Walker's World: Here Comes China, Warns U.K.

by Martin Walker
UPI Editor Emeritus

London (UPI) Dec 18, 2006 -
The United States will cease to be the lone superpower within thirteen
years, and both the European Union and Britain will have to accept that
the transatlantic strategic partnership will no longer work. This is
the shock prediction of one of the top figures of the British foreign
policy establishment.

In his farewell address as director of the Royal Institute of
International Affairs, known as Chatham House after its prestigious
address in London's plush St. James district, Prof. Victor
Bulmer-Thomas said that the swift emergence of China as the second
megapower would transform the world's strategic map.

"Just as the world is currently shaped to a large extent by the
international priorities of the United States, so it will be shaped to
a significant degree by the international priorities of the two
megapowers in 2020," he told a blue ribbon audience of British
officials and politicians and international diplomats.

China will also seek to curb and to reduce American influence in the
Asia-Pacific region, he predicted, using all available non-military
tools such as trade deals, soft loans, and strategic investments. He
also expected China to demonstrate "a more aggressive approach to the
Taiwan issue."

"A period of strategic rivalry between the United States and China
while this process is underway can be confidently predicted. However,
this is not likely to lead to open conflict," he stressed. "The
economic ties between the two countries will be close and each country
will have a strong stake in the economic success of the other. There
will also be areas of cooperation, notably in tackling proliferation as
well as developing and transferring technology to combat greenhouse gas
emissions. Yet it is unrealistic to imagine that the United States will
not resist strongly the erosion of its privileged status --
particularly when the new megapower is so fundamentally opposed to U.S.
values in religion and personal freedom."

Prof. Bulmer-Thomas' prediction that Britain and Europe would have to
reconsider their traditional ties to the United States have caused a
flurry of concern and speculation in European diplomatic circles, which
are still digesting the imminent end of Prime Minister Tony Blair's
political career after the Iraq misadventure.

"Both the U.K. and the EU have to recognize that the old idea of a
strategic partnership with the United States -- or special relationship
in the case of the U.K. -- to solve global problems will not work in a
world of two megapowers. It may still be true that most global problems
will not have a solution without the United States, but that will also
be true of China. A strategic partnership with the United States that
ignores China will not be effective, but a strategic partnership with
both countries is unrealistic," the Chatham House director added.

Bulmer-Thomas, who has run Chatham House for the past five years and
whose tenure was shaped by the 9/11 terrorist attack and its aftermath,
warned that the recent American primacy would no longer be tenable. He
said that U.S. indebtedness and low savings rate would erode its
economic position, and "the long-term liabilities in health spending
and social security will make it very difficult for the U.S. to match
the growth of the world economy, leading to a decline in its global
share of GDP."

So while the United States would remain the world's largest economy in
dollar terms it would probably be matched or overtaken by China as a
trading nation, and in GDP as measured by purchasing power parity. The
United States would probably keep its military and technological lead
with an annual defense budget of over $700 billion, and would remain a
megapower in 2020. However, if China continues the double-digit annual
growth in its defense budget it will be spending some $400 billion a
year by 2020, double the European defense spending and four times as
much as Russia..........Read More