinger, Penguin Books, 2015, p. 374, last paragraph

**The Improbable War – China, The United States and the Logic of Great Power Conflict, Christopher Coker, Hurst and Company, London, 2015