mar1972cus, you need to make up your mind. Is China the next world power or are they the most powerful country on the planet now? Even if they already are the most powerful, why shouldn't I upset them? They MAY be powerful now or in the near future, but they are not ALL powerful.

Other great powers before China have learned to their dismay that they cannot control everything in the world-particularly with the hot air of a bully-so with the exception of Taiwan which must walk a fine line in regards to the P.R.C., spare me and the rest of the world your threats. China's continued growth depends on exports. They need customers to buy their products. China's continued advancement will require more cooperation with the rest of the world not less.

China does not care about the negative effects of being a world power? It seems quite obvious that they do care. Or at the very least, they should care about the negative effects. Only a fool would not. Did you perhaps mean the negative comments? And quite frankly, if the Chinese did not care about what the rest of the world thinks or says, why are they making such a big deal out of the Olympics, the Torch Relay and the Opening Ceremonies?

Your opening comments are equally amusing. 200 million in the middle class? Are big numbers supposed to impress me? That leaves about 1 billion in the lower class that will demand inclusion in the new economy. Now THAT will take a real miracle. That does not sound like a promising ratio for an enduring stay at the top of the heap. Their growth rate is NOT a bonus to an already developed country. The masters of China must maintain that level to bring prosperity to the poor, else unrest, which is even now apparent, may increase. If they do maintain their growth, corruption, massive water shortages and severe pollution may detour progress.

Soon enough China may be looking over it's shoulders at India. I believe that I will wait until after 2015 to bestow Superpower status on the P.R.C., when the effects of their One-Child Policy begin to negatively impact their demographics as the number of workers per retiree ratio begins to decline just as it has in Europe, Japan and other advanced economies. With an ageing population, limited resources and barely manageable environmental issues, China seems to have performed another Maoist great leap forward and is in the process of skipping right to postmodern industrial economic decline.

By the way, it may interest you to know that the people who brought about the beginnings of the capitalist, industrial miracle in the P.R.C. were referred to by the same name that you seem to hold in such disregard-liberal-by the more conservative members of the P.R.C.'s Communist Party. Ironic, huh? Labels have no meaning except in how you use them, (particularly when your argument has no foundation and you are reduced to name-calling), and then they tend to say more about yourself than those you attempt to pigeonhole.