Kaiser Wilhelm II was once discussing the possible future course of events with his advisers. As we all know, in Asia and the Pacific as elsewhere, the United States is the key actor, with a range of military capabilities, economic and political strengths which dwarf any potential challenger. Such stability as Asia has enjoyed in the past fifty year's has been largely thanks to the continuing presence of the United States. The United States is not a destabilizing influence in the region. These are not negligible interests.
China looms large.
Some experts have calculated that China maybe, if one makes all kinds of presumptions about its ability to maintain present growth rates and to solve internal problems of wealth distribution and conversion of decrepit state industries, could have an economy as large as that of the United States within the next, say, ten years. But one wonders whether this kind of assessment has been tested against the truly phenomenal expansion of the U.S. economy in the past few years. China moreover has noted the ease with which the United States dealt with Iraq and Serbia, both equipped with weaponry more or less equivalent to China's own. Both China and the U.S. have been anxious to develop and expand the relationship, most notably in the area of international trade. Taiwan's aspirations for international recognition and standing, and China's determination to resist that aim and not deviate from the position that the island is a breakaway province which must be incorporated into the People's Republic, could almost at any time precipitate a crisis.