Fast-Growing China

I just read something which confirmed will I have long suspected- that China will, in the lifetimes of many of us- be the largest world economy- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4770590.stm

Simply put, there are more people there than in any other country with such a high level of modernisation. This will no doubt come as both a shock and pleasant surprise to many Westerners. It will be a shock, as their economic predominance will be called into question as never before, for centuries. Yet it will also come as a blessing in disguise, as with it will come to the fore many holistic modes of thought that are merely tolerated at present in the West, yet will by then receive a lot more respect.

Who can really know what the future will bring, though? I am assuming that by then, China's Communist Party will either have lost power or have morphed into something very different. Also, that with such a huge population, there is no guarantee that even decent standards of living will be the norm for everyone, whatever measures are taken by their government. Of course, standards of living are very relative, as I learned on my trips to the developing world, in which people often seem a lot happier despite being poorer.

It will be interesting to see what kind of political changes will take place. Will China start to act more Imperiously, challenging the U.S. in Asia, as many have expected? Or will China prove not much more assertive than the economically-strong Japan? Something that is of great concern here in Japan is just how the relationship between the two countries can evolve. Will reconciliation come? On a wider scale, what kind of world culture will develop from such a far-reaching economic change?

I expect for all of these answers we will have to simply wait and see. It is truly incredible just how fast things change these days and also how changes effect different people in such different ways. Yet it is all just a shuffling of the cards- the changes that affect us the most are in our personal lives- and beyond that in our inner lives. The decisions we make here are the ones that ultimately mean the most.