But the goal of most Chinese students is to study in an English-speaking country, especially the United States. It is this new educated and bilingual generation who will drive China's economy in the new century. It is never going to be powerful. Modern thinkers like Gerald Segal echo this view. But it matters far less than it and most of the West thinks.
China matters about as much as Brazil for the global economy.
China's drive for regional power status is, however, much stronger than Brazil's, and it has nuclear weapons. It is now ready to join the World Trade Organisation and hopes to achieve the status of developed world power by 2050. Australian politician Bob Hawke said that in absolute terms, China's economy is likely to exceed that of the US by 2025, thereby resuming a position it has occupied for most of the past two and a half thousand years. There is a hard road ahead. China's reform programme of the past 22 years is still only halfcompleted and is plagued by state inefficiency, environmental degradation and rampant corruption.